Introduction to
Depth of Knowledge
Jamie Marantz
Director
Core Learning
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
Learning Targets
1. I will be able to evaluate assessment
questions using Webb’s Depth of
Knowledge Levels.
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
Why is Depth of Knowledge (DOK)
Important?
• Use it to ensure that instructional and
assessment activities match the
cognitive rigor required to master the
standards.
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
DOK is NOT…
• … about the ‘TYPE’ of thinking
o Verbs (i.e. Bloom’s) such as analyzing,
comprehending, recalling
• …about the ‘DIFFICULTY’
o Difficulty is about how many students
answer a question correctly.
2.28.13
Dublin Unified School District Presentation
Same Verb does Not Equal
Same TYPE or DEPTH of Thinking
While verbs may point to a DOK level, it is what
comes after the verb that is the best indicator of the
rigor/DOK level.
• DOK 1- Describe three characteristics of plant
cells
• DOK 2- Describe the difference between plant
and animal cells.
• DOK 3- Describe a model that you might use to
represent a key relationship between plant and
animal cells based
on their functions.
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
DOK is not about difficulty...
Difficulty refers to how many students answer a
question correctly.
•
DOK 1 – recall:
o “How many of you know what ‘angry’ means?”
 If you know, it’s an easy question.
• DOK 1 – recall:
o “Who knows what ‘prescient’ means?”
 If most do not know, then you have a ‘hard’ or
difficult seeming question.
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
DOK is about COMPLEXITY
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
DOK Levels
DOK-1 : Recall, Remember and Reproduction
DOK-2 : Basic Application of Skills & Concepts
DOK-3 : Strategic Thinking
DOK-4 : Extended Thinking
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
Level 1- Recall and Reproduction
• DOK 1 requires recall of information, such as a
fact, definition, term, or performance of a simple
process or procedure.
o You could memorize something simple, or complex
• DOK 1 can involve perform a routine procedure.
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
Level 1 Examples
• Find facts explicitly stated in a text.
• Describe the components of a group.
• Identify elements from the periodic table from
given facts.
• Identify basic rules for performing subtraction
of double digit numbers.
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
Level 2 – Skills and Concepts
• DOK 2 requires
o Organizing of information in some way
o Using some mental processing like determining
relationships between items beyond recalling
o Items can require students to make some decisions as
to how to approach the question or problem.
• These actions imply more than one cognitive
process/step.
• For DOK 1 + 2, there’s usually one ‘right’ answer.
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
Level 2 - Examples
• Explain the cause-effect of a collision using
Newton’s 2nd Law.
• Distinguish fact from opinion in a text.
• Compare tundra and arctic seasons.
Identify and summarize the major events,
problem, solution, conflicts in a literary
text.
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
Level 3 – Strategic Thinking
• DOK 3 questions can have multiple ways to get to
the right answer or multiple right answers.
• DOK 3 requires deep understanding as exhibited
through reasoning, planning, and more
demanding cognitive reasoning. The cognitive
demands are often complex and/or abstract.
• DOK 3 questions often have more than one
possible answer and often require students to
justify the response they give using and
explaining evidence for their reasoning.
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
Level 3 - Examples
• Create a children’s story that represents the
characteristics of a culture
• Develop a scientific model for the results of
our experiment
• Explain, the most significant effect of WWII on
the nations of Europe
• Propose and evaluate solutions for a social
problem
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
Level 4 – Extended Thinking
• DOK 4 requires high cognitive demand and is very
complex. Students are expected to make
connections—relate ideas within the content or
among content areas—and have to select or
devise one approach among many alternatives on
how the situation can be solved.
• Due to the complexity of cognitive demand, DOK
4 often requires an extended period of time.
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
Level 4 – Examples
• Gather, analyze, organize, and interpret
information from multiple (print and non print
sources) to draft a reasoned report.
• Write a report that illustrates how multiple
themes (historical, geographical, social) may
be interrelated.
• Develop generalizations of the results
obtained or strategies we used and apply
them to this new problem.
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
DOK levels can be cumulative
• An item/standard written to DOK 3 often contains
DOK 1 and DOK 2 level demands.
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
Assigning Depth of Knowledge to
Assessments Activity
Read each of the following assessment Items and Assign a Depth
of Knowledge level to each Question and then compare with
others. Justify your reasoning.
1. Use language structures (Pre/suffix) or word
relationships (antonym/synonym) to determine word
meanings.
2. Analyze/interpret author’s craft (literary devices,
viewpoint, potential bias) to critique the text.
3. Explain the relationship between the action and
resolution of the story.
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
Transitioning to
Next Generation Assessments
Ingrid Roberson
Professional Expert
Assessment
Learning Targets
• I will be able to assess the Depth of
Knowledge required of individual questions.
• I will be able to identify key differences
between the California Standards Test (CST)
and SBAC.
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
CST/SBAC
Compare and Contrast Activity
Task: Compare and contrast the
California Standards Test and the
Smarter Balanced Assessment.
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
CST/SBAC
Compare and Contrast Activity
1. CST Review (20 minutes)
a. As a pair, select 4 CST questions across different strands.
b. As a pair, review the first CST question together, assigning
a Depth of Knowledge level and citing evidence for your
answer.
c. Individually review the 3 remaining CST questions.
d. Now, share your results and reasoning with your partner.
http://starsamplequestions.org
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
CST/SBAC
Compare and Contrast Activity
2. SBAC Review (20 minutes)
a. As a pair, select 4 SBAC questions across different strands.
b. As a pair, review the first SBAC question together,
assigning a Depth of Knowledge level and citing evidence
for your answer.
c. Individually review the 3 remaining SBAC questions.
d. Now, share your results and reasoning with your partner.
http://www.smarterbalanced.org
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
CST/SBAC
Compare and Contrast Activity
3. Conclusion (10 minutes)
As a pair, decide what is the most
important difference between the CST
and the SBAC? Discuss the effects of
this difference for your instruction.
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
Unpacking the
Smarter Balanced Assessments
Ingrid Roberson
Professional Expert
Assessment
2.28.13
Dublin Unified School District Presentation
Learning Targets
1. I can describe main features of the
SMARTER Balanced Assessment
Consortium (SBAC).
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Dublin Unified School District Presentation
Thank you!
Ingrid Roberson,
Professional Expert
Assessment
iroberson@acoe.org
2.28.13
Jamie Marantz,
Director,
Core Learning
jmarantz@acoe.org
Dublin Unified School District Presentation