Building Rigor into Every
Lesson in Every Classroom
Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and School Leadership
August 21, 2007
District-Wide Professional Development
Johnny E. Brown, Ph.D.
Superintendent
Training Outline









Purpose of the Training
Desired Outcome of the Training
Review of Bloom’s Taxonomy
Defining Rigor and What it Looks Like
Instructional Level Rubrics
High Order Questioning and Responses
Authentic Problem Solving
Campus-Wide Implementation Activities
District-Wide Monitoring Expectations
Purpose
The purpose of this
presentation is to
enlighten teachers about
ways to build academic
rigor into every lesson,
in every classroom.
Outcomes





Clear expectations define what students should
know and be able to do.
Higher test scores
Improved writing skills
Attaining the benchmarks at each grade level
Utilizing higher ordered thinking skills
Bloom’s Taxonomy


Benjamin Bloom created this taxonomy for
categorizing levels of abstraction of questions
that commonly occur in educational settings.
Bloom identified six levels within the
cognitive domain, from the simple recall or
recognition of facts, as the lowest level,
through increasingly more complex and
abstract mental levels, to the highest order
which is classified as evaluation.
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Knowledge


Skills Demonstrated:
observation and recall of information
knowledge of dates, events, places
knowledge of major ideas
mastery of subject matter
Question Cues:
list, define, tell, describe, identify, show, label,
collect, examine, tabulate, quote, name, who, when,
where, etc.
Comprehension

Skills Demonstrated:
understand information
grasp meaning
translate knowledge into new context
interpret facts, compare, contrast
order, group, infer causes
predict consequences

Question Cues:
summarize, describe, interpret, contrast, predict,
associate, distinguish, estimate, differentiate, discuss,
extend
Application


Skills Demonstrated:
use information
use methods, concepts, theories in new situations
solve problems using required skills or knowledge
Questions Cues:
apply, demonstrate, calculate, complete, illustrate,
show, solve, examine, modify, relate, change,
classify, experiment, discover
Analysis


Skills Demonstrated:
seeing patterns
organization of parts
recognition of hidden meanings
identification of components
Question Cues:
analyze, separate, order, explain, connect, classify,
arrange, divide, compare, select, explain, infer
Synthesis

Skills Demonstrated:
use old ideas to create new ones
generalize from given facts
relate knowledge from several areas
predict, draw conclusions

Question Cues:
combine, integrate, modify, rearrange, substitute,
plan, create, design, invent, what if?, compose,
formulate, prepare, generalize, rewrite
Evaluation

Skills Demonstrated:
compare and discriminate between ideas
assess value of theories, presentations
make choices based on reasoned argument
verify value of evidence
recognize subjectivity

Question Cues:
assess, decide, rank, grade, test, measure,
recommend, convince, select, judge, explain,
discriminate, support, conclude, compare, summarize
Academic Rigor
Activity #1
Graphing Exercise
Use the information to make a circle graph. Answer the questions below.
1. One half of the students preferred chocolate
ice cream.
2. One fourth of the students preferred vanilla
ice cream.
3. One eighth of the students preferred strawberry ice
cream.
4. One eighth of the students were undecided.
Questions
1. What percentage of the students preferred chocolate ice cream _____ ?
2. What percentage of the students preferred vanilla ice cream _____?
3. If half of the undecided students chose vanilla ice cream as their favorite, would more
prefer vanilla than chocolate? _____ ?
4. If half of the undecided students chose banana ice cream as their favorite, what would be
that fraction of students ______?
Activity Discussion
Give examples of how this lesson would look like at
each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy.






Knowledge
Comprehension
Application
Analysis
Synthesis
Evaluation
Defining Rigor and What it Looks
Like




Academic rigor can be defined as the set of standards we set
for our students and the expectations we have for our students
and ourselves.
Rigor is much more than assuring that the course content is of
sufficient difficulty to differentiate it from K-12 level work.
Rigor includes our basic philosophy of learning – we expect
our students to demonstrate not only content mastery, but
applied skills and critical thinking about the disciplines being
taught.
Rigor also means that we expect much from ourselves, our
colleagues, and our institutions of learning.
Rigor in the classroom



Develop a set of best management practices
for promoting academic excellence through
rigor in the classroom
Develop strategies for establishing
instructional goals for academic excellence
and for documenting progress toward these
goals
Assess our current understanding of rigor in
the classroom
Components of Rigor
Assists students in fulfilling predetermined outcomes and
competencies by challenging them with high expectations.
Essential components of rigor in the classroom:
 Content acquisition
 Critical thinking
 Relevance
 Integration
 Application of concepts
 Long term retention
 Responsibility
Rigor - Faculty






Demanding
Relevant
Engaging
Addressing different learning styles
Self-challenging
Adaptive
Campus – Wide Implementation
Teacher Activities
Curriculum Mapping



Curriculum maps document the topics and skills that
have been planned, taught and learned, helping
teachers determine interventions and next steps.
Curriculum maps help groups of teachers compare
what has been covered in other grades, revealing
repetition and gaps in the curriculum across
disciplines, and highlighting strengths and
weaknesses in aligning curriculum with district and
state standards.
Curriculum mapping fosters and supports
collaboration among teachers, and promotes more
effective instruction.
Campus-Wide Implementation
Teacher Activities





Conduct directed study (with faculty)
Utilize the Socratic method (questioning
strategy)/interactive discussion
Know your students (contact, interaction,
praise, showing interest, meeting w/students)
Balanced diversity of methods
Assign research (quantitative and qualitative
data collection, analysis, data report, and
literature review)
Campus-Wide Implementation
Student Activities





Writing (journals, varied levels of writing, writing
across the curriculum, etc.)
Problem-solving (case studies, group activities, essay
exams, etc.)
Oral communication (debates w/expert judges,
summary presentations, role playing)
Reading/comprehension (reading and analyzing – ie.
in-class discussions, quizzes, summaries, etc.)
Collaborative group projects
Instructional Review and
Depth of Understanding Rubrics
Instruction That Produces
High-Achieving Schools
Authentic Problem Solving



When instruction is academically rigorous, students actively
explore, research and solve complex problems to develop a
deep understanding of core academic concepts.
Increasing rigor does not mean more and longer homework
assignments, rather, it means time and opportunity for students
to develop and apply habits of mind as they navigate
sophisticated and reflective learning experiences.
Students weigh evidence, consider varying viewpoints, see
connections, identify patterns, evaluate outcomes, speculate on
possibilities and assess value.
Authentic Problem Solving

Rubrics, exhibitions and portfolios are
examples of authentic assessments that allow
students to demonstrate what they know and
can do.
Campus-Wide Implementation
Activities
(Disciplines for Strengthening Instruction)


The district creates an understanding and a sense of
urgency among teachers and in the community for the
necessity of improving all students’ learning, and it
regularly reports on progress. Data are disaggregated
and are transparent to everyone.
There is a widely shared vision of what good teaching
is, which is focused on rigorous expectations, the
quality of student engagement, and effective
strategies for personalizing learning for all students.
Implementation


All professional learning communities
meetings are about instruction and are models
of good teaching.
There are well-defined standards and
performance assessments for student work at
all grade levels. Both teachers and students
understand what quality work looks like, and
there is consistency in standards of assessment.
Implementation

Frequent and rigorous supervision focused on the
improvement of instruction. It is done by people who know
what good instruction looks like.

Professional development is primarily on-site, intensive,
collaborative, and job-embedded, and is designed and led by
educators who model the best teaching and learning practice.

Data are used diagnostically at frequent intervals by teams of
teachers, schools, and districts to assess each student’s
learning and to identify the most effective teaching practices.
There is time built into schedules for this shared work.
Implementation



Assess our current understanding of rigor in
the classroom.
Develop a set of best management practices
for promoting academic excellence through
rigor in the classrooms.
Develop strategies for establishing institutional
goals for academic excellence and for
documenting progress toward these goals.
Monitor











Measuring outcomes
Tracking students – # of students taking test and their
performance, TAKS, end-of course exams & CBA’s
% of graduates accepted into undergraduate school
Peer evaluation of teaching
+/- grading system
Daily quizzes
Low stakes evaluation
Relevant evaluation
Evaluation of assigned material
Feedback – rapid
More Technical support