Depth of Knowledge DOK Resources

Everyone is talking about RIGOR.  The Common Core Standards call for a more rigorous curriculum, instructon and assessment.  Rigor is the kind and level of thinking required of students to successfully engage with and solve a task.  Rigor is not about difficulty, it's about complexity of understanding. 

What does rigor look like in a classroom?  Two widely accepted measures of cognitive rigor are Bloom's Taxonomy and Webb's Depth of Knowledge Levels.  Bloom's Taxonomy focuses on the verbs and indicate the level of performance or the level of higher-level questions.   Depth of Knowledge focuses of complexity of content standards to successfully complete an assessment or a task.  When you unpack the standards, first look at the verb and align it with Bloom's levels for the level of performance.  Then look beyond the verb to determine the level of understanding required to meet the standard.  

Karen Hess created a Cognitive Rigor Matrix that integrates Bloom's Taxonomy with Webb's Depth of Knowledge for analyzing teacher lesson planning and assessments.  In my district, we have been "mapping" out the learning events in our UbD units to ensure a balance of lessons and assessments across all levels from simple to complex.  Teachers are seeing that they can "tweak" some of their lessons and assessments to make them more rigorous.  For example, 

DOK 1 Describe three characteristics of metamorphic rocks.

DOK 2 Describe the difference between metamorphic and igneous rocks.

DOK 3 Describe a model you might use to represent the relationships that exist in the rock cycle  

All three tasks begin with the word describe but each task is at a different depth of knowledge. Check out what comes after the verb!  What comes after the verb is more important than the verb itself.  

I have updated my DOK posters product on TPT.  The Depth of Knowledge Resources now include:

You can see the bunting flags in the photo above.  The flags that I made for the vocabulary words are appropriate to each of the four DOK levels and they are color-coded.  I have included the photo below of a different set of vocabulary flags because I wanted you to see how they actually look before you hang them on the board.  These are actually vocabulary cards that are coded by grade level to align with Marilee Sprenger's book titled, Teaching the Critical Vocabulary of the Common Core: 55 Words That Make or Break Student Understanding.  

Specially Priced at $2 for a limited time.

Please check them out at www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Penny-Lund

Webb's Depth of Knowledge & DOK Posters FREEBIE!

Everybody is talking about RIGOR or asking, "What is rigor?"  If you do any research on rigor, you will find that rigor does not mean difficulty.  Instead rigor means the level of mental processing that must occur to answer a question, perform a task or generate a product.   Two widely used measures of rigor are Bloom's Taxonomy and Webb's Depth of Knowledge Levels.  Both measures of rigor go from the simple to the complex. Karen Hess' Cognitive Rigor Matrix integrates these models as a strategy for analyzing the level of teacher lessons and assessments.  Bloom's verbs indicate the level of performance or the level of questioning.  Webb's Depth of Knowledge focuses on the complexity of standards in order to successfully complete an assessment or a task.  The outcome (product) is the focus of the depth of understanding.  

In my district, we have been using Karen Hess' Cognitive Rigor Matrix to map out our learning events in our UbD units  This matrix allows you to map out your lessons and assessments to ensure a balance at all levels.  Certainly there is a place for recall and reproduction or routine thinking, but this matrix can be used for "tweaking" some of our lessons to make them more rigorous.  When you unpack the Common Core Standards, look at the verbs and align the standard with the level of Bloom's taxonomy.  Then check out what follows the verb to indicate the level of understanding.  What comes after the verb is more important than the verb itself.  For example, 

                     DOK 1 Describe three characteristics of metamorphic rocks. 

                     DOK 2 Describe the difference between metamorphic and igneous rocks.

                     DOK 3 Describe a model you might use to represent the relationships 

                                  that exist within the rock cycle. 

                                  

Online, you can easily find copies of the Cognitive Rigor Matrix for ELA, Math, Science and Social Studies.  You can also find the Bloom's Posters created by Wake County Public Schools System Academically Gifted Program. 

 I am attaching a link to my free flipchart on DOK in the Content areas on TPT.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/DOK-Depth-of-Knowledge-in-the-Content-Areas-455359

You can also download my free Depth of Knowledge  posters for your classroom.  

What is Rigor? FREEBIE DOK Posters!

Everyone is talking about RIGOR.  The Common Core Standards call for a more rigorous curriculum, instructon and assessment.  Rigor is the kind and level of thinking required of students to successfully engage with and solve a task.  Rigor is not about difficulty, it's about complexity of understanding. 

What does rigor look like in a classroom?  Two widely accepted measures of cognitive rigor are Bloom's Taxonomy and Webb's Depth of Knowledge Levels.  Bloom's Taxonomy focuses on the verbs and indicate the level of performance or the level of higher-level questions.   Depth of Knowledge focuses of complexity of content standards to successfully complete an assessment or a task.  When you unpack the standards, first look at the verb and align it with Bloom's levels for the level of performance.  Then look beyond the verb to determine the level of understanding required to meet the standard.  

Karen Hess created a Cognitive Rigor Matrix that integrates Bloom's Taxonomy with Webb's Depth of Knowledge for analyzing teacher lesson planning and assessments.  In my district, we have been "mapping" out the learning events in our UbD units to ensure a balance of lessons and assessments across all levels from simple to complex.  Teachers are seeing that they can "tweak" some of their lessons and assessments to make them more rigorous.  For example, 

DOK 1 Describe three characteristics of metamorphic rocks.

DOK 2 Describe the difference between metamorphic and igneous rocks.

DOK 3 Describe a model you might use to represent the relationships that exist in the rock cycle  

All three tasks begin with the word describe but each task is at a different depth of knowledge.  Check out what comes after the verb!  What comes after the verb is more important than the verb itself.  

Karen Hess has a Cognitive Rigor Matrix for ELA, Math/Science, Social Studies and the Arts. and they can easily be found on the internet.  You can also find beautiful Bloom's Taxonomy posters for the elementary grades from Wake County Public School System.  

Grab my free Depth of Knowledge DOK flipchart on TPT:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/DOK-Depth-of-Knowledge-in-the-Content-Areas-455359

I am also attaching Depth of Knowledge DOK posters that I created today.

Enjoy!

Increasing Instructional Rigor

Are you interested in increasing the instructional rigor of the lesson you teach and the tasks that students complete?  I just posted a Depth of Knowledge (DOK) Questioning Tool flip book on TPT.  This tool is based on Norman Webb's Depth of Knowledge that aligns with the rigorous expectations of the CCSS.  DOK has four levels: level 1 recall, level 2 skill/concept, level 3 strategic thinking and level 4 extended thinking. This flip book includes the DOK Expectations for Student Performance, the DOK Descriptors or verbs and the DOK question stems.  I really like how Depth of Knowledge aligns beautifully with both the CCSS and the Understanding by Design process.  When you study UbD, you learn that lessons, tasks and assessments are always designed to build understanding.  Acquire, making meaning and transfer are the three levels of understanding in UbD.  The same is very similar in Depth of Knowledge where acquire, use, and extend understanding are the three levels.  Just click on my TPT button and look for Depth of Knowledge (DOK) Questioning Tool.  This tool will be very useful for planning rigorous lessons, tasks and assessments for your students and as a tool for asking higher-level questions in class.  When I model DOK in classrooms, I make a copy of the tool for each group in the classroom to utilize during the lesson that I teach and for future lessons.  

Everyone loves stuff that is free.  You can download my first product on TPT for free or download it by clicking here.  It's titled,  DOK (Depth of Knowledge) in the Content Areas.  For each level of DOK and for each content area of English Language Arts, Writing, Math, Social Studies and Science, a variety of performance levels are provided.  For instance, under the Social Studies tab, you would go from...

                                        Level 1 Identify specific information

Level 2 Describe interpret or explain issues or problems 

                                        Level 3 Draw conclusions and cite evidence

                                        Level 4 Analyze and synthesize information from multiple sources

I hope you enjoy this product.  Let me know what you think!