Alice Keeler is a very well known presenter, teacher, and technologist. She has a blog post “DOK 0: Reflecting on My Lesson Today” that I found refreshingly honest and important.
In the post, she mentions that she posts the DOK (Depth of Knowledge) on all her posts for her students to see.
Terrific. Letting kids know what they are learning and what level that is helps with metacognition. This is a terrific example of a good teacher doing good teacher work.
Alice Keeler is also reflective. She realized that there was a standard that she hadn’t addressed. So, she addressed it. Here is the important part:
I Did ALL the Talking
That line says so much. Alice Keeler had the right intent (the kids are missing something, I’ll make sure that they don’t). A few more quotes from the post:
What did I ask my students to recall? NOTHING
What did I ask them to figure out? NOTHING
What did I ask them to apply? NOTHINGWhat did my students learn in this lesson? NOTHING. But hey, I checked off the standard.
Really, please go read the whole post, “DOK 0: Reflecting on My Lesson Today”.
Here’s the thing. I’ve seen this process happen so often (but without the all important reflection). I’ve seen teachers working extremely hard. Teachers have poured hours and hours into activities and lessons with the very best intent. Yet, at the end of the lesson, what the students did, processed, and learned was nothing. Students may have mindlessly completed a worksheet, an activity, or even “created” a project, but they didn’t actually learn anything. They weren’t asked to recall. They were asked to “figure out”. They weren’t asked to apply.
I frequently see this with technology. Technology is used to “engage” kids. No recall. No application. No application.
Kudos to Alice Keeler. We should all be as reflective and thoughtful.
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