Imagine you walk into a classroom and the room is buzzing with excitement. Students are working in small groups, participating in discussions, writing and creating. At first glance, it appears these students are highly engaged. Everyone is on task and working hard, every teacher’s dream.

But when you look more closely you realize these adolescents are coloring, talking about whom the vampires killed on TV last night, and creating “get well soon” cards for their classmate who just broke his arm in an unfortunate skateboarding accident. Engaging? Yes. Rigorous? No.

Defining rigor

We hear a lot about rigor in the classroom these days, but what does it really mean? Let’s begin by stating what it doesn’t mean. Rigor does not mean more. More questions, more problems, and more homework do not make a classroom more rigorous. Rigor is about the level of thinking that is occurring when students are engaged in learning.

Barbara Blackburn, Ph.D., one of the nation’s leading researchers on classroom rigor, describes a rigorous classroom as one where students are expected to learn at high levels, are supported at high levels and demonstrate learning at high levels (2008).

So if our students are engaged in learning, how do we know if an assignment is rigorous?

Using the Cognitive Rigor Matrix

As an instructional coach I have the opportunity to co-plan lessons with teachers. A tool I often use in my work with teachers to assess the level of rigor in an assignment is Hess’ Cognitive Rigor Matrix. This is a tool developed by Karen Hess, Ed.D., senior associate at the National Center for Assessment, which combines Bloom’s taxonomy with Webb’s Depth of Knowledge. This tool not only looks at the type of thinking (Bloom’s) that is occurring in an activity, but also the level of thinking required to interact with the content (Webb’s).

I recently used this tool when co-planning with Justin Wheeles, science teacher at Yadkin Valley Regional Career Academy in Lexington. When analyzing a summative assessment, Justin noticed students were struggling with an essential standard in biology: Analyze the relationships between biochemical processes and energy use in the cell. We used Hess’s Cognitive Rigor Matrix for Math and Science to assess the level of rigor in the previous lessons Justin had taught addressing the standard.

When highlighting the activities in which students had engaged on the Cognitive Rigor Matrix, we noticed an interesting pattern. Initial assignments were low in rigor followed by much higher-level assignments, but without much in between to help students process their thinking about cellular respiration. Using this information, we planned subsequent lessons to fill the gap by using writing-to-learn strategies that addressed the thinking levels at which students needed to work with scaffolds to understand the standard.

By taking a closer look at what we are asking students to do, we can take steps to keep our students engaged while supporting them for more rigorous education where expectations are high and students can successfully demonstrate their learning.

References

• Blackburn, B. (2008). Rigor is NOT a Four-Letter Word. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.
• Hess, K. (2004). “Applying Webb’s Depth of Knowledge Levels (DOK) in Reading, Writing, Math, Science and Social Studies. [online]