Engaging Students through Rigorous Lessons

Pathway Overview

Rigor is a term that is widely used in education to set expectations, describe curriculum, define assessments, and make judgements about the type of opportunities students’ should be afforded. But what does rigor mean, why is it important, what role does it play in student engagement, and how do we support all students in achieving success with rigorous lessons? These are the questions that will be explored in this course. 

In this course participants will work answer the questions: 

• What is rigor? 

• Why is rigor important in learning? 

• How can rigor be determined? 

In your exploration you will examine Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, Webb’s Depth of Knowledge, and Hess’s Cognitive Rigor Matrix and will then examine sample lessons to practice evaluating the level of rigor in a classroom lesson.

Then,  you will address the question of how we can help all students achieve success in rigorous lessons. One strategy that can be used at all grade levels and in any content area is scaffolding. Scaffolding is not about making the lesson ‘easier’ for students, or to lessen expectations for students. Rather, it is a way to provide temporary appropriate support for success, as needed, through structures, tools, and choices that allow students to engage with rigorous learning in an equitable manner. We will look at specific strategies for scaffolding along with examining ways to ensure that we are not over scaffolding for our students and we will  focus on scaffolding as an asset-based approach to support

Learning Objectives

• Objective 1: Participants will be able to explain the importance of providing all students with rigorous learning opportunities. 

• Objective 2: Participants will be able to evaluate and determine the level of rigor in classroom lessons. 

• Objective 3: Participants will be able to focus on creating a space that is ready for rigor for all students by attending to the necessity to understand and make the connections between a culturally responsive teaching and learning and rigor.

• Objective 4: Participants will be able to develop and implement appropriate ‘just-in-case’ scaffolds that can be used to support all students in achieving success in rigorous lessons while maintaining the intended expectations of the rigor. 

• Objective 5: Participants will be able to examine areas for change within their own practice that will allow for increased levels of rigor to be applied to their lessons. 

• Objective 6: Participants will be able to design, develop, and implement lessons that will increase student engagement through rigorous lessons.