Rigor...
Stiffening of the body following death?
Rigidly severe or unbending?
Extremely strict?
Rigor is not the number of students a teacher fails!
Many people equate rigor with
academic difficulty.
So what is rigor?
The purpose of rigor is not to make
work hard for students:
rather it should be to raise the bar on
what teachers expect
of students and on our ability to
scaffold sophisticated content and
processes to ensure student success.
RIGOR
High
Expectations
Articulated
Curriculum
Customized
Scaffolding
Authentic Engagement
(click on each element
for definition)
What is high demand thinking?
Students are regularly expected to raise questions, to solve problems, to
think, and to reason.
Students are doing challenging, high-level assignments including reading
provocative, complex, and emotionally challenging text .
Assignments include extended projects in which original work and revision
to standards is expected.
Students are challenged to construct explanations and to justify arguments.
Instruction is organized to support reflection on learning processes and
strategies.
How do we develop high demand thinking?
Two good places
to start...
focus on powerful essential questions
focus on complexity of student work
Rigor and Essential Questions
Q
U
E
S
T
I
O
N
QUALITY: Essential questions should be clear, relevant, and written in kid language.
UNDERSTANDING: Essential questions should tie directly to enduring understandings.
EXPLORATION: Essential questions should promote students digging
deeply into the content.
SPARK CONVERSATION: Essential questions should encourage debate and discussion.
THINKING CREATIVELY: Essential questions prompt students to seek new possibilities.
ITERATIVE: Essential questions should be revisited throughout the unit as students' understandings
grow.
OPEN-ENDED: Essential questions do not have one right answer.
NURTURES HIGHER ORDER THINKING: Essential questions frequently ask students to
consider "why," "to what extent," and "how."
Essential Questions for 20th Century History
What makes a revolution revolutionary?
Is it morally right to use violence to bring about important
social change? If so, under what circumstances?
Does history make the leader or does the leader make history?
Do patterns exist in the revolutions of the 20th century?
Which has played a greater role in determining the shape of
history--ideas or individuals?
Working with high demand
essential questions...
Skills needed to begin to think about issues and problems do not suddenly appear in our
students. Teachers who have attempted to incorporate high demand questioning in their
discussions or have administered test items demanding some thought rather than just recall
from their students are usually dismayed at the preliminary results. Unless the students
have been prepared for the change in expectations, both the students and the teacher are
likely to experience frustration.
What is needed to cultivate these skills in the classroom?
A number of researchers claim that the classroom must nurture an environment providing
modeling, rehearsal, and coaching.
How do we provide modeling, rehearsal, and coaching for
our students as they learn to grapple with high demand
questions?
Increasing High Demand Thinking with Complexity
Increasing complexity means
moving beyond activities that
require students to recall
information to asking them
to use knowledge in
MULTIFACETED ways.
Facets of Understanding
help us build complexity into
our assignments
Explain: Provide thorough and justifiable accounts of phenomena, facts, and data.
Interpret: Tell meaningful stories, offer apt translations, provide a revealing historical or personal
dimension to ideas and events; make subjects personal or accessible through images, anecdotes,
analogies, and models.
Apply: Effectively use and adapt what they know in diverse contexts.
Have perspective: See and hear points of view through critical eyes and ears; see the big picture.
Empathize: Find value in what others might find odd, alien, or implausible; perceive sensitively on the
basis of prior indirect experience.
Have self-knowledge: Perceive the personal style, prejudices, projections, and habits of mind that
both
shape and impede our own understanding; they are aware of what they do not understand and why
understanding is so hard.
Increasing complexity of
assignments...
Complexity through projects
Complexity in writing and reading
Complexity with vocabulary
Facets of Understanding
help us build complexity into our
assignments
Explain: Provide thorough and justifiable accounts of phenomena, facts, and data.
Interpret: Tell meaningful stories, offer apt translations, provide a revealing historical or
personal dimension to ideas and events; make subjects personal or accessible through
images, anecdotes, analogies, and models.
Apply: Effectively use and adapt what they know in diverse contexts.Have perspective:
See and hear points of view through critical eyes and ears; see the big picture.
Empathize: Find value in what others might find odd, alien, or implausible; perceive
sensitively on the basis of prior indirect experience.
Have self-knowledge: Perceive the personal style, prejudices, projections, and habits of
mind that both shape and impede our own understanding; they are aware of what they do
not understand and why understanding is so hard.
Increasing complexity of assignments...
Complexity
through projects
Complexity in
writing and reading
Complexity with
vocabulary
Complexity Through Projects
Complexity through Projects: 20th Century History
Working in groups of three, students will create and hold a press conference with a pair of
revolutionary leaders: (Lenin and Stalin) (Zedong and Chiang Kai-Shek) (King, Jr. and
Malcolm X). Students should begin by deciding which role they will assume: leader #1,
leader #2, or interviewer.
Next, the group will work collaboratively to research the answers to the interview questions:
1. How were you shaped by the events that occurred in your country?
2. How did your actions shape the history of your country?
3. What kinds of technologies did you use to get your message of change out to the people
of your country?
4. In what ways do you think individuals are important to bringing about change in world history?).
Students will film and submit their interviews. The teacher will assess the films and hold
an "Academy Awards" in which awards will be handed out for "Best Interviewer," "Best Actor,"
and "Best Overall Interview." Focus on unit Enduring Understanding: A study of revolutions
reveal patterns that appear across time and place. Focus on unit Essential Questions: Does
history make the leader or does the leader make history? and Do patterns exist in the revolutions
of the 20th century? and Which has played a greater role in determining the shape of history--ideas
or individuals?
Complexity in Writing:
Rachet up rigor
using RAFT
Role
Audience
Format
Topic
click globe for example
We can also use writing to scaffold understanding
of complex text...
http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ela/612/tools/index.htm
Complexity Through Vocabulary
How do we move beyond
students simply memorizing
definitions and regurgitating
them on tests?
In a rigorous classroom, students
are expected to demonstrate they
understand what a vocabulary
word means, usually through an
explanation with details, examples,
and elaboration.
Cumulative Vocabulary Experience
Words heard per hour
Welfare
616
Working Class
1,251
Professional
2,153
Pare your vocabulary down...
Critical
Useful but not critical
Interesting but not
very useful
Select a limited number of words for robust,
explicit vocabulary instruction.
Vocabulary Chart
Book definition
Other definition
My definition
Source:
Diagram
Word
Examples
Nonexamples
How about writing definitions as riddles?
Prices go up.
Your wallet is
thinner.
You pay twice as
much
to provide family
dinner.
What am I?
Inflation
Try definitions as raps or acrostic poems
or as two voice poems...
Metals
Nonmetals
I live on the left side of the periodic
table.
I live on the right side.
I am an electron giver.
I am an electron taker.
I am shiny.
I am dull.
You can stretch me until I am thin.
I don't even bend.
I have definite shape and volume.
I take the shape of all of them.
I adorn your fingers.
I help you breathe.
I become positive when I bond.
I become negative when I bond.
RIGOR
High
Expectations
Articulated
Curriculum
Customized
Scaffolding
Authentic Engagement
What is intellectual risk-taking?
Students are urged to persist with complex work, tolerating the discomfort
that often accompanies the condition of disequilibrium.
Teachers teach students the skills and dispositions that help them deal with
their discomfort so they can engage in rigorous content.
Students tackle complex reading that helps them build sophisticated schema.
Students are given opportunities to experiment, make mistakes and reflect on them.
Teachers reinforce that high quality work almost always requires multiple iterations.
Intellectual Risk-taking
Rigorous learning often invites us to
face the limits of our own knowledge
and competence. We feel vulnerable - as
though we are balancing on a very tall,
very narrow beam high above our own
comfort zone.
Let's face it: rigor feels
risky!
Good teachers recognize their obligation to offer students the skills and
dispositions that help them balance above their own discomfort in order
to engage rigorous content.
How do we make kids feel safe enough
to take risks?
How do we encourage students to endure
disequilibrium?
How do we develop
resilient learners?
Rigorous work begins with
a clear message
This work is important.
You can do this.
I will help you.
What sort of teaching and assessment strategies
support risk-taking?
Strategies....
Assignments that call for revision toward clear high standards
Portfolios that support iterations, exploration, and reflection
Socratic questioning that allows students to examine their own thinking
Instruction that involves students in determining what they learn and how
they learn it
Teacher feedback that reinforces students on the edge of their
competence can be successful, and that temporary failure is part of
success
Teacher modeling of the processes to accomplish work
A clear teacher presence as students struggle
RIGOR
High
Expectations
Articulated
Curriculum
Customized
Scaffolding
Authentic Engagement
What is authentic engagement?
Students' prior knowledge and out-of-school knowledge is used regularly
in the teaching and learning process.
Instructional tasks require students to interpret texts and construct
solutions.
Students are challenged to construct explanations and test their
understandings.
Classroom tasks support students in seeing the relevance of what they
are learning to their lives and world.
What is Authenticity?
There are four dimensions of reality of authenticity:
·Kinds of work. In authentic learning situations, the work students do is
based on the roles adults play as workers and citizens.
·Sources. Interviews, online correspondence with experts, surveys...etc.
·Communication. Authentic learning situations extend reading, writing,
and speaking skills in those genres most likely to be useful to students in
the real world.
·Problem-based learning. Problems in the real world tend to be
"messy" or ill-defined; authentic learning, whether simulated or real,
therefore, uses complex, nonroutine problems to help students acquire
skills as investigators, researchers, and problem solvers.
What Is Authentic Learning?
Authenticity is the curriculum goal in which we
help students acquire real-world skills and
knowledge by developing their abilities to
read, write, solve problems, and apply
concepts in a manner that prepares them for
their lives and beyond.
We want students to understand what it
takes to succeed...
·at work
·with a family
·and as a productive citizen
Why Authenticity Matters
·Authenticity and Motivation. People are more motivated when they value
what they are doing and when they believe they have a chance for success.
·Authenticity and Learning Style. Research suggests that many students'
cognitive achievements can be improved by including real-life contexts in the
curriculum (Lave & Wenger, 1991).
·Authenticity and the Ends of School. If school fails to mirror the world,
our children will be unprepared for their post-school lives.
Supporting Each Student to
Learn at High Levels
Motivation for students is value and success.
People
are more motivated when they value what they
are doing and when they believe they have a chance for
success.
·Do students see value in your lesson?
·Do they believe they can be successful?
Rigor
= Relevance
Students are more motivated to learn when they
see value, or relevance of learning.
Authentic Engagement
Is NOT:
·Ritual Engagement. The immediate end of the assigned work has little or no inherent meaning or
direct value to the student, but the student associates it with extrinsic outcomes and results that are of
value.
·
·Passive Compliance. The student is willing to expend whatever effort is needed to avoid negative
consequences, although he or she sees little meaning in the tasks assigned or the consequences of
doing those tasks.
·
·Retreatism. The student is disengaged from the tasks, expends no energy in attempting to comply
with the demands of the tasks, but does not act in ways that disrupt others and does not try to
substitute other activities for the assigned task.
·
·Rebellion. The student summarily refuses to do the task assigned, acts in ways that disrupt others,
or attempts to substitute tasks and activities to which he or she is committed in lieu of those assigned
or supported by the school and by the teacher.
RIGOR
High
Expectations
Articulated
Curriculum
Customized
Scaffolding
Authentic Engagement
Rigor Resources
Blackburn, Barbara R. Rigor is Not a Four-Letter Word. Eye on Education: Larchmont, New York, 1961
Marzano, Robert J. Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development:
Alexandria, Virginia, 2004
Chuska, Kenneth R. Improving Classroom Questions - A Teacher’s Guide to Increasing Student Motivation, Participation, and Higher-Level Thinking.
Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation, Bloomington, Indiana, 1995
Berger, Ron An Ethic of Excellence - Building a Culture of Craftsmanship with Students. Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH, 2003
Farstrup, Alan E., Samuels, S. Jay What Research Has to Say About Vocabulary Instruction. International Reading Association,
Newark, Delaware, 2008
Wagner, Tony, Kegan, Robert, Lahey, Lisa, Lemmons, Richard W., Garnier, Jude, Helsing, Deborah, Howell, Annie, Thurber Rasmussen, Harriette
Change Leadership - A Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools. Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Imprint, San Francisco, California, 2006
Schlechty, Phillip C. Working on the Work - An Action Plan for Teachers, Principals, and Superintendents. Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Imprint,
San Francisco, California, 2002
Strong, Richard W., Silver, Harvey F., Perini, Matthew J. Teaching What Matters Most - Standards and Strategies for Raising Student Achievement.
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria, Virginia, 2001
Discussion
What are teachers doing in a more rigorous
classroom?
What are students doing?
What kinds of student work would provide
evidence of rigor?
How can schools support rigorous work?