Depth of Knowledge and the Impact It Has on Teaching

I view depth of knowledge in the classroom as something that is essential to preparing students for their next steps educationally.  It doesn't stop there, however.  Being able to apply learned skills to complete complex tasks is an ability that will benefit just about anyone in real life.  As such, it has an important role in my teaching and I am constantly re-evaluating my curriculum to ensure I am challenging my students at a higher level.

Like Bloom's Taxonomy, depth of knowledge is a pyramid, built on basic skills and culminating in the ability to think on a higher level.  I think the pyramid analogy works well for both as they are structures built on a wide base.  Students often are responsible for recalling many basic facts, but must use many of those to understand a handful of concepts.  They take those concepts and apply them to few real world problems and try to come up with solutions.  Then finally, they take their solutions, and the solutions of others, and try to put it all together to produce something complex that demonstrates their complete understanding.   The process is the same for the master's student constructing a thesis or a second grader learning about why we have time zones, both build on what they know to attain higher levels of thinking.

After gaining an understanding of Webb's depth of knowledge, I realize that I am actually doing a lot of this type of learning building in my classes, even though I wasn't familiar with Webb's actual work.  I owe much of this to working in a school that emphasizes classroom technology and the value it brings to teaching our students.   As a teacher in this environment, it becomes obvious really quickly that lower level tasks like learning facts will lead to a lot of bored students.   They have so much access at their fingertips, that it simply becomes tedious to them. As such, we learn skills on a daily basis.  Not to say we don't learn facts, but we learn about those facts in context, seeing and practicing their application in real life situations.  Often my students will take these concepts and produce something where they take all this evidence and use that to justify what they believe about the concept.   I believe that this should be the "new normal" in our classrooms, where strategic thinking is focused on rather than rote learning.  What I like most about the concept of depth of knowledge is that it never ends.  There are nearly unlimited possibilities as far as classroom activities and projects that can be used to get our students thinking in extended and complex ways.  It challenges our students and makes their classroom experience more rewarding, and it does the same for we teachers.

One think I always keep in mind when teaching is "what am I trying to accomplish here."  When I look at this from an even bigger view, I have realized that all the facts and concepts specific to my subject area aren't necessarily what's important.  Having said that, by applying depth of knowledge in my specific content area, I can teach my students skills that will help them succeed in many different situations.  For example, how many jobs or careers are there where a person is confined to their own area, learning about facts and reporting them to others?  I can't think of many.  As a result, when we learn about facts in class we get into groups to discuss and build on concepts.  I often tell my students that knowledge is of little use if we don't put it to work for us.  These discussions lead to a richer learning experience where students are active in their own learning.  When we get into groups and create things, like infographics, videos, padlets, or presentations to teach others, we are having a good time, but we are also performing rigorous tasks that is solidifying the knowledge so we can own it.  We aren't just learning about marine wind and water currents, we are discussing where those currents exist and why.  We are predicting where they should be and creating our own maps.  We are taking what we know about these currents, looking up in the sky, and understanding how they affect the weather at this very moment, as well as in the future.

So while I may be focusing on the marine sciences, I believe that teaching to depth of knowledge has benefits for my students that reach far outside the classroom.  I want them to take something they learn, and apply it.  I want them to take what they applied, and create something with it.  Then, I want them to take what they created, examine it,  and reflect on how much more they understand than when they started.  It is far more impactful than having students learn some facts and repeat them on a test, and I feel that this type of deeper learning experience will better prepare them for an increasingly competitive world.