Defining Rigor in the Context of My Classroom

An individual reflection on defining rigor by Caitlin Westling a candidate for

Masters of Science and Education at

Johns Hopkins University graduating class of 2022

defining rigor from the perspective of a second grade

teacher in Oklahoma city Oklahoma at Cassidy school,

a private school.

Mhm.

How would you define rigor in rigorous classrooms? Why

defining rigor goes beyond just increasing

the difficulty of an assignment or assess

an assessment? A common misconception of many educators, including myself,

I believe that rigorous instruction is a multifaceted concept in which

educators are responsible for equipping our students with the mindsets,

skills and tools to manipulate their learning experience and ultimately

make lasting connections between their learning and their real world experiences

by establishing,

communicating and upholding high expectations

for students via classroom procedures.

Students are being prepared to engage in rigorous

social and academic opportunities for growth and learning.

Additionally,

the implementation of rigor requires that students

use both the prefrontal cortex of the brain

to access critical thinking skills while also engaging

the frontal cortex to hone their creativity.

A concept

communicated by understanding how the brain thinks

by engaging in whole brain learning,

students are equipped to not only

engage but create their own learning opportunities

in analyzing and synthesizing rigor from the perspective of an educator.

I think it is valuable to include the concept of relevance,

relevance and rigor, being assimilation, adaptation,

acquisition and application of content.

The elements of a rigorous classroom

based on various course readings and media is provided.

I define the elements of the rigorous classroom as

students demonstrate and or develop their own learning and engagement

tasks that incorporate various aspects of design and creativity.

Learning tasks support various methods and

ways of approaching and defining problems.

I also believe that students should be able to develop

and respond to rigorous inquiry opportunities to extend their learning.

In doing so. Students understand and apply inquiry based reasoning.

Students should also be able to drive discourse with

evidence and opinion based dialogue using grade level vocabulary.

Students should be able to make valuable connections

between their academic opportunities and real world opportunities.

Students should be able to think critically in multidisciplinary ways to

form lasting and relevant opportunities

for their personal aspirations and endeavors

In doing so. Students

engage in self monitoring to modify and or organize and adjust their focus.

This was derived from the International Center for Leadership and Education

rigor and relevance rubrics

evidence of personal rigor

in the context of my classroom,

I uphold my students to high

rigorous standards by implementing various student discourse

strategies and differentiated work that is scaffolding

to support the development of each student

according to Carlson.

A common misconception is that there's only one

concrete pathway to find one concrete answer.

However,

by providing students with differentiated opportunities

to engage in rigorous work,

we are scaffolding content material to further support the

idea that with creativity No problem is out of reach

and reflection on the video provided.

Direct instruction is provided to preface the unit for each student.

This provides each student with an equitable access point to the unit that

includes that includes rigorous vocabulary and

high expectations for discourse and engagement

to include to conclude this lesson,

each student was provided with meaningful and differentiated

opportunities to build their awareness of financial literacy.

Okay,

here here,

mm hmm.

They're in the middle of our table with our water bottles

and committing a distraction to us for our classrooms and learning right now.

So we're gonna get started with economics and this isn't

going to be a part of our social studies lessons.

And this is an extension of what you guys were working on with MS Kendall, Right?

So it just kind of class across the hall,

some of the concepts that you have been exploring

inside your social studies of our producers and consumers.

Some of you have even talked about you guys services.

So we're going to continue to talk about about here

today and make connections both to text self and world,

some of R E L A skills that have been on

this.

So you're gonna go ahead and look after me. We're gonna put our mirrors at this point.

Everything I say that

I would be able to explain the

basic economic context,

the role

of individual choice

in an economy.

A concept of whole brain learning is communicating, expect expectations,

standards and skills to students in student friendly ways,

pants That sounded like a bunch of mumbo jumbo.

Yeah, yeah, mumbo jumbo was like crazy stuff,

you don't really exactly understand what it means

is that we haven't learned yet.

So today we're gonna focus on a few words in that sentence.

Our focus skill is to explain, go ahead and

I will explain basic concept

of economics. Is that a little bit easier to understand? Yes,

that's what we're gonna be doing today for this lesson.

So let's get

right into it versus services.

Come with my boyfriend.

I think that's what we've been talking about.

Okay, so they could be baking for someone,

maybe they could be getting someone's groceries for them.

So I'm gonna give you an example and I want you to see if

you guys know what I'll be thinking of what service I'm thinking of.

So, you know, I'm getting married in a couple of weeks right about my wedding dress,

My wedding dress was too big.

So I took my wedding dress right down the road from here

to get it altered,

altered. What is that service called? When I'm getting the dress altered, Nisha.

So they're stitching my dress for me.

Does anyone know the name of that person, what their profession is called?

What do you think? Taylor, right, that is a service,

they're producing it for

getting that job done. They're not making my shirt,

I'm bringing them my product or

requesting

for them to do a service for me. They're not making

it from scratch and instead they're fixing

the shirt.

So it's a service

versus a good

is something that is being produced. So a good

example of crops, a farmer is harvesting crops and they can be harvesting,

understand what

do you think?

Right

strategies for implementation? According to thinking maps.

It is necessary to prepare students for increasing and maintaining

rigorous standards by equipping them with fundamental skills and tools,

including vocabulary, classroom procedures, accessible tasks,

consistent inquiry opportunities.

Additionally,

encouraging students to persevere for mistakes and understand that

mistakes are a vital part of the learning process,

consistently communicating and encouraging students that

feedback as a result of mistakes,

identifies misconceptions in the development of schools and concepts and

further allows students to extend their critical thinking skills.

The International Center for Leadership and Education defines

well developed on rigor and relevance rubrics by defining

the means of creativity.

Students are encouraged to not only engage but developed

their own tasks and questions to demonstrate their understanding.

The guidelines for principles for increasing rigor are

easily communicated not only to the educator,

but also the student one make learning

accessible to encourage learning from mistakes.

Three,

inspired creativity four help build

conceptual understanding and five facilitate transference

principles for rigor,

truly rigorous instruction empowers students

to anticipate and overcome challenges

as an educator.

I believe it is necessary as the role of the

teacher to model share guide and apply learning for students.

The students participate in classroom instruction in

during independent work time by actively attending to

the demonstrations performed during the I do we do you do portion of a lesson.

I communicate the cycle of rigorous learning to students

through the five steps.

One, I'm excited to learn something new

too. I'm not afraid to fail

three, I think creatively

four, I understand why and five I see the big picture.

It is necessary for students to understand the cycle of

of rigorous learning and be able to communicate the steps for doing so

by preparing our students and empowering them.

They are able to anticipate and overcome the challenges as stated before

to prepare themselves to follow the pathways they've set

in their education and in their personal lives.

Defining Rigor in the Context of My Classroom

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