Boy did I make a lot of obvious mistakes when implementing Depth and Complexity. In this series, I'm breaking down worksheets I used and re-writing them to improve my use of Depth and Complexity.
Here's the most common mistake I've seen in implementing Depth and Complexity. And I made it too!
These common Depth and Complexity handouts are packed with questions that don't even make sense!
I stopped and started with “What 👄 special writing techniques does the author use? List examples.”
All I did was ask students to list and explain three “disciplines.” Let’s take it a bit further!
It seems obvious, but if someone tells me what they’re wondering about, I shouldn’t move on to another topic!
“Define these 👄 terms in your own words” may contain depth and complexity… but it’s neither deep nor complex!
Yes, I actually gave my students this question: “How could two experts’ 👓 perspectives regarding information from this reading selection differ from one another?” yikes.
Here’s a task that I dug off of an old laptop: Describe a character or situation that ⏳ changed over time. Give examples from the story to prove it. Yeah. There’s a lot of work to be done here! Revise for Clarity First, the question is just poorly written. It’s a rough draft. I’ll revise […]
Here’s an example of a question I asked my students: ⚖️ What moral or ethical issues are raised in this book? What controversies exist? Now, the first problem is that this question is way too wordy. I often gave my class rough drafts of questions. Nowadays, I want to make sure to proofread, revise, and […]
Here’s a Depth and Complexity question I found on an old worksheet: What title would you give this chapter? Explain why your title fits the chapter’s 🏛️ Big Idea. Sure, I’m using Depth and Complexity. But how am I asking students to think? Bloom’s Taxonomy is much more important than Depth and Complexity. (And it’s not […]
Here’s another question from a worksheet I used to use: Do you notice any 🌀 patterns in this book? And then the next question moved on to another topic. Do you notice any 🌀 patterns in this book? Were there any ⚖️ ethical issues? What was the 🏛️ big idea? I was leaving so much […]
I used a Depth and Complexity Frame like this with my math students. Let’s look at how we could improve this. Some problems: It asks four unrelated questions. I want to build a sequence of questions that climbs Bloom’s Taxonomy. Most of the questions are naturally answered with “yes” or “no” or a list. Questions […]