Language of the Discipline Gone Wrong

Ok, this one came in from a teacher. They had been given a ring of pre-written questions that incorporated Depth and Complexity. They suspected something was wrong. They were right.

Here’s one example:

How would __ be best described by people working in this area/field/discipline?

I honestly don’t know what I’d even do with this.

I’d probably just NOT use it at all. 🤷‍♂️

Actually, that’s the best lesson to take away! Have high standards. It’s okay to decide a question, worksheet, or task just isn’t good enough for your students.

What’s Wrong?

• There’s a huge “Vagueness Disease” issue here. We don’t know the topic. We don’t even know THE WORD we’re asking about.
• Vagueness continued: We can’t even decide if we’re asking about an area, a field, or a discipline! Why include all three?
• The creator clearly didn’t taste their own soup. They didn’t try answering their own question before selling it to teachers. This is a very rough draft.
• It’s a one-off question. Flip the card over and there’s a totally unrelated question! We want to ask sequences, not unrelated one-off questions.

Worst of all: this card implies that you can just plug a generic question into any lesson. No no no. Questions must be carefully written and planned with purpose! One-size-fits-all doesn’t fit anything.

Back to the full Depth and Complexity guide.