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In this insightful episode, Erik Francis delves into the transformative power of inquiry-based learning and the role of belief in education. Erik is an educator and the author of Deconstructing Depth of Knowledge and several other titles. He believes that kids can do anything, and it’s often the adult’s limiting beliefs that prevent a child from achieving, excelling, and succeeding.
Erik emphasizes the necessity of nurturing curiosity to help students excel, advocating for a shift from traditional cognitive methods to contextual learning, which is significantly enhanced by Depth of Knowledge (DOK) strategies. He further discusses the importance of teaching through questioning, which encourages students to ask meaningful questions and become active participants in their education. This approach not only transfers instructional responsibility to learners but also fosters a dynamic and empowering learning environment. The Big Dream Erik’s dream for education is that students love to learn—that they live through and beyond their potential. His belief is that answers come free, so ask questions! Curiosity and asking “why” is central to a good education that enables students to thrive. This dream extends to reevaluating educational standards, both in design and purpose. Mindset Shifts Required To embrace inquiry-based learning, educators must adopt a student-centered mindset. Inquiry and curiosity is an experience, a process—not a program that you can do on demand. This shift involves rethinking traditional teaching methods and embracing a questioning lens. Educators must be comfortable transferring instructional responsibility to students, encouraging questions for the purpose of teaching and learning. Action Steps Inquiry-based learning draws on students’ natural curiosity and desire for understanding. You can cultivate this in your classroom by taking these steps: Step 1: Start small by incorporating inquiry into everyday lessons. Begin by asking students how they can apply their knowledge and encouraging them to explain their understanding. Welcome questions from students and engage in your own process of questions and exploration, too. Step 2: Utilize Depth of Knowledge (DOK) levels to structure questioning, ensuring students progress from recalling information to applying and creatively using their knowledge. DOK levels include:
These won’t be all captured in one classroom setting, but will get deeper over time as knowledge grows through curious questioning. Step 3: Transform educational standards by using curiosity and questioning to demonstrate learning, not just for the purpose of assessment (i.e., right or wrong answers). Get students to just start explaining—talking about their observations and understanding. Let curiosity be a driving force for knowledge instead of rigid assessment models. Challenges? One of the challenges educators may face is the fear of losing control in the classroom when turning over responsibility to students. There is also the challenge of re-teaching students how to ask effective questions, as traditional classroom settings often discourage this natural skill. Additionally, educators may struggle with differentiating instruction to cater to diverse learning needs and overcoming the constraints of rigid educational standards. One Step to Get Started To get started, educators can begin by transforming their standards into inquiry-based questions using simple question stems like "How can you…?" or "How could you…?" This approach not only engages students but also encourages them to take ownership of their learning journey. Your goal is to have the students start explaining their thoughts and sharing their questions and ideas about the topic with you. From a book, for example, instead of them identifying a core theme (i.e., “family”) get them to start exploring family—what it is, who the family members are, how they’re related, how they feel about those characters in the book, etc. It’s about questioning and exploration. Stay Connected You can find this week’s guest on their website, Maverick Education or on X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and YouTube To help you implement today’s takeaways, Erik is sharing a video for free: Deconstructing Depth of Knowledge - Discard the DOK Wheel. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 202 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Erik Francis, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. 00:05 - Erik Francis (Guest) Thank you. Thank you for having me and thank you for inviting me to share on your forum. 00:10 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Thank you, thanks for being here. I think you know people will have just heard your bio at this point in the episode and wondering what is something that's important for listeners to keep in mind about either you or kind of our topic of conversation before we launch into our questions today. 00:27 - Erik Francis (Guest) You know it's interesting. I believe kids can do anything, any kid can do anything, and we need to believe that, have that collective efficacy and really, really support that. Sometimes I think it's the adults limiting beliefs that prevent the child from not only achieving but also excelling and succeeding. And when we say things like this is too hard, or they can or they don't, we need to kind of change that narrative and that's kind of my thing with it. And the thing is this is that even when I share ideas or I talk about this, it doesn't come from like my personal you know feelings or thoughts. It's my beliefs and you know if I get excited or share, that's what I want people to understand. That it's. 01:13 Sometimes passion can come off a little bit more as aggressive or even arrogance, and that's not where I want to come from with it. I just really believe passionately in the value of education. I believe everything starts with and centers around education and I really strongly believe that our world's problems and our situations in life can be addressed and resolved or even solved if somebody had a high quality education, not only in school but also in learning and life in the real world. So I'm very passionate about education. I'm very passionate about learning and the big thing is I always want to say I know a lot, but I don't know it all. So and I'm always willing to learn. I think that's the big thing as well, is that I'm always willing to to quote Adam Grant rethink and unlearn, and that's the big thing. Think like a scientist. Itina Love talks about freedom, dreaming, and specifically she says they are dreams grounded in the critique of injustice which. 02:30 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I just think is beautiful. And so, with that in mind, that idea of freedom, dreaming, what is that dream that you hold for education? 02:38 - Erik Francis (Guest) That we live to through and beyond our potential, that we love to learn. It's really funny because I was just at a conference and they asked to write your autobiography as a philosophy, in six words or less. So my belief is answers come free, so ask questions. So what's interesting about answers that you have? Answers that are, basically, they're, irrefutable Math is irrefutable. Answers, facts of life, truths but we are also given answers in the form of opinions, perspectives, thoughts, hypotheses. So we need to ask why. And we're not asking why. And we need to ask why, not from a challenging standpoint, but from a curiosity standpoint. And I think a lot of times we look at questions as challenging. No, questions are about curiosity. Questions are about learning. It's about understanding. I'll give you an example. 03:42 One of the things that we do when we unwrap standards is there was a method we were introduced to about 20, 25 years ago, actually, approximately when Larry Ainsworth wrote his book Unwrapping the Standards Great method. I'm not going to bash anybody's methods. I'm not that type of person. I'm not the type of person that says, hey, don't listen to that person, listen to me. I think that causes a lot of dissension, but it's a great method. But has anyone really taken the time to ask well, why do we unwrap the standards that way? Why do we unpack the standards that way? And there's actually a difference between unwrapping the standards and unpacking the standards, and that's something actually I realized working in a school recently, which maybe we can talk about later. But this is a great method, but that method was introduced when we had no Child Left Behind standards that focused on skills and stuff or, to translate it, verbs and nouns and nouns phrases. 04:43 And one of the miscommunications of the Common Core standards, or the college and career readiness standards, and even these next generation learning standards that we're calling them, is that they're not cognitive and content driven. They're contextual, because and that's in response to what's going on in society right now I mean, google can give us the answers and technology has made what was hard simple in terms of thinking about things, in terms of effort, so AI can now explain to us the answers. But these standards focused on what exactly and how deeply can students comprehend and communicate their learning in a certain context? And that's where DOK comes in as a concept, framework, language and process. So what I ask people now is I say well, how do you unwrap and unpack the standards, they circle the verbs, they underline the nouns, they make a T-chart and they put the verbs under skills and they put the nouns and noun phrases under concepts and content. Or I like to say stuff. And that worked when we had no Child Left Behind standards. 05:44 But these new standards are contextual and if no one asks why, if no one asks what do you mean by this? If no one asks, has conversations and says, hey, you know what you're right, but why? So we're all in this world of the science of reading right now. But I I always ask well, what is the research for science? What is science of reading? What is it? And they'll say it's the research that supports what it means to teach reading and to be able to read fluently. Okay, that's great. What does that mean? Okay. So then they talk about it and they explain it and you try to simplify it and they'll tell you, no, that that's a very simplified version of it. Because to me it sounds like are we back in the battle of whole language versus phonemic instruction? And then there's that whole argument okay, we're looking at basal readers versus phonemic instruction. 06:42 So it's like we need to ask why and when. We don't ask why, and we don't ask about or look into or inquire about the history behind why we do how we do what we do. We are going to repeat the same mistakes we've repeated, especially in education. I mean, they describe it. Rick Wormley actually described it once. I saw it in a session with him. It's a pedagogical pendulum. It swings this way, it swings that way. It needs to stop and we need to just kind of figure out why we do how we do what we do. What works, why does it work? What else could work? And that's the kind of questioning we have to do. So again, answers come free. People will tell you do it this way, this is the way it is, but that's why we need to ask questions. Why? 07:29 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love that setup too because I think, as we talk about your book Inquiring Minds, which to Learn, and thinking about the teacher questioning as well as student generated questions right, and this whole stance of inquiry, I'm curious to know I was talking to you before I hit record. You know I was talking to you before I hit record. You know there's a lot of teachers I work with who are unfamiliar or maybe a little unsure, uncomfortable with inquiry-based learning because it's a departure from how they have traditionally taught lecture style or whatever. And I'm curious to know what are the kind of mindset shifts? Or is there a big mindset shift that teachers have to kind of go through or even leaders have to go through to kind of embrace this kind of inquiry pedagogy that you've noticed? 08:09 - Erik Francis (Guest) Well, the first thing is you got to make it student-centered. You can't say, do inquiry and you can't direct people. You're going to do inquiry today. It's not something that's done. It is not a program, it is not. It's's an experience. That's the big thing, that it's a very, very fluid stream of consciousness process and it's not easy and it's not simple. It's hard and it's complex. 08:42 The first thing you really have to be is someone who is a questioner. You have to look at life through a lens of questioning and questions. And just being able to ask a bunch of questions, that's not really. That's teaching you how to ask questions, which we need to reteach our students how to do that. Which is funny because if you look at the research children between the age of two and five, they'll ask 300, 500 questions a day, all to their mother. But by the time they go to school, two things happen. One is from an environmental standpoint, which is now you got 30 kids in a room and 30 of other people's children asking one adult why, why, why, why? All the time, and also their brain development, they start to form more concrete declarative sentences. That's actually why, in first grade, you often have students who go. I have a question. Well, what's your question? I went to McDonald's last night, so we have to reteach them how to make interrogative statements, because they did it, naturally, when they were between age two and five. 09:48 Questioning and answering is how adults and children communicate with each other, but when we go to school now, it's the adult who's asking the question and the child who has to answer, and not to make a generalization. But traditionally in school, our questions are more so for the purpose of assessment and it is for even testing, and we need to make our questions about teaching and learning, and one of the things I say is that if I ask you a question, I don't expect you to give me an answer. If you can, great, and if you can, I'm going to ask you well, what do you mean? Or you're right, but why? So if you're correct, I'm going to ask you're right, but why? And if you need further clarification or you might need to self-correct, I'll ask you what do you mean? 10:37 So that's the first thing is that you have to be a questioner, you have to be able to trust, to turn it over to your students, and that's a really interesting thing. Like I sometimes hear teachers say, I'm really afraid to turn it over to my students because they'll get off task, don't get out of control. Well, I'll tell you, I do classroom observations and when I see teachers who are lecturing and I see teachers who are instructing, and they're instructing great, but there are still kids who are off task and out of control and they may be looking, spacing off or they're doing something else, or you know the teacher's teaching and you have that child who's engaging in a conversation, or maybe they're the ones who are more the louder students in the class. Now it's not instruction, now it's conversational. And you got 28 other kids who are just spacing off. And so that's the thing. And what we also need to do is it's important to transfer the instruction to the child as a learner. 11:30 And that's where DOK comes in. Because I say, is DOK one? They're a student. Because you're just asking what is the knowledge, what is the skill? What is the answer At a DOK two? Now you're asking how and why can the knowledge or skill be understood and used? So now I'm taking my items in my book or my information from my text or items from my textbook and I'm using that as an example to explain how to use the knowledge or skill At a level three, and that's where the student becomes a teacher. That's why I say DOK2, the student becomes a teacher. Can they teach it to somebody else If they had their own YouTube video? If they had their own youtube video? They had their own diy channel. Um, they had their own talk show. Could they basically explain how they, why they know, how they know what they know? Dlk3 you're asking how and why could the knowledge be understood and used? Now you're talking about evidence. Now you're thinking like a disciplinarian. Now, this is the theory, this is the hypothesis, this is the thought process, this is the outcome, this is the argument. What is the evidence that supports that? So how can I justify and verify with evidence? Or how can I consider, conclude and critique based on evidence? 12:42 At a DOK4, you're asking what else can be done with the knowledge or skill, or how else can the knowledge or skill be understood and used? That goes and now engages and encourages students to explore and extend for an extended purpose and often over an extended period of time. You're not going to capture that in one classroom setting. So those are the essential questions for depth of knowledge. First, you're asking what is the knowledge, what is the skill, what is the answer? And the kids are going to either answer correctly or incorrectly. At a level two, now you're turning over to the student. The student becomes a teacher. How and why can the knowledge or skill be understood and used? You have to either establish and explain or express your answer with examples, and that's why I call DOK2 actually the SEL level, because that's where you're getting into more of the opinions, the emotions. 13:30 Out of DOK3, it's how and why could the knowledge be understood and used. Now you're examining, explaining with evidence. And when I say examining, it's not just thinking critically, it's thinking creatively. Out of DOK4, it's what else can be done with the knowledge or how else can the knowledge be understood and used. Now you're going beyond the classroom, you're going deeper than the subject area. You're going across the curriculum. You're going through multiple texts and topics and connecting and comparing them and you're doing author studies and genre studies and you're looking at the impact of history on the past, the present and the possible future. And what you're doing is you're exploring, extending with examples and or evidence. But what distinguishes that is that this is going to take an extensive period and it's also for a very extensive purpose. 14:15 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) So I love that you just laid that out, because there's also so many really helpful visuals in your book that really are kind of like crosswalks of a bunch of different frameworks and like integration into question stems Super useful. People who have not read the book need to buy the book. And then I also think there's so many applications from a teacher lens Like here are kind of the different ways. I thought it would be helpful to a teacher One. Your book really has in just what you described there, like laid out for folks what are possible like unit questions, like whether you call them essential questions or I usually call them like project questions, because I usually do like a project-based, like application kind of thing. So I really want to probably be in like DOK three or four for like this project question where you're applying and you please correct me if I'm wrong Whereas, like you know, you have these other points along the way where you're at the lesson level or something or asking questions in these different spaces. 15:08 But then I also was just thinking about, you know, student generation of questions as well and you specifically talking about like rapid fire questions versus like the QFT, and I know a lot of teachers right now who are trying inquiry are getting questions versus, like the QFT, and I know a lot of teachers right now who are trying inquiry are getting hung up on the QFT stages and they feel a little too constrained for students because the students are so fearful. 15:28 As you said, I have a toddler and I tell you he's probably at the extreme end of the 300. I'm like, yeah, maybe 600 questions a day and that is like totally gone by the time they hit even elementary school, let alone middle or high school, and they are fearful or they're expressing fear to their teachers that I don't have the right type of question, my question is wrong somehow, and so therefore, I'm just not going to ask it. And so sometimes I feel like that QFT almost pigeonholed, like there's a right or a wrong or a, whereas your approach, I think it's a little bit more freeing. I don't know if I'm understanding that correctly. 16:02 - Erik Francis (Guest) No, you are, and you know the QFT is great, you know. I mean, you know, I quote John Hattie, I paraphrase it actually, because I didn't really say it like this, but like everything works but everything doesn't work for everybody, you know. And and that's the sometimes the hard part, when we get into these what I call camps or cliques of learning and say, oh, I'm following this person or I'm following that person, I mean I get it with DOK. I mean there's three people who really have established themselves as having expertise. I'm not saying expert, because my thought process is, if you're an expert, you're getting out there and saying you know everything and you don't have to learn. I'm always learning, I'm always relearning. So I have expertise in it. I know a lot but I don't know it all. So there's three of us there's Norman Webb, who created the concept of DOK, there's Karen Hess who expanded it and there's me who's extended it, and we all have our kind of lens and it's kind of like you don't have to be loyalist and you don't have to have loyalty to one way, and I think that's also the magic of teaching is that there's more than one way kids can learn. So one of the things. That was a misnomer about the Common Core was that they thought that all the kids had to learn how to do lattice math for multiplication. No, that's a way. If that works for that child, then that's the way. 17:24 I just had a thing where I was working with a teacher and she gave me this worksheet and I said what is this? And she said this is to teach long division. I didn't understand the process at all. Maybe some student could, and that's good for them and I need to introduce them so they can find their way. That's true differentiation. I didn't get it and I asked her. I said where did you get this? And she said I got it off teacher pay teachers. And I'm like you know, because then that becomes not so much a method, it becomes more so like a mantra, or even Canaan, that this is how and that's sometimes how the textbooks. So we went to the textbook and it was about teaching long division again, and I'm looking at this assignment and I'm looking at the instruction of it and the problem was there are 345 students in a school. There are 15 classrooms. Each classroom has the same amount of kids. How many kids are in each classroom? 18:20 So the traditional method. What you would do is you would take 15 and divide into 345. The curriculum goes into this thing where first you have to turn into a multiplication problem 15 times question mark equals 345. Then you have to do multiples and factors of 10 to find out what's the closest number. So it's teaching estimation for division. And you go 10 times 15 is 150. 10 times 2 is 300. 20 is 300. 10 times 30 is 450. So now with estimation, I know my number is between 20 and 30. Now what I need to do is I need to subtract 300 from 345 and I get 45. Now I need to divide. Is your head hurting yet, See? And that's the whole thing. Now I'm looking at it going. What is this? 19:14 What I looked at from a question lens, and the question lens is not so much how do I solve that problem, but what's the process. It's teaching me. So, looking at it to say that, okay. So here's the process. First thing I need to do is turn the problem into a multiplication problem. I wouldn't probably say 15 times question mark, I'd probably pick, have the child pick their favorite letter or the first letter in their name so they can learn algebra. Then the process okay. So, with estimation, I have to multiply one of the factors by multiples of 10 to find out where that product is between and that, and then I that will tell me. Once I find out, that will tell me what the 10 could be for one of the factors. And then I have to do so. That's the thing. Is that, looking at that with that questioning lens and you know to say the QFT, it's very structured and some kids need that and it's a really great way to brainstorm with it and bring it back and it really is great to teach questions. But again, it's very structured. 20:18 What I do with rapid fire questioning, where you'll show a prompt or you'll show a stimulus and you say what does this mean to you, what stands out for you, what are you not sure about that's rapid fire questioning. Another thing I do and it's funny because we were talking earlier, because we can talk about what we talked about behind the scenes too is that when you write a book, you write it and then it captures your thinking at that time but you learn since then. So one of the things I'm doing for reading comprehension is that you put a segment of text up there or you put something up there and you say what is this telling you? What does it mean to you? What stands out for you? What are you not sure about and what are you curious about? So and I'm doing this with teachers to say, okay, here's what the textbook says about what a ratio is, and they read it fluently D-O-K-1. Great, what is it telling you? What does it mean to you? What stands out for you? What are you curious about? What are you not sure about? So let them talk, Let them speak, Let them, you know, basically discuss it, Let them kind of process it, and then you bring it back to say, okay, so what stands out for you? 21:30 And maybe there's a phrase to say ratio is a part of a whole. Okay, what does that mean to you? It means this. So what is it telling you? A ratio is a part of a whole, Okay, what else is a part of a whole? Fractions. So could fractions be ratios and ratios be fractions? See, now, what are you not sure about? And how can you phrase that to me as a question? 21:52 Now, what you're doing is you're having the students using their questions to basically build the foundational learning experience which I talk about in my book, and also build the vocabulary knowledge and background knowledge and it comes from the student. 22:05 And, most importantly, what you want is you want to be able to student, to be able to answer that question. We need to have the kids talking more, we need to have the kids communicating more and we need to have the kids sharing ideas more, because our kids do they, even though they text and they read, and they do it in a multi-sensory level with their phones and everything. They don't know how to comprehend and communicate at the level needed but at the same time, they still can think about it. Because you ever sat with a child and you give them a Robert Frost poem and you give them a Shakespearean sonnet and you say what is this inferring or suggesting? They don't connect to it, but you give them a Taylor Swift song. Oh, they'll tell you the whole story and I'll tell you who it's about and what that line meant and how that line insulted this boyfriend. So they do have it. It's just about how can we basically have them, you know, not only apply but also analyze and augment those skills into an expertise where they can do that. 23:08 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I. That whole description is just so spot on and I I remember reading I don't remember exactly what you called it, but just the, that foundational piece with the like. All the questions have the I or the how does he. How do you like the insertion of the word you, I think, is oh, expertise. 23:23 - Erik Francis (Guest) Yeah, questions for expertise. So here's what I call a shot of inquiry, or it's funny Cause I go like this. I go when I talk about DOK and I talk about inquiry, like if I say I'm gonna give you vitamin DOK, that means I'm giving you a vitamin that you can take tomorrow. Here's a shot of inquiry for you. If you put one or three question stems in front of all your standards, you will have a standards-based question that will have the students comprehending and communicating at least a DOK2, because they're going to have to explain or express themselves with examples. So if I took all my standards and I put how do you? In front of it, now I have a question for assessment, and that assessment can be formative, it can be summative, if I put, how can you in front of the standard, now I have a question for instruction. So what I often tell people is, instead of saying I can fluently multiply multi-digit numbers using standard algorithm, or I can analyze, multiply multi-digit numbers using a standard algorithm, or I can analyze, interpret data on natural hazards to forecast future catastrophic events, put, how can you? How can you fluently multiply multi-digit numbers using an algorithm? How can you analyze, interpret data on natural hazards to forecast future catastrophic events. Those are all standards and when I do that now I'm making a standards-based question. My favorite is how could you? Because that leads into inquiry and the could is abstract and it requires strategic thinking. So whenever you say how could you, doesn't matter what the standard demands, you are actually elevating the DOK level to a DOK3. Because when I say, how could you fluently multiply multi-digit numbers using an algorithm? Well, I can use the traditional stacking factors, I can use lattice, I can use place value, I can use arrays, I can use windows, I can use the stick method that they often use in Asian countries. Okay, there's my options. Which one are you going to use and why? Now I'm thinking strategically, I'm exam, explaining with evidence what works. That's a DOK-3. How could you analyze, interpret data on natural hazards to forecast future catastrophic events? Okay, I could do it this way, I could do it that way. There's more options and I'm going to have to make some strategic and tactical thinking and reasoning, which is a problem-based learning. 25:45 So again, here's a shot of inquiry Take all your standards, but how do you? For assessment, how can you? For instruction instead of your learning targets? No, I can or we will be able to how can you? And you don't want to say how can we, because then you, then you're like you're addressing the collective and you're losing the individualization. And you don't want to say how can I, because I'd be like can your class goes, I don't know, teacher, how can you? Okay, because you want to hand it over to the kids. Saying how can you and using the pronoun in front of you makes it collective and individual, how could you is inquiry which requires more thinking strategically and using complex reasoning and that will always deepen the DOK level of your standard. And now you're measuring and assessing, not based upon can I get that item correct, because that tells me nothing. Okay, that tells me whether I can hit the baseball today or not. But if I can explain DOK2, if I can justify my responses, dok3, or justify my reasoning or consider other things with evidence, if I can explore and extend all these different ways, I can do this, and which one. That's what will deepen the DOK levels of any standard and experience. 27:05 And what's also you're doing is you're creating an authentic assessment, because you get this report back from an assessment they take over the course of a week or one day in February and April, and that's how they did that day. Well, what if that's the day their parents got divorced? What if that's the day they didn't feel? Well, what if that's the day they found out somebody lost their job, got evicted? What if that? Actually, because there's no teeth in the test. Now the kids are actually throwing the tests because they realize the ones who get bit are not them. They're going to the next grade level, they're not going to be held back and it's not a graduation requirement in a lot of states now. 27:47 So we're giving these assessments and it's like okay, and they get these things. Like you know, you approached, you're performing, you're highly performing, you're excelling, okay, great, and you get this chart sent to you and it means nothing. But then thus to the schools. We're like oh my gosh, and and and. Now we have to, like you know, throw everything out and and right now we're gonna get on a bit of a soapbox. A little bit I get concerned because there's so many I mean out here in arizona, there's so many schools that are a's and b's schools and they have 40 to 50 proficiency and I like wait a minute, and I get it. Growth, and I get it. We can't just depend upon an assessment. 28:26 But when you can do this and turn your standard into a question and use your curricular resources, those worksheets, those books, and you can say the kid did this with this stuff, in this experience, and they're actually addressing the standard and they're actually communicating and they're actually explaining to you and showing you the depth and extent of their learning, and the state comes back. Well, you know, on this day they didn't do well. Well, on any given sund, one team wins, one team loses, and we need to take back control of standards-driven learning and we need to say that the standards are ours as educators and we need to use that, because these standards get thrust down on us and we're not really really sure why we have them. But we need to say this they're ours. We have them, but we need to say this they're ours, they're what we use to gauge and guide our students towards proficiency, competency and success. 29:26 So if this is the fifth grade standard, that's what it means to be proficient in this grade level, in this subject, with this content. You don't have to agree with it, you don't have to like it, but that's what it is, okay. Then we have this mindset to say when kids come to us, they're not at grade level, and some people think that's negative, but what I say about it is well, what are you teaching Fifth grade? Were they fifth graders last year? No, then they're not grade level. They're either where they were on a test in April, or something happened last year that knocked them off their track, or something happened in subsequent years that knocked them off track to learning, or summer slide, we like to call it learning loss, you know, or something happened over the summer that could have been a trauma-based incident that poof, everything went out of your head. So this is what it means to be proficient. 30:16 Now, where are you on the pathway to proficiency? What is your competency level and how can I build on your strengths so you can rise to, reach and go beyond that standard? I believe any child can do that. I believe every child can do that May not be in a frame I have to teach it and it may not be in a way that I can teach it, but that's what teaching and learning needs to become. How can the kids learn this? What are the different ways? There are eight different ways to multiply multi-digit numbers. Up until about a year ago, I could teach seven. I couldn't do the stick method until I finally found something that helped me do it and I get, I go oh that's it, and now I can teach, and that's what makes teaching fun, that's what makes even professional development fun for me. It's when I come into a school. 31:03 Here's all these things I present on DOK or questioning. It's not just what I think, it's what I've learned and I've said, hey, this worked with this group and ooh, this group taught me something. And I bring it in and I'm always learning, I'm always trying to figure out. I mean, I have like tried to interpret DOK so many different ways as levels of learning, as language, comparing it to game shows, comparing it to board games. I'm actually now comparing it to food. And I'm actually now comparing it to food and I'm actually trying to figure out. 31:35 How do I differentiate that between the person who's the carnivore or the omnivore, the person who's the vegetarian or vegan and the person who's the pescatarian. So I got it kind of a little bit so like if I said, for the person who's an omnivore, carnivore, if we did steak, dok1 is ketchup, that's it, straightforward ketchup. Dok2 is steak sauce, because that's a sauce for that. Dok3 is specialty sauce, rubs and all these different combinations. Dok4, you make your own sauce. Okay, now for the vegetarian. Dok-1 is oil and vinegar. That's it, oil and vinegar. Okay. Dok-2 is creamy sauce. That's like ranch or blue cheese or Italian dressing. Okay, dok-3 is cooked sauce, because you got to think strategically how I make that and use the time. Dok-4 is Newman's own. Why? Because Paul Newman took his dressing and made it his own. 32:35 I'm still working on the fish one. I think DOK1 is going to be lemon. Dok2 is going to be fish sauce. Dok3 is going to be more of a rub and a DOK4, I got to figure that out. But that's differentiating instruction, see, and that's based upon the needs of the audience. And that's where I think teaching and learning needs to go. And Inquiry can do that. Because if we walked in the room every single day and asked ourselves, how can I get these kids to understand Because that's what I do with professional development every day how can I get these teachers to understand? And, more importantly, how can I get these teachers to want to learn, just like our kids? 33:14 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yeah, I think that motivational aspect is so important and I love I mean, I feel like we answered kind of the question I was going to ask. 33:19 Next is like the kind of one next step, as you said, like that shot of inquiry. It could be that you just take your standards and it's like how could you right? That's huge. That is a huge game changer for teachers listening and I also think those questions you were asking earlier, like the four to five that also had the U in them, like that sounded very nice because it was content agnostic and so you could just put up like a piece of text, a math problem or whatever and it's like okay, so these are the questions that you could always add to a slide deck or whatever and just be like all right, engage and there's no right or wrong necessarily right. It's like I get to own this journey, I get to connect in the way I connect, I get to think about how I could do this and I just I love that student-led like kind of student ownership piece and I think that's just a huge takeaway for anyone listening today. 34:03 - Erik Francis (Guest) And that's and start small. You know, I think sometimes that's what happens is if we come in with these professional development, it's like a giant wave, boom. You know what I tell even schools with DOK, I say start small. So like if I'm working with a school for DOK for a year or if I come in one and done which I really don't like to do, be honest, you know, I understand it's a necessary thing sometimes for finances and time and human resources, but it's not the most effective way. So I always say what can I do to that? That can walk away and do something tomorrow. So pace yourself. 34:37 So let's say, for example, you want to ask questions. Look, telling people to ask better questions or good questions is like saying now go paint the Sistine Chapel on the roof of your class, on the ceiling of your class. It takes time, you know. You got to learn. You can't just be Eddie Van Halen just by picking up his guitar, you know. Or even like, even by buying my book. It's like take time, start small, take all your standards put. How do you, how can you, how could you? Great, what's going to start happening is like you know, I can ask a better question than that and question than that. And with DOK even. I say don't worry about what the standard demands, because delivery intensity or instruction depends upon the demand, the standard and the strengths of the student. But from a learning standpoint, just get the kids to explain why they know, how they know what they know. Start by saying every kid, every time they give an answer, you're right. But why? And I'll tell you, the ones who struggle the most, they're going to be the gifted kids. Because the gifted kids have a hard time explaining and justifying. They're already at DOK one because they can answer it and they're at DOK four because they can extend and explore it. But we need to have kids that justify and verify. That's why I don't want anyone to think that a four is better than a one. It's not a taxonomy, it's not. You know, there's a scaffold, it tears. It describes four different ways to understand user learning. 35:53 But start small. Take your standards, put one of three question stems in front of it. How do you for assessment? How can you for instruction? How could you for inquiry? If you're thinking well, wait a minute, can I do? How could you for all three? Yes, now you're thinking with an inquiring mind because you asked a question and, with DOK, get the kids explaining, just get the kids explaining. And once they got that down, then what you can do is start giving the kids the answer and ask the kids why is that correct or incorrect? Don't ask what's the central idea or theme anymore. Ask. Say, here's this idea that this book addresses, how does it address that idea? Or let's have an exploration, or exploration, agree into that idea? 36:36 So if I said one of the ideas of the outsiders is family, well, what's a family? What's religious definition, legal definition, dictionary definition? So now bring it back. Okay, in chapter one, who's the family? And they'd say, uh, darian soda pop and pony boy. Why? Because they're related. But how do they feel about dally, johnny, steve and two-bit? Chapter one who's the family? And they'd say Darian Soda Pop and Ponyboy. Why? Because they're related. But how do they feel about Dally, johnny, steve and Two-Bit? Well, they're like their brothers, but they're not related. So what is SE Hinton saying? Family's not who you're related to, it's also who you feel close to. You're right. But why? Now they're using evidence from the Awesome. 37:08 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Oh my gosh, those are such great pointers as we close. That's great. I'm going to ask two super fast questions to close. One is you have described yourself as being constantly learning things. I love that. I think everyone on the podcast is similar in that, so I always ask what's something you've been learning about lately? 37:28 - Erik Francis (Guest) lately. Why do we have standards? Yeah, what is the purpose of standards? You know what are they. How should we be using them, where do they come from? 37:41 And that's been very the profession. That's been very, very enlightening and interesting, because everyone thinks that the standards-based system of education started from the recommendations of a nation at risk under the Reagan administration in the 80s. We've had standards since the 1840s and the argument about and for standards has not been pedagogical arguments, they've been more so extrinsic political or economic arguments. And that started in the 1950s, after the progressive movement. And it's really funny because I read a book Jedhaal's book, I think, is his name and he talks about how that it started after World War II, that outside forces started criticizing education as a system and profession for the first time in American history and that's where we ended up getting three crises the crisis of standards, which was in the 50s because it was after the progressive movement and we weren't really sure what exactly the kids need to be learning. And then the crisis for standards because of content. That's where you had more of the push of math and science and foreign language in response to Sputnik and the Cold War. In the 60s it was about the crisis of equity, where, with the integration of schools and making sure that everyone is focusing on and respecting identity and making sure that there was diversity and inclusion, and then there was the crisis of efficiency which happened in the 70s, which is our education system just went downhill. You know what actually was really fascinating? That I did not know this because I was a student, a child, at the time In the 70s there was actually this debate of family versus school and there was actually this philosophy that school does not matter, that school does not matter that there was a research report I think it was a Coleman report that said the bigger impact on a child's life and success is what happens in the home, not in school. 39:39 So, with that attitude, it was like, well, if what we're teaching in school doesn't matter, then why should we pay attention? Well, that was the result of it. But I think it's kind of fascinating because it's like to understand the present. You've got to understand the past because we're still having those debates and the debates are, you know, family versus school, with so the deciding factor and deciding influence of a child's education. And it's really interesting because in the 70s it wasn't so much a battle. It was just basically a cultural shift, but now it's a battle. You know it's parents versus teachers. 40:27 It's why is that book in the library? I don't want that book in the library. I don't want my kid to read that book in the library. Fine, that's your prerogative. No, I don't want any kid to read that book in the library. Okay, that's not your prerogative, you know. 40:39 But at the same time with the school, we need to have this book in the library. Why do we need to have this book in the library? Because somebody needs it. Okay, well, what, how, what can we do to make sure that the process of getting that book there's a process for it? You know some sort of guidance to say, hey, you may need some parental permission to do this or whatever. And I'm just throwing out ideas. I'm not, you know, putting it out there to say what a mantra or practices. 41:03 But that's what I'm learning right now, because I think we're educations in an existential crisis. Right now. We really don't know why we do how we do what we do and we're just kind of going on and living this unconscious thing about what are we supposed to be doing. And it's really funny because that's what happened in the 80s. And what happened was, politically, which wasn't supposed to happen, because Ronald Reagan said I don't, education belongs with the states, I don't want to get involved with it. Sound familiar. And then he got forced to get involved in it because he realized, oh my gosh, we need to take some sort of active stance. Even though he wanted to shut down the Department of Education, he realized there was a need for it and necessary to come from the top down with it. But the problem with standards is standards have not been pedagogical, they've been political, and I really think that we need to basically, as educators, take back the standards and use them somehow and figure out how we can use them. 42:13 And so you're asking me about what I'm learning. That's what I'm learning Like, why do we have standards? And it's kind of like science of reading, because the stairs tell us what the kids need to know and be able to do. Okay, great, what does that mean? You know? Kind of like science of reading. It's the research that says what supports reading. Okay, great, what does that mean? You know? Kind of like science of reading. It's the research that says what supports me. Okay, great, what does that mean? So that's what I'm learning professionally. Personally, I'm still learning how to play my guitar. You know I'm not. You know I'm not Eddie Van Halen. That may never be Eddie Van Halen. I'm a rock star in my own office, but you know that's the enjoyment I have Awesome. 42:48 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Thank you for that. Fascinating things. So I think the last question is where can listeners learn more about you or connect with you? We'll link to the book in the show notes, but where else could people get ahold of you? 42:58 - Erik Francis (Guest) Well, I have a website maverickeducationcom. It's spelled M-A-V-E-R-I-K. Don't go to M-A-V-E-R-I-C-K. Just remember I'm Eric Francis, not Tom Cruise, so it's M-A-V-E-R-I-K. Educationcom. It's named after my daughters, madison, ava and Amanda, and my name, and I am a huge fan of Top Gun. So on that site you have all the information about my books. 43:22 Deconstructing Depth of Knowledge from Solution Tree. Inquiring Minds Want to Learn, which is what we were talking about today. From Solution Tree, you can contact me, schedule time to talk. There's a chat bot. There's also something there I'm developing. I'm turning my work into an artificial intelligence assistant, an AI. So imagine you can go on my AI and say what are good questions? Students can inquire, investigate into this subject and I'll list you to those good questions. In fact, I encourage you, lindsay, to use that with you and your staff. Right now I have it in beta. You get free credits on it. At some point I'm going to shut it down. So it's called Maverick Education AI and that will help you with the questioning. So when you're working because we were talking about you with your staff and who you're working with take the teachers to that and say boom, it'll give you the questions. So again, maverickeducation, nocmaverickcom. I'm on Twitter right now at maverickedu12. I'm shifting over to Blue Sky and you also can feel free to email me at erik E-R-I-K, at maverick M-A-V-E-R-I-K, educationcom. 44:29 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Amazing. Thank you so much, Eric, for being on the podcast today. 44:33 - Erik Francis (Guest) Thank you for having me. I really appreciate you providing me this forum where I can kind of share ideas and, you know, hopefully some people will take that and do some great things. That's what I kind of hope at the end of the day. 44:43 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Absolutely.
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AuthorLindsay Lyons is an educational justice coach who helps schools and districts co-create feminist, antiracist civics-based curricula, discussion opportunities, and equitable policies that challenge, affirm, and inspire all students. A former NYC public school teacher, she holds a PhD in Leadership and Change, and is the founder of the blog and podcast, Time for Teachership. Lindsay believes all students deserve literacy, criticality, and leadership skills. Archives
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