Deep, Not Wide

For anyone who really knows me knows that I love to think in song. This means that if something is said that sparks a song in my head, that's what I will relate it to from that moment forward. Example...

As a young girl, I can remember singing a song at Sunday School that went something like this:
Deep and wide, deep and wide, there's a fountain flowing deep and wide...

Now, many years later, as an educator that song has turned into this:
Deep, not wide, deep, not wide, we need to take student learning deep, not wide...

Across our country, educators have been talking about making lifelong learners, career-ready individuals, students with a purpose-driven education, etc. for years! This is not a NEW concept, just one that seems to be at the forefront or under the microscope right now. I know my elementary teachers wanted the best for me -- it didn't take No Child Left Behind to get teachers to wants their students to be successful, that's for sure! But whatever the reason may be, there is now a (good) focus on the depth of our students' knowledge. We have started to really pay more attention to the "why" and "how" instead of just the "what". (Note: I'm sure there were many teachers years ago already doing this, but now it has been brought to the forefront by departments, districts, researchers, and the media).

I went through college learning all about Bloom's Taxonomy. I remember having to build lesson plans that demonstrated different leveled questions focused especially on those special verbs. Oh, those verbs!! They were so helpful in aiding me in my creation of higher-order activities and student expectations. However, DOK is NOT the same as Bloom's. To the best of my current knowledge on Depth of Knowledge (did ya like that??) it is more about the rigor and complexity of a task than it is the verb. I saw a great example the other day that used the verb "Describe" at all 4 DOK levels. So it's NOT a verb thing!

I also found out that DOK is based on the current research of a man named Dr. Norman Webb out of the University of Wisconsin. Did you catch that? CURRENT!! That's always comforting to me that someone is doing current research, sharing the most current findings, and helping support me in this current state of education.

Now, this can be a lot for teachers to take on and try to understand. Trust me! The first time I looked this stuff over I was O-VER-WHELMED!! I thought, there's no way I understand this and then can expect teachers to be understanding this and implementing it if I can't even catch on! I didn't want it to be just one more thing for anyone that I work with. So I decided to do some research. Now, I don't always do extensive research on topics - sometimes I rely on good ol' Pinterest and Google to point me in the right direction (using Laymen's terminology that I can completely understand). That's when I realized there is a plethora of educators out there trying to make sense of DOK. I have found some very intensive and detailed materials for teachers AND students - some of which I think are valuable, other ones are over-the-top and not really necessary.

Below, I have linked a few items that have been worth my time so far. My hope is that others would use these links to better their understanding of DOK and then not stop there! If I've learned one thing from Webb's DOK, it's this: it's one thing to understand something, it's another thing to apply it and make new meaning out of it. So here you go!

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