Puzzling about Rigour & How to Achieve It

6/14/2021

At the end of our round at Burwood PS a lot of us were still puzzling over rigour: Is it a product or a process? How is it distinguished from high expectations? How easy is it for us, as teachers and leaders, to achieve rigour in our classrooms. And if it is quite easy to achieve, why aren't we seeing it?

I do like the Barbara Blackburn books because they contain big ideas written with practical examples that makes you believe that rigour can be quite easily achieved. In "Rigour is Not a Four-Letter Word", Blackburn defines rigour as: Rigor is creating an environment in which each student is expected to learn at high levels, each student is supported so he and she can learn at high level, and each student demonstrates learning at high levels.

That definition seems to me to say that rigour it is both process and product. The video below has a couple of gems. One is her thought about questioning, "It is not enough simple to ask higher order questions. If a teacher asks a higher order question and accepts a lower order answer, that's not rigorous". This really resonated with me. How often in rounds do we try to capture the teacher's level of questioning, without capturing the associated responses? Have we been looking at questioning through too narrow a sense? Is the student answers we should be focusing on more in our observations?

Another puzzle that we discussed during the round is the idea of teachers holding high expectations. Contrary to the Tell Them From Me data, we frequently observe teachers who are demonstrating low expectations. In fact genuinely high expectations are only observed in a minority of classrooms. Why is that? Do we need to change teachers' practices or their fundamental beliefs? Are there simple changes to practice we could encourage teachers to take? Have you tried any of these changes yourself since the round?

Looking forward to seeing your thoughts and ideas as you respond to my starter, and then to each other. And I'm hoping for rigorous thinking ...... but how will I know when I see it?

Barbara

3 Comments

Nicki T

6/24/2021 09:07:33 pm

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and the clip as well. My copy of Barbara Blackburn's book is on it's way!! The comment that it is not just asking the higher order question, but expecting the higher order answer (and not a lower order one) also resonated with me....she also mentions the role of the teacher in providing the right support to enable students to do so. This again raises questions around scaffolding and ensuring the right amount of scaffolding - appropriately dismantled at the right time to hand over responsibility to the student.

I think I am now quite finely tuned to the word 'rigour' - noting when it pops up in reading or conversations. At a conference earlier this week a reference was made to 'playful rigour'. I thought I wrote down the source in my notes, but can't find it now. Googling it seems to refer to a fashion week comment?!? but I came across another article in The Times Higher Ed section that shared some similar ponderings about rigour: why isn't rigour recognised more broadly as 'a playful adventure'? In this article, rigour is defined as: 'a thorough intellectual exploration of new information, concepts and ideas, with equitable consideration of multiple and even opposing perspectives. This rigour of deep learning appeals to intrinsic motivation, embracing enquiry, analysis, synthesis, application, practice and reflection.' It is an article written by a university (college) teacher, but I like his suggestion of 'playful rigour' based on 'student-centred practices that can be pedagogically complex, requiring skilful attention to the art of teaching. Adaptive expertise yet again?

6/24/2021 09:14:20 pm

Sorry should have posted link to article I mentioned: 'Academic are promoting the wrong type of rigour' by Gregory Skutches (21 Jan 2021) https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/academics-are-promoting-wrong-kind-rigour

Angie Kim

8/23/2021 11:54:38 am

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and this video from Barbara Blackburn. as with Nicky and Barbara, I also resonated with the quote about higher-order questions and low-level answers.

It reminded me of the high expectations section of our reading 'Rigor: Is not a four-letter word'. To be an effective questioner, we need the skill of listening to know how to respond, and we need the finesse to 'send the ball back' so that our students perceive learning as a dialogue. Quality questioning is about effectively using higher-level questions as well as listening and responding appropriately to all types of answers.

We often focus on what's next during collaborative planning time before we review/evaluate past programs and resources. It would be beneficial and worthwhile to look through past lessons, tests and student work samples together and determine ways to increase the rigour and if those tasks were rigorous enough. This way, we can create more meaningful learning experiences for students.

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Puzzling about Rigour & How to Achieve It

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