Building Sequences of Questions with Depth and Complexity
A key to using Depth and Complexity well is to notice that there is a natural movement from prompt to prompt.
When I asked students to “identify the 🌻 details” and then stopped, I was missing a lot of power.
Details naturally move students towards other prompts of Depth and Complexity.
- Details can form 🌀 patterns
- Details can support 🏛️ big ideas
- Details clue us into a ⏳ change over time
If we are noticing details, they should always point us towards another prompt of Depth and Complexity.
Ask Sequences of Questions
So, I always want to write sequences of questions.
I wouldn’t ask students to “find the most important Details of George Washington’s life” and then stop. We need to build a sequence!
- Find 10 to 15 important Details of George Washington’s life.
- Look for Patterns within those Details. Form several categories of Details.
- Using your categories as a guide, write a 🏛️ Motto for Washington’s life.
- Which Details in Washington’s life do you think go against this Motto?
We climb Bloom’s but also from Details to Patterns to a Big Idea and then back to Details.
Reverse It!
You can often reverse a movement from one prompt of Depth and Complexity to another, like this:
- Name a Problem that lead to a new Rule. (⚖️ -> 🚦)
- Explain how the new Rule then lead to new Problems? (🚦 to ⚖️)
Fun, right?
So, as you’re considering which prompts of depth and complexity to incorporate in a task, try to build a sequence. Think about how the prompts can build on each other to take students’ thinking to a deeper level.