Depth of knowledge in reading literacy

Depth of knowledge in reading literacy
Objective: to get information about the levels of Depth Of knowledge
Plan:
1. DOK-1: What is the knowledge. 
2. DOK-2: How can the knowledge be used.
3. DOK-3: Why can the knowledge be used.
4. DOK-4: How else can the knowledge be used.

It’s a concept we in education have heard a lot about since our states transitioned to college and career ready standards, be it the Common Core State Standards, the Next Generation Science Standards, or whatever each individual state has decided to call their academic standards that promote college and career readiness. It’s also one of the most misinterpreted and misrepresented concepts in education that is not only confusing but also frustrating us educators. Most of it is due to the infamous DOK Wheel.

Perhaps you are familiar with this wheel. Perhaps you were presented a copy of the wheel as part of the Race to the Top training that addressed transitioning to the Common Core State Standards. Perhaps you were provided a copy of this graphic as a poster or instructional tool you can use develop and deliver lessons that not only address depth of knowledge but also promote cognitive rigor.
This graphic is an effective and useful tool – for teaching and learning for higher order thinking. It categorizes the levels of thinking students are expected to demonstrate, which is what cognitive taxonomies such as Anderson and Krathwohl’s revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy, Cognitive and Metacognitive Systems of Marzano’s New Taxonomy, and Biggs and Collis’s SOLO Taxonomy. In fact, out of all the taxonomies that categorize higher order thinking, the DOK Wheel is most aligned to the SOLO Taxonomy and its four quadrants. This should be called the HOT Wheel or even the SOLO Wheel and could be used to plan and provide instruction that marks and measures higher order thinking.
However, it does not designate the depth of knowledge students are expected to communicate – or, at least, how Webb’s Depth of Knowledge Model designates these levels.
The origins of the DOK Wheel are unknown. No one seems to know from where it came or who designed it. What is confirmed, however, is that it was not designed by Norman Webb and he does not endorse it as a tool for educators to use to plan and provide complex instruction and assessments (Walkup, 2014a).
Unfortunately, the DOK Wheel has been widely addressed and included in professional development trainings and materials on college and career ready standards. The widespread saturation of the DOK Wheel and other poorly designed visuals and maps has also been due to educators and professional development providers downloading these visuals and incorporating them into their presentations and trainings with the assumption the visual was a credible source that was developed by Dr. Webb. There’s a citation at the bottom of the DOK Wheel graphic that references the developer of depth of knowledge, Norman Webb along with a url link, which is why many people believe this wheel was authorized by Dr. Webb.
The concept of depth of knowledge that is addressed in the college and career ready standards was developed by Norman Webb (1997; 2002). Webb designed his model as a means of increasing the cognitive complexity and demand of standardized assessments. Traditionally, standardized assessments measured students to think deeply about the academic content, concepts, ideas, and procedures they were learning. However, these assessments were limited in measuring students ability to transfer and use what they were learning in different contexts. They were also limited in measuring the depth of understanding students must develop and demonstrate. Students were challenged to demonstrate – or show – the ability to think deeply about how to answer questions, address problems, accomplish tasks, and analyze texts and topics. However, they were not being challenged to communicate – or tell – how and why they could transfer and use what they were learning in different contexts.
Webb (1997) developed a process and criteria for systematically analyzing the alignment between standards and standardized assessments. Since then the process and criteria have demonstrated application to reviewing curricular alignment as well. This body of work offers the Depth of Knowledge (DOK) model employed to analyze the cognitive expectation demanded by standards, curricular activities and assessment tasks (Webb, 1997). The model is based upon the assumption that curricular elements may all be categorized based upon the cognitive demands required to produce an acceptable response. Each grouping of tasks reflects a different level of cognitive expectation, or depth of knowledge, required to complete the task. It should be noted that the term knowledge, as it is used here, is intended to broadly encompass all forms of knowledge (i.e. procedural, declarative, etc.). The
following table reflects an adapted version of the model.
DOK level are assigned to each course objective the following served as general guidelines for developers:
 The DOK level assigned should reflect the level of work students are most commonly required to perform in order for the response to be deemed acceptable.
 The DOK level should reflect the complexity of the cognitive processes demanded by the task outlined by the objective, rather than its difficulty. Ultimately the DOK level describes the kind of thinking required by a task, not whether or not the task is “difficult”.
 If there is a question regarding which of two levels a statement addresses, such as Level 1 or Level 2, or Level 2 or Level 3, it is appropriate to select the higher of the two levels.
 The DOK level should be assigned based upon the cognitive demands required by the central performance described in the objective.
 The objective’s central verb(s) alone is/are not sufficient information to assign a DOK level. Developers must also consider the complexity of the task and/or information, conventional levels of prior knowledge for students at the grade level, and the mental processes used to satisfy the requirements set forth in the objective.
Curricular elements that fall into this category involve basic tasks that require students to recall or reproduce knowledge and/or skills. The subject matter content at this particular level usually involves working with facts, terms and/or properties of objects. It may also involve use of simple procedures and/or formulas. There is little transformation or extended processing of the target knowledge required by the tasks that fall into this category.
Key words that often denote this particular level include: list, identify and define. A student answering a Level 1 item either knows the answer or does not; that is, the answer does not need to be “figured out” or “solved.”