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Cognitive-Powered Instruction 35

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CHAPTER 3

Lesson Planning & Delivery

I wish we could have addressed lesson planning earlier in this book. (I really do!) But, cognitive-powered instruction represents a wide departure from the norm, so we needed to spend considerable time in Chapter 1 laying down a solid theoretical foundation.

As a result, our discussion so far has largely centered on how the conceptual underpinnings of Depth of Knowledge and Bloom’s Taxonomy combine to form Cognitive Rigor. But, lesson planning and delivery is where the “rubber meets the road.” At some point, theory must flow into practice, lest our theoretical discussions become little more than talking points in coffee-shop arguments.

With this in mind, we now coalesce what we have learned in previous chapters to • develop lessons that guarantee the rigor of learning meets our students’ needs and• build bare-knuckle tools we can use to teach rigorous lessons in the classroom.

Paradigm ShiftS

I used to help teachers develop lessons centered exclusively on direct instruction. Back then, I considered student-centered approaches inefficient and hopelessly ideal-istic. Not surprisingly, the resulting lessons tended to be heavily teacher-centered and the lesson delivery stiff and mechanical. On the flip side, lesson plans derived from student-centered approaches can feature weaknesses of their own, especially when topics rely on learning content to automaticity. In my experience observing class-rooms, student-centered lessons struggle to help students learn low-level content.

Focusing on the choice of instructional method too soon in the learning process is a practice we will strive to avoid. The instructional method should represent a mere vehicle for lesson delivery; the lesson plan should act as the driver. We mustn’t let the vehicle become the driver.

“The instructional method should represent a mere vehicle for lesson delivery; the lesson plan should act as the driver. We mustn’t let the vehicle become the driver.”

The approach outlined in this chapter uses rigor to create an instructional framework from which teachers can hang their own favorite instructional methods. As such, cog-nitive-powered lesson planning does not target any particular pedagogy; to the contrary, this

“The instructional method should represent a mere vehicle for lesson delivery; the lesson plan should act as the driver. We mustn’t let the vehicle become the driver.”

36 Chapter 3 Lesson Planning & Delivery

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approach encourages teachers to employ a wide range of instructional techniques throughout lesson delivery. A teacher delivering a cognitive-powered lesson might first drop into direct instruction to frontload important vocabulary, then assign students a guided inquiry activity to research background knowledge, and then employ a Socratic method to brainstorm solutions.

Traditional lesson planning features no systematic way to account of a teacher’s desired emphasis of the lesson topic. Over time, certain academic topics elevate in importance, whereas others diminish. Teachers know full well that not all subjects rank equally in importance. Also, not all subjects share the same inherent complexity. A lesson on photosynthesis, a biological process that lies at the center of much future scientific research, may command more emphasis than a lesson on rock classifica-tion. Unlike most other lesson planning approaches, cognitive-powered instruction takes into account this disparity in importance and complexity among all the topics a teacher expects to teach during the school year.

general aPProach

Because Cognitive Rigor interlaces Depth of Knowledge (DOK) and the Cognitive Process Dimension of Bloom’s Taxonomy, we will use both rigor models to develop rigorous lessons, throwing in the Knowl-edge Dimension of Bloom’s Taxonomy for good measure. We will also outline poten-tial instructional methods for delivering the lesson in class.

Although an increasing number of Depth of Knowledge seminars now appear across the nation and on the Web, most of these sessions target the skill in identifying DOK levels of sample curricula, a useful endeavor in its own right but of limited benefit. Bloom’s Taxonomy has experienced wider deployment, including its use in selecting education technology (Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy) and conducting neuroscience research. On the more pedagogical side, Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy (at least the Cognitive Process Dimension) has helped teachers develop lesson questions. Some educators have even deployed Bloom’s Taxonomy to teach students to craft their own questions.

Until now, however, no one has created a clear path toward coalescing the power of both Depth of Knowledge and Bloom’s Taxonomy to drive pedagogy, from lesson planning to post-instruction assessment. This chapter will change all that.

Depth ofKnowledge

Cogn

itive

Pr

oces

sDim

ensio

n

RIGOR-DRIVENLESSON

Knowledge

Dimension


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guiding PrinciPleS

New instructional approaches make teachers nervous. Much of the concern arises from the more draconian approaches that ask teachers to throw out all they learned before and “drink the Koolaid.” Such a strategy completely disrespects the profes-sionalism of the teaching field. Because teachers often find clever ways to meet their students’ educational needs, we want to encourage them to seek alternatives to the approaches we outline in this chapter. As such, we want to avoid dogma — the lesson planning formula offered here is in no way intended to corner the market in rigorous instruction. But I think it’s a great start.

We want to apply the same philosophy toward the instructional methods teachers choose to deliver the lesson. As such, cognitive-powered instruction embraces both teacher-centered and student-centered instructional methods within its framework. By casting the decision-making in terms of potential effectiveness — not right versus wrong — this approach respects the professional judgment of educators by placing the choice of instructional techniques in their hands, where it belongs.

Let’s also avoid treating knowledge as nothing more than information transfer. In a sense, cognitive-powered instruction elevates the role of critical thinking above that of knowledge retention, although recognizing that both serve critical roles in student development. By shifting the focus away from content, we will see that the choice of standard (whether it be the Common Core or not) poses little impact on the lesson planning process, nor does it significantly impact the rigor of the resulting lesson.

All this represents a radical shift in lesson planning strategy.

Depth of Knowledge (Activity)

Activity DurationStudent grouping

Evidence of Instruction

Bloom’s TaxonomyKnowledge Dimension

Background Barriers

Bloom’s TaxonomyCognitive Process Dimension

Instructional Techniques

Standard

Topic

Cross-disciplinary Focus

1

2

3

4

CPILesson Planning Flow Chart


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What do We Want to achieve?

To generate a cognitive-powered lesson plan, we will follow the flow chart shown below. Before beginning, however, we should outline a few goals that will ensure our students attain the college/career-preparedness skills that have formed the focus of so much education reform. More specifically, we want our students to:

• Demonstrate their attainment of a certain depth of knowledge of the subject through a culminating activity.

How much do our students really need to know about the topic? Is there really enough time in the school year to teach every subject to “expert” level? Do all lessons command the same instructional emphasis?

As we discussed in Chapter 1, Depth of Knowledge provides an ideal vehicle for establishing reasonable expectations for students to understand each topic in their curriculum. In turn, these expectations anchor the entirety of the les-son-design process.

• Connect their learning to other subject areas.Do scientists need to know how to write? Do game designers need to know

history? Do artists need to understand business principles?Cross-disciplinary instruction lies at the core of new college/career-readiness

standards. Rather than simply discussing the manner in which other subjects can impact a lesson, cognitive-powered lesson planning embeds a cross-disciplinary approach into the lesson design at the very outset of planning.

• Attain a wide range of knowledge.For a given lesson, what do students need to know? Is learning only relegated

to knowing stuff and knowing how to do things? Or, is there more to it?Traditionally, we have viewed some subjects as emphasizing concepts (e.g.,

social science) and others as emphasizing procedures (e.g., mathematics). In reality, students need to learn a wide range of knowledge that extends beyond these two (albeit important) dimensions.

• Heighten their engagement in the lesson by engaging in vigorous discourse.How do we engage students? Do our engagement strategies help students learn,

or do they simply entertain?We want to avoid creating passive learners, but we also want to capture our stu-

dents’ interest through rigor, not fluff. Fortunately, Depth of Knowledge contains within its construct a means of guiding group-based discussion and questioning strategies that promote academic engagement.

• Exercise a wide range of thinking skills.Is learning more about knowing, or thinking? How important is it for our

students to understand content at a deep level?As discussed in Chapter 1, the Cognitive Process Dimension of Bloom’s


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Taxonomy adequately catalogs the type of thinking required of students as they learn. We can avail this taxonomy to compel students to practice these thinking skills.

• Experience instructional techniques carefully chosen by the instructor for their effec-tiveness and efficiency.

How can we teach this lesson? Does a best strategy really exist? Does one size truly fit all?

Rather than relying on a single instructional method, our lesson plan should provide instructors with a mechanism for strategically selecting those techniques that align to their own skill sets and boost the chances of lesson success.

• Learn without background-knowledge barriers impeding their progress.A student’s background could interfere with their learning without careful

planning. The background-knowledge scaffolding method introduced in this chapter will accommodate these difficulties in a manner that allows them to learn grade-level content without lowering the rigor of instruction.

I think most educators would consider these goals as lofty and, perhaps, out of reach. However, cognitive-powered instruction employs a systematic approach to lesson planning and delivery specifically designed to meet each objective.


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SteP 1: eStabliShing ScoPe

As we can see from Step 1 of the lesson planning flow chart, our lesson planning starts out like most methods by asking us to outline the subject and standard under consideration. However, this process features a twist: We should also consider embedding a cross-disciplinary topic into the lesson scope.

To model the lesson planning process, we will develop two lesson plans side-by-side, with one lesson targeting a middle school English language arts standard selected from the Common Core State Standards and the other targeting a high school art education standard that predates the Common Core movement. The reader will find more examples appearing in the vignettes appearing in Chapter 4.

Choice of Standard

Whether we employ Common Core State Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards, will only marginally impact the lesson design process. In this sense, cogni-tive-powered instruction is agnostic as far as the choice of standards is concerned.

But, cognitive-powered instruction was designed to deliver standards-based instruction. Therefore, select-ing a standard is a logical first step.

EXAMPLE: MIDDLE SCHOOL ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS, CCSS

Many consider, with good reason, English language arts the most fundamentally important subject in K-12 instruction (although math teachers might disagree). For the sake of providing an example aligned to the Common Core, let us highlight a standard that addresses a topic favored among English teachers, namely metaphors.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.2.D —Use precise language, dimen-sion-specific vocabulary and techniques such as metaphor […] to manage the complexity of the topic; convey a knowledgeable stance in a style that responds to the discipline and context as well as to the expertise of likely readers.

EXAMPLE: HIGH SCHOOL ART EDUCATION, PASS

In the summer of 2014, Oklahoma dropped the Common Core State Standards. As of this writing, the state had planned to revert to its original Priority Academic Student Skills (PASS) standards. Although PASS standards have been criticized by some, we will show that the standards, in of themselves, have little impact on the rigor of instruction as long as rigor is built into the lesson planning phase. To demonstrate this feature, we will go a step further by even choosing a non-core subject:

Standard

Topic

Cross-disciplinary Focus


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HIGH SCHOOL ART STANDARD: Develop and apply skills and tech-niques using a variety of art media, and processes in making two- and three-dimensional works of art.

This standard goes on to list such media as drawing (e.g., sketching) and sculpture (e.g., carving) as vehicles for artistic expression. Why not incorporate both?

Cross-Disciplinary Focus

We should strive to encompass a broad range of subject areas in daily instruction. While teachers often think of the four core subject areas as potential targets for cog-nitive-powered instruction, myriad other possibilities surface. Business principles, for example, pose as useful targets because of their strong tie to career prepared-ness (therefore enhancing relevance) and because students rarely receive formal instruction in this area during their K-12 careers. Besides business, engineering offers potential as well, especially for those lessons derived from math and science standards. Medicine, technical writing, and marketing offer even more possibilities.

Before moving on, let me offer a word of caution. Quite often, textbooks shoehorn one topic into another for which no real connection exists, producing a contrived cross-disciplinary topic. For example, asking students to calculate the kinetic energy of a dancer during a visual arts lesson is pointless — who does that? We should always strive to enhance the relevance of our lessons by promoting real connections between subject areas.

Questions

1. Pick a standard in your area of interest and describe your past approach to teaching it.

2. Which cross-disciplinary topics could you incorporate into a lesson centered on this standard?

3. Have you seen examples of contrived cross-disciplinary activities in your cur-riculum? Do students appreciate such activities?

Exercises

1. Consider business law. Walk through the set of standards related to your sub-ject and grade level and determine which standards could benefit from this cross-disciplinary topic.

2. Do the same as the previous exercise, but select a cross-disciplinary topic of your own (e.g., technical writing, marketing, engineering, medicine).


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SteP 2: eStabliShing exPectationS

Teachers do not necessarily plan each lesson to have the same impact on student learning. Some topics are nat-urally more important than others, while other lessons correlate more closely with the interests of the stu-dents or the teacher. For this reason, a primary goal of lesson planning is to establish how much we want our stu-dents to gain from our instruction.

Depth of Knowledge as Prime Mover

We will use Depth of Knowledge to establish the (ahem) depth of knowledge we expect our students to demonstrate after learning a topic, with higher DOK levels correlating to increased emphasis. Therefore, lesson planning centers on Depth of Knowledge early in the process.

Not all lessons can or should command the highest DOK levels. Some subjects figure more prominently in preparing students for college or careers than others. For example, a math teacher may consider the factoring of polynomials far more important than polynomial long division, so she might teach the former to DOK-3 and the latter to only DOK-1.

Furthermore, there is simply not enough time in the school year to teach all sub-jects to high DOK levels. Finally, the state assessments may cap a topic at a low DOK level. For these reasons, teachers should give the targeted DOK level serious thought.

In Chapter 2, we illustrated how the enacted curriculum (the curriculum actu-ally delivered to students) rarely features higher DOK levels. Therefore, creating culminating activities that target higher DOK levels is not always straightforward. Fortunately, many educators have devoted considerable time toward providing resources to achieve this purpose. In the Resources section, we list a number of useful examples. We will use two to help us address both of our lesson samples.


Suppose a California teacher thinks the ability to create metaphors a key skill in writing, but cannot afford to spend the time needed to deliver a DOK-4 lesson. In such a case, DOK-3 may serve as a more reasonable alternative. In “Depth of Knowledge across Four Content Areas,” Norman Webb mentions one possible fea-ture of a DOK-3 activity: Students show awareness of their audience and purpose through focus, organization and the use of appropriate compositional elements.[1] We can compel students to demonstrate awareness of their audience explicitly by incorporating this demand directly into the lesson prompt:

Depth of Knowledge (Activity)

Activity DurationStudent Grouping

Evidence of Instruction


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You already learned the meanings of four types of metaphors; so, choose two types and write a paragraph of a newspaper editorial in which you use both of them to describe some aspect of an athlete’s impact on the sport. Explain why you think your metaphors are effective.

Note that requiring student to explain the impact of their metaphor on the reader (i.e., the awareness of the reader) elevates the Depth of Knowledge of the question to DOK-3. To carry out this activity, students need to apply more knowledge about metaphors and take into account more information about the reader. (Simply having students create metaphors in a passage aligns closer to DOK-2.)

Note that the choice of DOK-3 impacts the manner in which we ask students to engage with the culminating activity. As we saw in Table 3 in Chapter 1, a DOK-3 activity is usually conducive to informal group settings and students should be allot-ted time on the order of 10 minutes. Naturally, as professional decision-makers, teachers should consider modifying these guidelines to suite their own purpose.


Suppose an art teacher in Oklahoma considers principles of design fundamentally critical to understanding sculpture. The teacher could then set DOK-4 as her stu-dent’s cognitive goal. The Colorado Professional Learning Network provides a useful online resource for conjuring art lessons across all four Depth of Knowledge levels; for DOK-4 it offers the following: [2]

Students work as self-directed artists who use complex reasoning and plan-ning. Students generate multiple correct answers to the artistic problems they set. They choose and use art elements, principles, style, media, and techniques to achieve a desired effect.

Since we have chosen business principles as a worthwhile cross-disciplinary topic, then customer demands form an ideal way of expressing a “desired effect.” While we can have customers place their demands via a simple phone call, why not ramp up the realism by having the demand expressed in a formal Request for Proposal? Since RFPs are common in business, this activity will provide an ideal vehicle for learning new vocabulary.

Considering all the above, we can formulate a DOK-4 culminating activity, spicing up the relevance of the activity by placing the student in the career field:

You are a commercial artist. A police department has issued a Request for Proposals for a bronze sculpture dedicated to one a fallen officer. Write a proposal containing a project design (sketch), an explanation of the design, why your design should be chosen, and the terms of agreement.

As a DOK-4 activity, Table 3 in Chapter 1 suggests we consider placing students into formal groups to work on this activity. This table also suggests providing a long activity duration, perhaps a full class period. (In truth, this activity could easily span two or three days.)


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Creating a Learning Objective

A learning objective is an outcome statement that captures specifically what knowl-edge learners should be able to exhibit following instruction. Although lesson delivery considerations take place later, we should note that the culminating activi-ties we just developed form solid learning objectives. (The incorporation of language objectives for English Learners should prove straightforward.)

Reading the culminating activity aloud and writing it on the board will meet the basic requirements of a learning objective, but some discussion will help students the task they face. For example, teachers should consider pointing out any new concepts or skills in the learning objective new to the student and how the lesson will address this new content. New vocabulary words merit some mention as well.

For example, the stated learning objective for the English language arts lesson could resemble the following:

“Students, today you will work in groups to respond to the following: ‘You are sports writer. Choose two types of metaphors and write a paragraph of a newspaper editorial in which you use both types of metaphor to describe some aspect of an athlete’s impact on the sport.’ Now, we learned four types of metaphors already, so you will choose two of those you already learned. You can pick the athlete. Is there anything that concerns you about this activity? Do you think this is going to be a tough challenge?”

Teachers should follow their delivery of learning objectives with questions designed to check their students’ understanding of the activity.

Note that not all students, especially disadvantaged students such as English lan-guage learners, necessarily understand the word “editorial.” They may need further explanation, sample editorials, and possibly even full-blown vocabulary develop-ment. For example, the teacher presenting the art education project to the students could mention that the terms Request for Proposal and Terms of Agreement are probably new and to briefly explain what is meant by “issued” and “fallen.”

Even for native English speakers, English Learner strategies are especially effective for addressing unfamiliar words. For example, the contextual clue strategy of Spe-cially Designed Academic Instruction in English (SDAIE) allows teachers to briefly mention the definition of a word in more familiar terms as an aside comment.[3]


“Students, today you will work in groups to respond to the following: ‘You are a commercial artist. A police department has issued a Request for Proposal […] and the terms of agreement.’ You probably are not familiar with the term Request for Proposal, but we will define it a little later. And notice “terms of agreement.” This is a business term that we will also discuss in detail. So, let me call on some of you to answer the question, ‘Is there anything that concerns you about this activity? Do you think this is going to be a tough challenge?’”


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Note that some of the words in the activity prompt may need explaining, such as “issued” and “fallen,” especially if English learners sit in your class.

Summary

Before moving on to some exercises, let’s summarize what we have discussed so far with respect to the two lesson plans under development.

Scopes & ExpectationsLesson 1 Lesson 2

Standard CCSS PASSSubject ELA ArtTopic Metaphors Sculpting/sketchingCross-disciplinary topic(s)

Sports writing Business principles; business law; technical writing

Culminating activity

You are sports writer. You already learned the meanings of four types of metaphors; so, choose two types and write a paragraph of a newspaper ed-itorial in which you use both of them to describe some aspect of an athlete’s impact on the sport. Explain why you think your metaphors are effective.

You are a commercial artist. A police department has issued a Request for Proposals for a bronze sculpture dedicated to one a fallen officer. Write a proposal containing a project design (sketch), an explanation of the design, why your design should be chosen, and the terms of agreement.

DOK level DOK-3 DOK-4Grouping Informal group Formal groupDuration 20 min 2 class sessions


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Questions

1. Pick a standard-based topic and cross-disciplinary topic you wish to teach. Which Depth of Knowledge level do you think your lesson should target? Why?

2. Create a culminating activity that targets the desired DOK level and cross-dis-ciplinary topic(s).

3. If students can demonstrate reasonable proficiency on your culminating activity, how would this prepare them for college and careers?

4. Describe how you could present your culminating activity as a learning objective.5. Review the distinction between Depth of Knowledge and the Cognitive Process

Dimension of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy described in Chapter 1. Why does Depth of Knowledge serve as an effective tool for establishing the culminating activity and not the Cognitive Process Dimension?

Exercises

1. Examine a Cognitive Rigor Matrix that has been filled with sample activities and discuss culminating activities that would allow students to meet rigorous college/career expectations. (See Refs. [4, 5, 6, 7].)

2. How does your culminating activity differ from traditional activities?


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SteP 3: eStabliShing content

Naturally, what we plan to teach must enter the discussion at some point. Typically, lesson content in the past was split in two: Concepts and skills. For example, a lesson on writing paragraphs would feature concepts (e.g., the structure and purpose of the paragraph) and skills (e.g., the procedure of completing a graphic organizer, editing). The Knowledge Dimension of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, as described in Chapter 1, included not only factual, conceptual, and procedural knowledge but also added a progressive touch by including metacognitive knowledge).

What students need to learn from a lesson, however, eclipses just “knowing things” and “knowing how to do things.” In response, many educators have supplemented the Knowledge Dimension to reflect knowledge they consider critical to producing the “whole student.” [8, 9] In Chapter 1, we added to list as well by adding relevance knowledge, deep knowledge, and communicative knowledge to the list.

For the sake of review, let’s discuss once again each component of our modified Knowledge Dimension:• Factual knowledge: What do we always want our students to always remember?• Conceptual knowledge: What do we always want our students to understand?• Procedural knowledge: What do we always want our students to be able to do?• Metacognitive knowledge: What do want our students to understand about what

they know and don’t know?• Relevance knowledge: Why do our students need to learn the lesson?• Deep knowledge: How can our students communicate the knowledge they gained

to others?• Communicative knowledge: How can our students communicate their knowledge

to others?Besides outlining the content of the lesson, the Knowledge Dimension also provides a good indicator of what constitutes proficiency on the lesson. If a student can rea-sonably master each of the items in the Knowledge Dimension, they have learned all that we can expect of them.

We are now at the moment to unleash this modified Knowledge Dimension on our lesson plan. Once again, we revert to our sample lessons.

EXAMPLE: MIDDLE SCHOOL ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS, CCSS (DOK-2)

In our English language art lesson, we are designing our lesson around a culminat-ing activity where students write a paragraph of a sports editorial describing one of their favorite athletes. To enhance the impact of their description, they are asked to employ two types of metaphors. To raise the Depth of Knowledge of the lesson, we

Bloom’s TaxonomyKnowledge Dimension

Background Barriers


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are asking them to describe the impact of their metaphors on the reader. With this in mind, we could define our modified Knowledge Dimension like the following.

Factual knowledge — what facts do I want my students to always remember? To me, I think it is important that they always remember the definition of a meta-phor. Although I could ask them to learn the definitions of each type of metaphor, I would rather they simply remember that multiple types of metaphors exist. (If necessary, they can always search the Internet for more detailed discussions of each metaphor type.)

Conceptual knowledge — what do I want my students to understand from this lesson? Beyond just knowing the definition of a metaphor, I want to be sure that my students understand the definition, as well as the definition of figurative language and its distinction from literal language. As mentioned above, I would also expect my students to understand each type of the four metaphors we addressed in an earlier lesson, as well as their purpose and impact.

Procedural knowledge — what do my students need to able to do? The culminating activity makes it clear that an important component of this lesson is for students to know how to proceed in creating metaphors to meet a literary need.

Relevance knowledge — why is this lesson important? I would like my stu-dents to know how metaphors can make writing more interesting and that learning to create one’s own metaphors helps us understand metaphors when we encounter them. Finally, I want them to know how this skill and knowledge can improve their chances of success in many fields that value creative expression (e.g., marketing).

Metacognitive knowledge — by the end of the lesson, I want my students to have a firm grasp on what they have learned and, just as importantly, further enhance their intellectual curiosity. To meet this need, I want my students to learn to evaluate the effectiveness of their own metaphors and describe aspects of figurative language they don’t fully understand, along with an understanding of how they can obtain this knowledge on their own.

Communicative knowledge — how can I develop communication/collab-oration skills in my students? The very nature of the lesson, creating metaphors to enhance literary imagery, promotes communicative knowledge in writing and, by extension, in speech. Because of the DOK-3 nature of the lesson, I will ask students to work in groups on the culminating activity, which also helps students learn com-munication skills.

Deep knowledge — how can we promote deeper understanding of the lesson beyond simply knowing the basic concepts and skills? Thankfully, much of the other dimension items listed here address deep knowledge. For example, learning to critique each other’s metaphors (communicative knowledge) adds a cognitively complex dimension to their understanding of metaphors, as does their ability to examine the effectiveness of their own metaphors (metacognitive knowledge). I can develop deep knowledge by asking them to take into account both peer critique and self-critique to describe in general terms the impact of metaphors on writing.


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EXAMPLE: HIGH SCHOOL ART EDUCATION, PASS (DOK-4)

We now turn our attention to the high school art lesson designed to teach students to respond to an RFP for a sculpture project. Our Knowledge Dimension could look much like the following:

Factual knowledge — I think I would want my students to learn the defini-tions of balance, contour, and sculptor

Conceptual knowledge — beyond just knowing their definitions, I would want students to understand the meaning of balance, contour, and sculptor. I would also want my students understand the impact of each principle of design on percep-tion. Since this is likely my students’ first experience in writing a business proposal, I would want to make sure they learn the elements of most proposals. Finally, I want my students to learn what we mean by terms of agreement and provide examples (e.g., late penalties) of their own.

Procedural knowledge — the culminating activity in this lesson centers on writing a business proposal, so students will need to learn this skill. Also, I will have students estimate fees using basic physics (density, mass, volume), mathemat-ics (rates), and estimation. Most pertinent to the art education standard, I want my students to know how to incorporate principles of design into artwork.

Relevance knowledge — most students, in my experience, fail to appreciate the commercial side of art. I would want this lesson to change their perception such that they realize that art (in this case, sketching and sculpting) offers opportunities for viable careers. Along the same lines, I want my students to appreciate why pro-posal writing is important to future careers.

Metacognitive knowledge — students will evaluate their own art in terms of principles of design, assessing its strengths and where it potentially falls short. I also want them to understand the limitations on what they learned about principles of design and highlight some ideas on how they would attain this knowledge.

Communicative knowledge — as a DOK-4 problem, my students will com-municate to each other in formal groups over an extended time. They will also learn an important communication technique of persuasive writing, which help them in a wide range of writing and speech activities. Finally, I want to fully develop their vocabulary development with regard to the terms balance, contour, and sculptor.

Deep knowledge — upon completion of their culminating activity, I would like my students to discuss the impact of business proposals on future careers, using art as a mere example. I would also like them to evaluate other artists’ work in terms of principles of design.


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Background-knowledge Barriers

We also discussed background-knowledge barriers in Chapter 1, which we described as those skills and concepts students should have learned previously, but didn’t. Withholding grade-appropriate content from students deprives them of knowledge that the public has declared rightfully theirs, effectively placing an artificial cap on their learning. However, the reality of unprepared students faces nearly every teacher in the coun-try; no lesson plan that fails to address this issue will prove effective, so it behooves us now to dis-cuss how this issue will affect our lesson planning approach. As we detailed in Chapter 1, we want to adhere to a few fundamental principles when iden-tifying the content we expect to teach our students. Specifically, we want to• define student proficiency purely in terms of the

grade-appropriate content that forms the focus of the lesson, that is, the content identified in our modified Knowledge Dimension,

• carefully identify the background-knowledge barriers that could prevent students from demonstrating proficiency on the lesson,

• scaffold background knowledge for unprepared students, gradually increasing their proficiency on these skills and concepts over time, and

• if at all possible, avoid subverting the Cognitive Rigor of our lesson plans. Later in the lesson planning development, we will discuss the technique of back-ground-knowledge scaffolding to help students overcome these barriers. For now, we will focus simply on identifying such barriers.


Any lesson centering on writing immediately raises the possibility of a back-ground-knowledge barrier with respect to writing skills. Simply put, many students do not write well, whether this deficiency results from substandard instruction in ear-lier grade levels, learning disabilities, or unfamiliarity with the English language. For this lesson, paragraph- and sentence-level writing poses the most obvious concerns.

This raises the question, “What constitutes proficiency with respect to this lesson?” The Knowledge Dimension lists what we expect our students to learn—notice that writing skill is not listed; neither is reading skill. Therefore, reading passages aloud to students to help them overcome reading problems is perfectly acceptable. Also, while we may want to correct mistakes in their writing, we should do so only in the context of providing them helpful feedback for future improvement, not as a mark on their proficiency. In short, even students who struggle with reading and writing should be able to receive a passing mark on the lesson.

“Withholding grade- appropriate content from students deprives them of knowledge that the public has declared rightfully theirs, e�ectively placing an arti�cial cap on their learning.”


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In summary, we have identified two potential background-knowledge barriers that could pose problems for our students:• Writing, especially at the paragraph- and sentence-level• Reading


The culminating activity for this lesson incorporates a much broader writing demand, since business proposals span multiple sections, and not simply multiple paragraphs. The focus of this lesson, therefore, is at the document level of writing, not paragraph- or sentence-levels. Even though students may struggle with para-graph and sentence structure, they should be able to learn how to fill out a graphic organizer for a business proposal and then, using the completed graphic organizer, structure the content of their business proposal. Proper grammar and spelling do not constitute the scope of this lesson, although effective use of transition sentences to link paragraphs very well could.

Part of the lesson also asks students to calculate fees using the concept of rate products. Therefore, rate products (i.e., knowing the procedure for calculating a total fee) serves as the main math content of this lesson, not arithmetic.

Finally, we should mention that some students are better at sketching and sculpt-ing than others. Once again, the quality of the sketch or sculpture (a highly subjective measure) does not factor into proficiency; rather, the students’ incorporation of the principles of design does.

In summary, we have defined three background-knowledge barriers that could prevent students from displaying what they have learned in the lesson:• Writing at the paragraph and sentence levels.• Arithmetic• Sculpting/sketching

Lesson Summary

The following table summarizes the content we expect students to learn for our sample lessons.


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ContentLesson 1 Lesson 2

Factual knowledge

Definition of a metaphor; know that multiple types of metaphors exist

Learn the definitions of “balance,” “contour,” and “sculptor”

Conceptual knowledge

Review the meaning of four types of metaphors; understand the purpose of metaphors and their impact

Students understand the impact of each principle of design on perception; students learn elements of proposals; students will learn issues related to business agreements (e.g., late penal-ties)

ProceduralKnowledge

Students will write two types of meta-phors in context

Students will estimate fees using basic physics, mathematics, and estimation; students learn to write proposal; stu-dents incorporate principles of design into artwork

Relevance knowledge

Metaphors can make writing more interesting

Students appreciate why proposal writ-ing is important to art careers

Deep knowledge

Students will describe why metaphors enhance writing

Students discuss impact of business proposals on art careers; students will evaluate their art in terms of principles of design

Metacognitive knowledge

Students will learn to evaluate the effectiveness of their own metaphors

Students discuss impact of business on art careers; students will evaluate their art in terms of principles of design

Collaborative knowledge

Students will work in groups to review metaphor types and critique each other’s metaphors in regards to effec-tiveness

Students will communicate to each other in groups and to society through persuasive writing; vocabulary devel-opment with balance, contour, and sculptor

Background- knowledge barriers

Writing (paragraph/sentence levels)Reading

Writing (paragraph/sentence levels)ArithmeticSketching/sculpting

Teaching to the Test

As an aside, we should also discuss the concept of teaching to the test, considered a vile term by many in the education community. Teaching to the test has been discussed for generations, but the term takes on a whole new importance with the rise of high-stakes testing.


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Unfortunately, descriptions of what constitutes teaching to the test vary widely, although most share a common understanding that it involves teaching content that targets performance on highly targeted assessment items. With this approach to student proficiency, teachers “game” the system and, as a result, cheat the learning process.

So, how do we define teaching to the test? Here is how I define it:

If a teacher’s lessons targets the same rigor levels expected on an assessment, that’s teaching to the test.

By rigor levels, I refer to Cognitive Rigor, that is, the intersection of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy and Depth of Knowledge. For a given topic, if an assessment item aligns to a cell on the Cognitive Rigor Matrix and teachers purposefully align the Cogni-tive Rigor of their instruction to that test item, I consider that teaching to the test.

For example, suppose an assessment item asks students to add fractions, which would align to the [3/1] cell of the Cognitive Rigor Matrix (i.e., straightforward application of an algorithm). Now, suppose a teacher, knowing this type of problem will appear on the assessment, decides to devote a lesson plan exclusively toward the most straightforward addition of fractions. Such a narrow constriction of rigor targeting the assessment would constitute teaching to the test.

To avoid this situation, the teacher could follow the lesson with another lesson that targets a higher Depth of Knowledge, or a wider range of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Besides, if the assessment targets the understand-level of Bloom’s Taxonomy and I have taught students not only to understand, but also to apply, and analyze, shouldn’t they perform better on understand-level assessment items?

Questions

1. For your own lesson, detail the knowledge pertaining to each of the seven knowl-edge dimensions.

2. If you have other knowledge types you feel should be included, identify the knowledge for these additional types as well.

3. Which background-knowledge barriers could interfere with your students’ abil-ity to demonstrate proficiency on the lesson?

Exercises

1. Identify at least four major below-grade-level background-knowledge barriers that habitually cause problems in delivering grade-level content throughout the year and rank them in terms of significance.

2. Discuss the following student work samples in terms of the potential for back-ground-knowledge barriers to mask student proficiency.


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SteP 4: eStabliShing technique

“Tastes Great!”“Less Filling!”“Ginger!”“Mary Ann!”1

Some readers are too young to remember these debates, but surely we are all familiar with the way the educa-tional community tends to form into warring camps. The Phonics Brigade has long battled the Whole Language Cavalry and since the 1960s Old Math has squared off against New Math. More recently, and most pertinent to cognitive-powered instruction, the Teacher-Centered Camp has battled the Student-Centered Camp over the “best way to teach.”

I think this is all a bit silly.

I would no more expect a teacher to enlist in a student-centered camp (or teach-er-centered camp for that matter) than I would expect diners to adopt a “fork-only” policy. As I see it, the primary reason why education research can’t settle this issue is because neither side is correct; there simply is no single best way to teach.

Depth of Knowledge provides a clue that tunnel vision with respect to technique cannot serve the needs of teachers. Using the example of reading instruction, con-sider some typical DOK-1 activities:• Use a dictionary to find the meaning of words. • Identify figurative language in a reading passage.• Pronounce numbers correctly in German.Instruction designed at this level of cognitive complexity will naturally lean toward teacher-centered instruction. Consider the teaching of a foreign language, where much of the content focuses on recall. How would one teach students to correctly pronounce foreign words using a student-centered approach? I’m not sure.

Consider now the definition of DOK-2, as found in reading:• Use context cues to identify the meaning of unfamiliar words. • Predict a logical outcome based on information in a reading selection. • Identify and summarize the major events in a narrative.Here, we expect students to gather information from a well-defined source and transform it in some way to produce a well-defined, albeit different, result. The task of processing information provides more avenues for student discussion. (As we discussed in Chapter 1, peer-shares and pair-shares are usually good collaborative vehicles for DOK-2 activities.) So, at the DOK-2 level, we begin to see student-cen-tered instruction taking on a larger role in instruction. However, the bulk of

1 The correct choice is Mary Ann.

Bloom’s TaxonomyCognitive Process Dimension

Instructional Techniques


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instruction associated with DOK-2 activities will still likely remain teacher-centered.As we begin to move up in cognitive complexity, the role of student-centered instruc-

tion becomes stronger. Consider the highest (DOK-4) level of Depth of Knowledge: • Analyze and synthesize information from multiple sources. • Examine and explain alternative perspectives across a variety of sources. • Describe and illustrate how common themes are found across texts from different

culturesThe multiple responses allowed by DOK-3 and DOK-4 activities, as well as the mul-tiple starting points, necessitate more student-to-student discussion, brain-storming, and researching, all of which are highly conducive to student-centered instruction. Teachers will find it difficult to lean solely on direct instruction to teach toward these higher rigor levels.

Therefore, the higher the Depth of Knowledge of the culminating activity, the more prominent the role played by student-centered instruction. However, we should note that we are not trying to stamp out low-DOK instruction; to the contrary, cognitive-powered instruction employs a strategic blend of all four DOK levels. Nei-ther student-centered nor teacher-centered methods can accommodate all six levels by themselves. For this reason, I urge teachers to learn a wide range of instructional techniques, from direct instruction to Socratic seminars.

None of this is to say that the choice of instruction technique does not matter. When eating soup, you use a spoon; when eating spaghetti, you use a fork.2 How can teachers decide which instructional method works well for a given situation? The answer lies in Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy.

The Cognitive Process Dimension of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy

Teaching in a classroom is in one way like eating in a restaurant. When the soup comes out, you pick up a spoon. When the salad arrives, you select the salad fork, which I think is the one placed above the plate (although I usually eat at Denny’s where you have to use the same fork for the entire meal.) When the steak arrives, you use a combination of a knife and a fork.

Much the same applies to teaching. When a certain situation arises, teachers should reach for the method they think will work. When the situation changes, they hunt for another method. In this sense, lesson delivery amounts to continual dipping into the toolbox of pedagogy.

The key to selecting instructional methods is to note that each instructional method works well with some elements of the Cognitive Process Dimension, but not all. As discussed in Chapter 1, the Cognitive Process Dimension comprises six levels:1. Remember2. Understand

2 WheneatingVietnamesesoup,I’matalossbecauseIcannotfindautensilthatwillmaintainagriponthoseslipperynoodles.


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3. Apply4. Analyze5. Evaluate6. CreateFor example, I would probably not use Socratic seminars to teach at the understand-level.[10, 11, 12] Even though the Socratic seminar can, at least in principle, teach students to understand content, the overhead and time involved in carrying out the seminars make it inefficient for this purpose. On the other hand, Socratic seminars are often ideal for teaching students content that has them to analyze and evaluate.

As another example, many teachers favor the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model formulated by Pearson and Gallagher to teach students how to complete a task or carry out a strategy.[13, 14, 14] As such, GRR is a powerful method for teaching students at the apply level; however, I would not use it to teach students to understand content. Therefore, I urge those teachers who have traditionally used the GRR model to continue doing so, but also to acquire the necessary tools they will need to deploy in those situations where the GRR model is less effective.

The table below represents my own impressions of the effectiveness of some of the more common instructional methods in relation to the Cognitive Process Dimen-sion levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. This table will likely produce some howls among educators. But, if a teacher has successfully deployed (say) Socratic seminars to deliver apply-level content, then the teacher may want to maintain their choice despite what the table implies. Again, cognitive-powered instruction seeks to avoid issuing dogmatic edicts about what teachers must or must not do during instruction.

Remember Understand Apply EvaluateAnalyze Create

Direct Instruction(Repetition)

Direct Instruction(Explain)

Gradual Releaseof Responsibility

ThinkAlouds

SocraticSeminars

GuidedInquiry

Cognitive Process Dimension

Inst

ruct

iona

l Met

hod

Potentially e�cient and e�ective E�ciency and e�ectiveness uncertainLikely ine�cient or ine�ective


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At this point, we are ready to use the Cognitive Process Dimension of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy to select instructional methods for delivering the lesson plan. Again, we refer to our previous sample lessons.


Previously, we outlined using the Knowledge Dimension of Bloom’s Taxonomy the content we wished for our students to learn during a lesson in which they created metaphors in a sports editorial. To teach this content, the following table outlines the types of thinking will we expect our students to employ. For each thinking type, I have listed an instructional technique that could potentially work well. (Naturally, teachers are free to change the selections to suit their own style.

For example, I would want my students to recall the definition of a metaphor and understand it. Repetition, a direct instruction technique that involves students hearing the definition, writing it, and saying out loud, is often an effective tech-nique for recall-level content. To help them understand the definition, I could use the direct instruction techniques of explaining and modeling, using examples and non-examples to clarify.

We also note that we need our students to evaluate the appropriateness/effectiveness of their own metaphors. The think-aloud is often an effective vehicle for students to learn evaluation techniques. I can use the same technique to respond to the create-level, which corresponds to students creating imagery through the use of metaphor.


As a DOK-4 lesson, our art education sample problem will likely employ a wider range of thinking skills on part of the students, which will, in turn, demand a wider range of instructional strategies on part of the teacher.

The following table outlines some of the instructional techniques we could employ to teach this lesson. For example, to teach students how to understand what is meant by principles of design, I could employ direct instruction, using examples of art-work that help clarify each principle. However, direct instruction would struggle to teach students how to apply these principles in their own artwork. Student-centered approaches likely work best; I have selected guided inquiry as a good candidate. (Notice that by using guided inquiry, we can also help students learn how to create sketches that meet principle-of-design considerations.)


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TechniquesLesson 1 Lesson 2

ContentSelected

Technique ContentSelected

TechniqueRemember Recall definition of

metaphorRecall four types of metaphorRecall definition of figurative language

Direct instruction (repetition)

Recall principles of designRecall definitions of density, mass, volumeRecall 3-D volume formulae

Direct instruction (repetition)

Understand Understand defini-tion of metaphorUnderstand four types of metaphorUnderstand para-graph structure

Direct instruc-tion (elaboration, examples/non-ex-amples)

Understand princi-ples of designUnderstand struc-ture of proposalUnderstand costs and profit.

Direct instruc-tion (elaboration, examples/non-ex-amples)

Apply Write metaphors to describe intend-ed imagery

Gradual Release of Responsibility

Apply principle of design to create sketchApply principles of business law to write proposal

Guided inquiry and think-aloud

Analyze None needed None needed None needed None neededEvaluate Evaluate the

appropriateness/ effectiveness of metaphors

Think-aloud Evaluate sculpture with regard to principle of design and client needs

Think-aloud

Create Create imagery using metaphor

Think-aloud Sketch sculpture Think-aloud


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Questions

1. Can you think of any need for analyze-level of thinking in the art education lesson? If so, which instructional techniques do you think would work effectively?

2. Select one of the proposed instructional techniques and replace it with a tech-nique of your own choosing. Is your own selection better? If so, in which ways?

Exercises

1. Add at least one more instructional technique of your own choosing to the Instruction Selection chart and color the cells accordingly.

2. Describe your own professional development needs to attain the necessary instruc-tional methods needed to teach content across a wide range of thinking types.

bibliograPhy

[1] N.L.Webb,“Depth-of-KnowledgeLevelsforFourContentAreas,”28March2002.[Online].Available:http://tinyurl.com/m8hvz57.

[2] ColoradoProfessionalLearningNetwork,“Depth-of-KnowledgeintheFineArts,”26February2012.[Online].Available:bit.ly/1tfKugJ.

[3] M.Genzuk,“SpeciallyDesignedAcademicInstructioninEnglish(SDAIE)forlanguageminoritystudents,”CenterforMultilingual,MulticulturalResearch,LosAngeles,CA,2011.

[4] K.K.Hess,“ApplyingDepthofKnowledge(DOK)levelsinwriting,”2005.[Online].Available:http://tinyurl.com/m23kzsf.

[5] K.K.Hess,“ApplyingWebb’sDepth-of-Knowledge(DOK)levelsinscience,”2006.[Online].Available:http://tinyurl.com/lpx5os5.

[6] K.K.Hess,“ApplyingWebb’sDepth-of-Knowledge(DOK)levelsinsocialstud-ies,”2005.[Online].Available:http://tinyurl.com/lzkkn42.

[7] K.K.Hess,“ApplyingWebb’sDepth-of-Knowledge(DOK)Levelsinreading,”2004.[Online].Available:http://tinyurl.com/kp39a72.

[8] R.ClarkandL.Chopeta,GraphicsforLearning:ProvenGuidelinesforPlan-ning,Designing,andEvaluatingVisualsinTrainingMaterials,Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer,2004.

[9] R.C.ClarkandR.E.Mayer,E-LearningandtheScienceofInstruction,SanFrancisco,CA:Pfeiffer,2007.

[10] Changingminds,“Socraticquestions,”2012.[Online].Available:bit.ly/1x3CAra.


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[11] B.Bosko,“TheSocraticcircle,”CornDancer,2010.[Online].Available:bit.ly/1pd1eRO.

[12] E.Wilberding,TeachlikeSocrates,Waco,TX:PrufrockPress,2014.[13] P.D.PearsonandM.C.Gallagher,“TheInstructionofReadingComprehension,”

Contemporary Educational Psychology, vol.8,pp.317-344,1983.[14] D.FisherandN.Frey,“Implementingaschoolwideliteracyframework:Improv-

ingachievementinanurbanelementaryschool,”The Reading Teacher, vol.61,pp.32-45,2007.

[15] J.B.BiggsandK.Collis,Evaluatingthequalityoflearning:theSOLOtaxon-omy,NewYork,NY:AcademicPress,1982.

[16] WakeCountyPublicSchools,“Rigorrubric,”30April2009.[Online].Available:bit.ly/1nLolSi.[Accessed15June2014].

[17] PublicSchoolsofNorthCarolina,“Academicallyorintellectuallygifted,”2009.[Online].Available:bit.ly/1n1iQDB.[Accessed15June2014].

[18] D.Clark,“Bloom’staxonomyoflearningdomains,”Bigdog&littledog’sper-formancejuxtaposition,5June1999.[Online].Available:bit.ly/1a2mbIp.[Accessed10July2014].

[19] D.Fisher,“EffectiveuseoftheGradualReleaseofResponsibilitymodel,”McGrawHillEducation,December2008.[Online].Available:bit.ly/1pdMjtJ.

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