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Erik Francis says kids remember experiences, not stuff
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Introduction and Podcast Overview
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Welcome to the Learner Centered Spaces podcast where we empower and inspire ownership of learning. Sponsored by Mastery Portfolio, hosted by Starr Saxton and Crystal Frommert.
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In each episode, we will bring you engaging conversations with a wide variety of educators, both in and out of the classroom. This podcast is created for educators who want to learn more about how to make the shift toward learner-centered spaces for their students, schools, and districts, or education at large. The Learner-Centered Spaces podcast is a member of the Teach Better podcast network.
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Get ready
Featuring Eric Francis: Cognitive Rigor and DOK
00:00:41
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to be inspired as we dive right into the conversation with today's guest. We are very excited to have Eric Francis on our show
00:01:13
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that's a good question, how to promote cognitive rigor through classroom questioning. Eric is the owner of Maverick Education, providing professional development, guidance and support on how to plan and provide teaching and learning experiences that are standards driven and student supportive.
00:01:31
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He has also consistently ranked one of the world's top 30 education professionals by the International Research Organization, Global are so happy to have Eric with us today. Thank you. Thank you for having me and thank you for allowing me to appear on this forum to share some ideas with you guys.
00:01:55
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Thanks so much, Eric. So if you could tell us something about a defining educational moment in your journey so far that puts you on the path that you're on, we'd love to hear about it. Well, I think the most transformative moment in my education journey is when I went to a professional development conference that used to be put on by a staff development for educators, the SDE conference.
00:02:21
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on differentiating instruction in Vegas. I was not really familiar with differentiation and I went to this conference and the joke I always like to say is that the conference was so good that I went to every session in Vegas, didn't skip out on anything.
00:02:37
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That's where I first saw ah Rick Warmley, who has become a mentor and a friend. I was introduced to the work of Carolyn Coyle, and a lot of their work was about creating these authentic, student-centered experiences, drawing upon the multiple intelligences, which I'm a very, very big proponent of and fan of, even though people say it's a theory. but well, soul cells and evolution, right? And ah really that was transformative. The other one would be when I was first introduced to the concept and framework of depth of knowledge, DOK, as part of my common core training, um I was really fascinated by this concept that it really was about looking beyond the verb.
Supporting Student Learning with DOK Levels
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But as we've come to learn that wheel we were given a DOK wheel was completely inaccurate and that Norman Webb didn't create that.
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So I've really spent the last part of my 12 years establishing myself um as an authority on depth of knowledge, DOK, and also um doing some innovative things that really is ah become the ah core of why I do how I do what I do. And that's why I'm also so really appreciative of being on here because the whole thing I talk about with DOK, it's not about what the teachers are doing, but it's about how are the students comprehending, communicating their learning. It's not about evaluating teachers. It's about observing and and supporting students in their learning journey. That's super interesting, Eric. And I was wondering, like, we usually go into, you know, what does a learner-centered space look like, feel like, sound like. But what I'm really curious about is how does your work with depth of knowledge
00:04:20
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facilitate a more learner centered space. You know, it's great you asked that star because that's actually the the core and crux of what I do is that what I say is, DOK one is teacher led. It is top down, teacher led, and the students are just listening and learning. And and I compare it to if you ever seen a real quote, let's make a DOK, it's like a game show.
00:04:42
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where the host is the star of the show, and the students are the contestants. And actually, if you think about it, a traditional classroom looks like that. They sit at their desks, which are podiums, and the teacher's up front at a podium themselves and just asking questions or giving information, and the kids are either regurgitating it back.
00:05:01
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So, DOK1 is very teacher-led, but the minute you start to go into the deeper DOK levels, that's where it becomes more learner-centered. I like to compare DOK2 as if the students were producing their own ah DIY show, do-it-yourself show. In fact, I show an example of um Bob Ross doing Joy of Painting or Rachael Ray on 30-Minute Meals and how they're explaining how they did something, how the kids are communicating it.
00:05:29
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than a deal K three is where it's more like a skills based reality show or even a panel discussion. So think of a TV show like Lego Masters, where you give the kids a goal, you give them expectations, you give them criteria, you have 30 minutes to do this, here are your Legos, how could you do it? Or Top Chef, you have to make a taco bar, here's your ingredients, how could you do it? And the kids are doing it, and the teacher is facilitating the experience. In the deal K2, they're guiding with questions saying, how'd you do that? What are you doing there? Why'd you do it that way?
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But at DOK3, you're facilitating or you're on a panel discussion, um much like ah Meet the Press or Fox NFL Sunday. You throw out a question and all the experts talk. And a DOK4 is like a business TV experience, something like Kitchen Nightmares, where you're called in to with your expertise to go and address a situation. or you're on The Apprentice with Martha Stewart, just want to make sure I make that clear, um that you're given this task that you're supposed to take the lead on, or you're on Shark Tank, you do something innovative. So what I also try to tell teachers is the deeper the DOK level that you go with your instruction, the less you will teach and the more the students will be active and engaged in their learning,
00:06:46
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And they're actually not just engaged in terms of they're busy or they're doing learning, but they're engaged in which they're demonstrating and communicating either orally or written through the written language the depth and extent of what they're learning.
Applying DOK in Writing and Communication
00:07:02
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Thank you for sharing that. and your're you' Books and your research is so interesting on on questioning, and I can see very easily how this connects to a classroom discussion, like a Harkness style, or um you know some activities that are done verbally in class. Can you share how DOK might apply to some written assessments in class?
00:07:26
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Most definitely. So everything I always say is that the thing about the OK, it's not about deeper thinking. That's why you know I also say it's about deeper teaching and learning. um It's not also about cognition or content. It's about context and communication. So to really have the kids comprehend and communicate their learning at deeper DOK levels, they have to either what I say is explain or express which is a DOK2 with examples, justify or verify bait with evidence or conclude, consider critique based on evidence, which is a DOK3, and explore and extend over an extended period or for an extended purpose, that's a DOK4. So when you're talking about writing, you want the students to be able to either explain or express their opinion with examples
00:08:19
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or justify and verify with evidence and conclude, consider critique based on evidence or explore and extend over an extended period for an extended purpose. And writing is a key part of that. When I provide my professional learning and my guidance support, I say the true measure of learning is not whether you can do it, but whether you can explain it to someone else. You can justify or verify why this is accurate or inaccurate. You can consider ah conclude, consider critique, ah different alternatives, actions, arguments, answers, and you can explore and extend in a way that you bring it in and you explain it or justify it to someone else. So writing is a huge part. In fact,
00:09:03
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call it depth of knowledge I think has kind of been a misnomer because it's not really about depth of knowledge. It's not about how deeply you know it. It's about depth of understanding and extent of communication. What exactly and how deeply must students comprehend and communicate their learning? And when they do that, what does that look like? What does that sound like? And what does that feel like? The verb alone can't tell us that. That's why with depth of knowledge, we need to look beyond the verb And in fact, even beyond the nouns that name the concepts and content at the descriptors, the modifiers that describe the depth and extent of the context in which students must comprehend and communicate their knowledge in thinking or learning.
00:09:49
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When I was researching for this episode and looking at your work online, I noticed that you have some really great printable graphics that um or or serve as sort of cheat sheets on the type of questioning, the depth that you can go in and that I think that I would find useful as an educator and also other educators I think would find useful to maybe have that at hand on your desk.
00:10:13
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um So my my question follows that of what advice besides, you know, maybe looking at your materials online, obviously getting your books, but what advice would you have for an educator who's just starting to go down this path of deeper communication and deeper expression of students understanding? You know, I'm glad you asked that because that's really been a very big crux of my work lately with DOK, which is I'm talking about DOK lately, not only as a concept and a framework, but a language. And what does that look like, sound like, and feel like to comprehend and communicate your learning at a certain level of depth of knowledge?
00:10:55
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So what I would suggest to teachers, especially new teachers is that, because one of the things that's really interesting and what I'm finding is that the the teacher programs in college are not focusing on the standards and emphasizing the standards as much as they should. um we're still They're still being taught about you know history of education, which is great, and the theories of education like constructivist and progressiveness at pro progressivist and traditionalist, which is fine.
00:11:23
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But we really need to look at that standard and we really need to look at that standard and ask ourselves, OK, so this is what the kids have to do. This is what it means to demonstrate proficiency in this grade level, um in this subject with this content. Now, for them to do that, what does that look like, sound like and feel like?
Grading and Student Involvement
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How do I really know that they they learned it?
00:11:47
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Just doing it is not enough anymore. I mean, we can get our answers off Google. We now can have our answers explained to us by AI. how do I really know that student has learned it? And what I'm finding is, is that the communication part is very essential. I was just with a couple of schools um in a state where I'm working and I was going into classroom and the the kids were doing math while the teacher was either lecturing or, um which was not very ah learner centered,
00:12:20
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Or the teacher was working with a group of kids in the back and the other kids were just working on something. And I would say, well, what are you learning? And they would explain to me what math they were doing. And I said, well, how do you do this? And they explained to me how they did it. But what was really interesting was that they were all doing the math right, but their answers were not correct because they were skipping one step.
00:12:42
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So what I really recommend and suggest, like I like to say, I make suggestions, you make decisions. That's ah a line from a Peloton instructor. um What I really suggest is don't just um grade for correctness or don't just evaluate for correctness. Use communication. And that is essential. I really think that's the true measure of learning. I also really think that's the balance of assessment because getting 25 items correct on it on a worksheet or a test You either had a good day or a bad day or those were good items or bad items. How do I really know that they learned it? And that's even really essential when we work with gifted children because gifted children struggle to communicate how why they know how they know what they know.
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And when I work with with gifted teachers, they all want to go to a DOK-4 and I say, no, the kids are already there because DOK-4 is divergent thinking. It's extended thinking and reasoning. The kids are already there and a DOK-1 they can do because they can just give you the answer. It doesn't matter how complex or hard it is, but how can they explain how they know what they know? How can they justify why they're accurate and accurate?
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So I guess in to summarize it up after a long speech like that, um I would say you ask yourself what exactly and how deeply is that standard, demand the students to understand user learning, and not what do they have to do to get there, but what does that look like, sound like, and feel like that the student did that? What's the visible learning, you know, the site John Hattie, how do I really know that they really got it and they can take it with them and they can take it in consideration and transfer it in other contexts. Thank you for sharing that.
00:14:28
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i I'm gonna pose ah a challenge to you a little bit. So I'm a teacher at a somewhat traditional school. We have traditional grades, pencil, paper, tests, quizzes, right? We'd like a lot of schools still do. um And I'm totally on board with everything that you're saying, but here's here's my pushback a little bit. And I would love to hear what suggestion you might have for it is some students and maybe their parents might come back and say,
00:14:57
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You know, how does my child prepare for your test if you are assessing in this way, if you're looking for them to communicate, you know, that they understand because it might be difficult for me to put that into some sort of structure for.
00:15:11
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a student or parent understand how that translates to a number grade? Not that I agree with them, right? But I know that's reality that many educators face, that they want, and we are in a very grades obsessed world, and they want to know how do I get that A. So what what feedback or suggestions would you have for an educator who's in that kind of spot?
00:15:34
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You know, that's a really good question and that's something I know we really face. um What I look at it is that what what is a teacher doing to create an experience for that child to remember? I like to say kids don't remember stuff. They remember experiences.
00:15:55
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And that's what they take with them. I mean, you when you have an experience, that's what the memory retention is. And when you're doing communication and when you're using communication to communicate the depth and extent of your learning, you're creating an experience. You're creating a trigger to transfer, as I like to call it. um Because the experience, the learning experience is not that you're just doing it,
00:16:21
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is that you're explaining how you're doing it. You're justifying why you're correct and incorrect. What I used to do is I used to assess and grade much like the AP exams do for English language and English literature, which I thought was fascinating that when you have that scoring guide, and I look at, I don't call it rubrics, I call it scoring guides, which is actually what the old six traits writing used to be, should have been, and what it was supposed to be was that this is not your grade, this is what you're doing right now, and here you we need to go next.
00:16:52
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um the The big thing is is that I would look at not just only the accuracy of the response, but also the quality of the response. And what the AP exams do for writing is that It's on a nine point scale and everybody starts out at a five, which means that we're presuming you gave an ah you know unexpected response. But what was the quality? How deep did you go with that response? Were you able to communicate it clearly? you know Not just you know nitpicking about you know you didn't put a comma here or you spelled this wrong. Are you looking at it holistically? Are they able to explain or justify or extend why they know how they know what they know?
00:17:31
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And I also suggest, and I used to do this as a teacher, is that when I give you a test on a day, and I call tests basically, did you get it? That's what it tells me. Did you get what I taught you? But an assessment tells me where you are in your learning. And if I can counter the explanation or the justification with how you did that day,
00:17:53
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to say, look, you know it, but what happened that day? What's with these items? You know, are these good items or bad items? How closely did they address and assess the goal and expectation of the standard? Can I balance it out for instructional purpose and for driving my decisions? That's the way I look at it. The other thing is, is when I was a teacher, I would have my kids actually choose their grade. I would say, you know, is this your answer? And they say, yes. Is this your final answer? Yes. Is this your A answer?
00:18:22
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Well, they think so. And I said, well, what do you think I think it is? Because what kids need to understand is that grades are not about them. Grades are about showing others what exactly and how deeply they can use their learning. So it's almost like they're they're they're caring to give their very best to paraphrase that that old commercial adage. And Can you encourage them to say, by saying, do you want an A? Yes, well, why don't you look at this and try this and and think about adding this, but it's up to you. Because right now, you have a C. What does C mean? It's correct, and I can get it off a computer. But do you want that A? That A should be something that said you did it perfectly, that you you put in the effort for it. you You really invested yourself in it. You created this exemplary document that is that A.
00:19:10
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And you put that on the student. And I used to do that with the kids too. um I was an English teacher, like you start, my my papers used to bleed red. And I realized I spent my weekends grading, not grading, but revising and editing for my kids. And they would do the same thing. They'd look at the last page and say, cool, I passed or oh no, I failed. And it went in the same place, the garbage. So what I just did was I started using a scoring guide and said, everyone starts with a five based upon equality. You went up or went down from that five on a nine point scale.
00:19:40
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And I put the score, and the kids would say, well, why'd I get that? And I'd arrange for that. I'd say, you know, you want to know, make a time with me to talk about it. And we would sit and talk and have writing ah sessions and writing meetings. And I'd say, what do you mean by this? Is that what you're saying here? Here's a post-it. How would you say it clearly? And then I would say, OK, because you came and saw me and you fixed your mistakes, I'll give you a 0.5 higher. But if you redo it for me tonight, I'll give you one point higher. So if they got a 6, I give them a 6.5. If they redo it, it's a 7.
00:20:10
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In hindsight, I should just give them a perfect score because they learned and they basically, you know, really ah took away the learning because that's what I realized. I realized the kids cared about their alert their grades and the parents cared about their grades. But um we as teachers, we care about their learning.
Resources and Closing Remarks
00:20:29
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So we should put the choice in them and say, hey, is this the grade you want? Do you want to do better and give them that opportunity to do better?
00:20:38
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These are such fantastic suggestions. And like you said, I hope that teachers take these suggestions and make decisions based off of them. And um you just have such good materials out there. So where could our listeners find more about you online? ah You can go to my web page. It's www.maverick, M-A-V-E-R-I-K, no seeing maverick, ah M-A-V-E-R-I-K, education dot.com. It's a play off my name.
00:21:07
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um And my daughter's name's Madison Avery and Amanda, and I'm also a child of the 80s. So, you know, I am a fan of Top Gun. So, you know, when I go to conferences and people forget my name and they call me Maverick, my inner 16-year-old, you know, feels really, you know, satisfied and complemented by that. So, www.maverick, M-A-V-E-R-I-K, education dot.com.
00:21:27
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um I have a bunch of resources on there. I have a whole page about why we need to rethink depth of knowledge um with accurate resources. It links to not only my work, but also the work of Karen Hess and Norman Webb who created it. There's documents on there. And I also encourage invite encourage people, I actually turn my work into an AI assistant um that's in beta form and you can use for free for now. um It's called Maverick Education AI.
00:21:54
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And you can access it there on that ah page. So if you go to Maverick Education AI, you click on the link, it'll take you to the signup page. You can determine the DOK level of your standards. You can create assessments. You can create lessons, activities, units. It'll give you accommodations if you ask it. If you say, um I have four students with IEPs in my class, what accommodations could I provide to so they can achieve the standard at the DOK level? It'll do it. You can say, my students are struggling.
00:22:22
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to achieve this standards, DOK level, what supports can I give them? It'll RTI it for you. So again, www.maverick, M-A-V-E-R-I-K, education dot.com. um You can access the AI there, maverickeducation.ai. And on Twitter or X or whatever they're calling it these days, I'm at maverick, M-A-V-E-R-I-K, E-D-U-1-2. Fantastic. I'm going to put all of those links in the show notes for our listeners.
00:22:50
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And we definitely appreciate your time and your wonderful suggestions today, Eric. Thank you. And thank you for having me on here. And um you know Star, you know I'm a fan of your work and you know I'm a fan of what you do. So I really appreciate you having me on here as well. Thank you.
00:23:07
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We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. If you'd like any additional information from the show, check out the show notes. Learn more about Mastery Portfolio and how we support schools at masteryportfolio dot.com. You can follow us on X at MasteryForAll and LinkedIn in our Mastery Portfolio page. We'd love for you to engage with us. If you'd like to be a guest in the show or know someone who would be an inspiring guest, please fill out the survey found in the show notes. And we'd love your feedback. Please write a review on your favorite podcasting app.