Overview:
In recent years, there has been a push in districts to embrace the deeper learning movement as a way to close post-pandemic learning gaps. Schools are trying to mix deeper learning principles with culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies to increase rigor in the classroom through high-quality instructional materials and teacher infusion of rigor into their lesson design.
For the culturally responsive elements, districts look to The New York Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Framework (2018). It was designed to give guidance on how to create student-centered learning environments that affirm racial, linguistic and cultural identities; prepare students for rigor and independent learning; develop students’ abilities to connect across lines of difference; elevate historically marginalized voices; and empower students as agents of social change.
We often assume that if we affirm students’ linguistic, racial, and cultural identities, give them greater voice and choice, and address microaggressions through implicit bias training, then students will feel psychologically safe to lean into rigorous instruction.
Student achievement data tells us a different story. Our students still are not reaching the higher levels of Webb’s Depth of Knowledge tasks without teachers’ over-scaffolding. That's why the Hess Cognitive Rigor Matrix has become popular.
Implementation of the Hess Cognitive Rigor Matrices typically focuses on teachers, not students. It is aimed at lesson design that helps teachers think about who is carrying the cognitive demand during instruction and performance tasks.
That approach still doesn’t address how to improve students’ ability to do more of the heavy cognitive lifting during instruction and engage in productive struggle in ways that grow their brain power. Teaching and learning is a partnership between students and teachers, with students being the primary actors.
The Hess Cognitive Rigor Matrix and its focus on more rigorous lesson design and instruction are necessary but alone insufficient to move students from dependent learning in compliance-based classrooms toward cognitively independent learning in classrooms with structures, routines, and protocols for deep learning.
How do we help teachers build student capacity to take on more rigor during instruction as teachers integrate more Hess Cognitive Rigor Matrix components? How do we get students “ready for rigor”? We cannot ignore the need to build students’ learning capacity. We have to build the right classroom conditions, use feedback and formative assessments in more culturally responsive ways, and help teachers learn to coach students through a cognitive apprenticeship.
Unfortunately, too many efforts to address this challenge are designed around one-off professional development workshops focused on giving teachers individual engagement strategies or critical thinking activities associated with rigor rather than building a system of structures and instructional routines that provides a path for continuous improvement for the student as he moves from grade to grade.
Building teacher and student capacity to shift the cognitive load requires instructional leaders to have a game plan, a theory of change to begin making important shifts and know how to integrate culturally responsive pedagogies. In the Ready for RigorTM Masterclass series, this is the content we cover.
The masterclass format isn’t intended to provide a full-on implementation process, but instead to help instructional leaders get clear on what the core building blocks should be with regard to structures, routines, and processes that help shift teacher practice and mindset so they are better equipped to coach students to improve their readiness to take on more rigorous instruction.
Masterclass Series Information
The instructional leaders’ masterclass series consists of four (4) virtual sessions. Each session will consist of inputs from Ms. Hammond, discussion with colleagues that apply the information to their context and problems of practice, and on-the-spot coaching from 2-3 volunteer participants.
Outcomes:
Instructional leaders (principals and assistant principals) will complete the series with:
● An understanding of three (3) key shifts within the instructional core necessary level-up rigor as laid out in the Hess Rigor Matrix.
● Techniques to cultivate four (4) essential warm demander moves to coach dependent learners prepared to engage in productive struggle based on the intersection of the Ready for RigorTM frame and the Hess Rigor Matrix
● A set of change management tools to begin shifting teaching culture and practice
● A rubric of look-for’s associated with evidence students are able to carry more of the cognitive load
● Their individual roadmap for moving from current conditions toward more favorable conditions for making changes stick
Meeting Venue: Virtual meetings take place over Zoom. Private discussion space on Circle platform. Here is a brief look inside that community
Dates: Tuesdays at 9:00-10:30am, Eastern Time. September 10- October 1, 2024.
Session Topics:
● Session 1: Instructional Leadership for Instructional Equity
○ Examine the gaps and the connections between the Hess Cognitive Rigor Matrix and its focus on teaching and a culturally responsive pedagogical focus on student learning to understand how students level up their learning.
○ Recognize the small, high-leverage moves that create the most change in teacher practice.
○ Examine the implications for instructional leadership and create a working theory of change.
● Session 2: Building Teacher Capacity to Coach Students into Cognitive Rigor
○ Understand the components of the practice of being the warm demander for students’ cognitive development.
○ Review ways to help teachers cultivate the four (4) essential warm demander moves.
○ Process to improve teacher capacity to coach dependent learners so they are prepared to engage in productive struggle at the core of cognitive rigor.
● Session 3: Building a Culture of Errors and System of Feedback Loops
○ Review why it is critical to the success of rigorous instruction to create robust and consistent formative assessment practices at the classroom level.
○ Identify misalignment between current practices and evidence-based uses of feedback loops and formative assessment within a culture of errors in the classroom.
○ Supporting teachers to make shifts in how and when they give feedback to the student.
● Session 4: Managing the Human Side of School Change
○ Developing the social-emotional dimensions of your theory of change. Understand how change happens.
○ Creating the conditions for change to take hold.
○ Leveraging collective efficacy among teachers with inquiry processes.
