FAQs on DOK

Last week we shared a review of Depth of Knowledge (DOK). This seemed timely, as administrators, coaches, and T & L will be collecting data in classrooms and scoring lesson submissions from teachers from now through mid-May. Assessing DOK is a part of both the data collection and the  lesson submission scoring process.

This week we have some FAQs for you.  If you have unanswered questions, please let us know!

FAQs on DOK

How will administrators and coaches score the classroom observations?

During the data collection process, the administrator or coach will evaluate your lesson plan, and assign it a DOK level 1, 2, 3, or 4.  When you debrief with your administrator or coach, he/she will undoubtedly discuss the DOK level with you. Remember that we are taking data for the system as a whole; we want to ensure that our classrooms include a range of DOK levels and that our students frequently work in the higher-level DOK levels.  Sometimes, however, a lower-level DOK lesson may be necessary for entry-level skills or to provide essential background knowledge.

After you have submitted your lesson, the scorer (instructional coach or someone from T & L) will determine the DOK level.  Feel free to contact your coach any time to talk about the DOK levels in your classroom. In addition, your coach or administrator would love to meet with you to share your lesson submission scoring with you.

I’ve been told that the verb I use in my learning target is important. If I use a verb from Levels 3 or 4, does that make my lesson rigorous?
The verb is helpful, but what matters is the cognitive effort that the student must exert.  In other words, “draw conclusions” is listed in Level 3, but if the learning target is “I can draw conclusions as to which version of the scene appeals to me more,” little rigor exists. However, a learning target such as “I can draw conclusions as to which of the two problem-solving strategies is more effective and provide supporting evidence” requires far more depth of knowledge.

Do longer lessons generally fall within a higher-level DOK?

Sometimes this is true.  For example, a project in which students must specify a problem, design and conduct an experiment, analyze the data, and report the results will undoubtedly occur over several lessons.  However, planting a seed and recording its height each day will take place over time, but requires little thought other than recording results from a ruler.

Where could I get one of those DOK wheels for my classroom? 

Click here!

This DOK wheel is nice, but it isn’t specific to my classroom. Are there some subject-specific DOK charts I could use?

Click here if you are in Tahoma School District.
Click here for access to the website--scroll down to the box with subject areas listed.

Where could I find more information about DOK?

Click here .

 Are there some question stems I could use to start to elevate the rigor in my classroom? 

Click here.

Any other questions?

Contact Brooke, Bridget, or your administrator.

Revisiting DOK

All teachers want their students to be challenged by rigorous, rich curriculum requiring them to grapple with complex ideas and skills. CEL 5D includes “High cognitive demand” as one of its criteria (criteria 1.4), and our own Teaching and Learning Department includes Depth of Knowledge (DOK) in its assessment of classroom observations and lesson submissions.  DOK is considered a more specific tool than its predecessor, Bloom’s Taxonomy. Remember the Three-Story Intellect?  DOK just makes it a bit more specific

Below is a refresher of the DOK levels. 

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Depth of Knowledge (DOK)

Level 1: Recall and Reproduction (only cognitive effort required is remembering right answer)

Copying, computing, defining, and recognizing are typical Level 1 tasks.

Level 2: Skills and Concepts (usually includes decision-making)

Tasks with more than one mental step such as comparing, organizing, summarizing, predicting, and estimating are usually Level 2.

Level 3: Strategic Thinking (more abstract, usually requires students to justify choices)

Tasks with multiple valid responses where students must justify their choices would be Level 3; examples include solving non-routine problems, designing an experiment, or analyzing characteristics of a genre.

Level 4: Extended Thinking (require most complex cognitive effort)

Students synthesize information from multiple sources, often over an extended period of time, or transfer knowledge from one domain to solve problems in another. Designing a survey and interpreting the results, analyzing multiple texts by to extract themes, or writing an original myth in an ancient style would all be examples of Level 4.

Note: much of today’s posts has been adapted from  https://www.edutopia.org/blog/webbs-depth-knowledge-increase-rigor-gerald-aungst and from http://www.karin-hess.com/cognitive-rigor-and-dok.

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As administrators, coaches, and T & L staff collect data in classrooms and evaluate lesson submissions, they are not looking for DOK Level 3 and 4 lessons in every classroom. We all know that it is sometimes essential for students to be able to recall and work at the skill/concept level before they can progress to deeper tasks and thinking.  We do, however, hope to see a balance of DOK levels across the district and within a classroom, with all students getting to complete some tasks at the Level Four level.  

Two important things to remember are:

• ·      Students do not necessarily need to progress through DOK levels in sequence.  Sometimes motivation is increased if students start with a Level 3 task that requires them to return to the more mundane learning required in order to accomplish that task.
•       DOK levels are not developmental.  Kindergarteners don’t live in a DOK Level 1 world. Students of all ages should be allowed to tackle tasks requiring complex thinking.

Want more? Read the blog we used as one of our sources here:  https://www.edutopia.org/blog/webbs-depth-knowledge-increase-rigor-gerald-aungst.

You can also look for next week’s blog, where we’ll have some FAQs on DOK.

Divergent and Skeptical Thinking

In the article “Divergent and Skeptical Thinking: Questioning Strategies for Deeper Learning”, Sarah Johnson gives two very simple, yet challenging questioning strategies you can try in your classroom this week!

Here are some examples of these two questioning strategies:

1. Use divergent rather than convergent questions.
Math: What different strategies can we use to solve the word problem about proportions? Write a step by step process to teach someone your “way.”

ELA: What are some of the similarities between the issues facing ethicists today and the issues that Victor Frankenstein faced and finally acknowledged in reference to the monster he had created?

Science: What adverse effects is population growth having on animals’ habitats?

Social Studies: Which constituents are most likely to embrace the new health care act? Which constituents are most likely to prefer the Affordable Care Act? What are the issues and life circumstances that drive the two groups’ beliefs?


2. Ask questions that propel students to analyze skeptically, not cynically.
ELA: In what ways is the book meant to be taken literally? In what ways is it meant to be taken metaphorically? What did the author achieve in her use of magical realism as part of the story’s development?

Science: What funding sources were used to fund this research? Are there any biases that might have played a role in the findings? Explain.

Social Studies: While many feel that city leaders were at fault, are there any natural features, cultural norms, or weather patterns that might also have influenced the city’s ultimate demise?

Math: Take a look at the problem on the board.What strategies do you think this person used to answer this problem? Do you think the answer is correct? Why or why not? What would you do differently if you believe the problem is incorrect? Explain how this person achieved the answer if you believe it is correct.

What Bridget and Brooke say about these questioning strategies:
We think that this is a perfect opportunity to really nail down Criterion 2.1: Quality of questioning. These types of questions also help us get to know our students just a little bit more than we did before because they encourage emotion and critical thinking. This can also be a great opportunity to address any misconceptions and assist students in clarifying their thinking with one another. Talk about student talk opportunities!

Scaffolding Complex Texts

Last week Bridget wrote about “under-scaffolding” and “over-scaffolding” a reading assignment for students. So, what are some things you can do to PERFECTLY scaffold a reading assignment?

Scaffolding takes time—for teachers and kids—and thus should be used primarily when you have a challenging text whose comprehension is essential to the content or skill development within your classroom. 

One strategy that teachers use frequently is to ask students to highlight the main ideas, but many of our students end up with a bright yellow handout, not knowing what is important to highlight.

This 1:40 video from Teaching Channel demonstrates how important it is to:         

•       Give students a reading purpose before they read. This may be in the form of a question, or may be asking them to read to find evidence for a statement, belief, argument, hypothesis, etc.
•           Ask students to highlight ONLY the specific words and phrases that address their reading purpose.
•      .    After the reading, include student talk, small- or large-group work to ensure that students have identified the key details to support their reading purpose, and then have them use that information in some way to validate the work they just did—sharing the information, using it for the next task, writing a paragraph, completing a graphic organizer, etc.

What else might you do?  Brooke and Bridget suggest:

• ·         Use a Close Reading Strategy.  SpringBoard, the grades 6-11 ELA curriculum, has just revamped its approach for 2017-2018, and it includes previewing the text, setting the purpose, having students do a first reading, and then providing a sequence of text-dependent questions for a second reading. This will deepen comprehension.·        
•        Have students read/highlight for only one question at a time.  This will really help to focus your less competent readers.·         
•        With multiple questions (probably no more than 3-4), you could give various colored highlighters, with students finding the best textual support/evidence for question #1 in yellow, question #2 in pink, etc.  The down side to this is that some of the text might be used to answer for multiple questions, and kids would be frustrated trying to use different highlighters on the same words/phrases.·         
•       Jigsaw the reading. Purposely give your struggling readers a question with easier-to-locate textual evidence, and your strongest readers a question demanding more inference.  Have each student share his/her best evidence while others in the group highlight or take notes in the text.   
•       After students read and highlight, ask them to number their pieces of evidence from 1-3, in best to worst, or most-likely-to-use to less-likely-to-use. This will help them to evaluate the evidence.·         
•        Encourage annotation EVERY time students read—writing questions, using symbols, drawing pictures, writing reactions in the text. This will keep them engaged and will help them to retain more information.