Depth and Complexity

Ever ask students to create research questions? Were their ideas a bit… blah? My own students had a very hard time writing questions they didn’t already know the answer to! This video is how I solved that problem: upgrade research questions with depth and complexity.

Want to introduce the tools of Depth and Complexity and learn more about your students and introduce the Frame graphic organizer? Have I got the activity for you!

Want to add drama to any topic? Use the Ethics prompt!

Let’s get students thinking big and focusing on more abstract ideas.

Get kids focusing on the small, but essential, details of a topic.

Your students will use Depth and Complexity to note how a character’s main trait changes across a story.

Students will introduce themselves by showing how they’ve changed over time.

In this video, we introduce the 👓 Multiple Perspectives prompt of Depth and Complexity.

Imagine a construction worker who doesn’t know the name of a screwdriver or a doctor who can’t remember what to call your neck. It’s pretty hard to communicate well without knowing the 👄 Language of the Discipline!

This underutilized tool focuses students on what we don’t yet know and even what we can’t know.

Is there a consequence for not doing something? You may have found a rule!

Can you think of a time in your life when “Change lead to more change?”

Has something been changing recently? What might be causing that? What are the effects?

Can your students spot anything that repeats? Or that has stopped repeating?

Want to get students thinking about how a topic has changed or might change in the future? The ⏳ Change Over Time thinking tool is just what you need!

So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Change? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.

No topic is an island! With the 📚 Across Disciplines prompt, students note connections within and across multiple fields.

Students will explore how systems are often made up of smaller systems (and are usually a part of a larger system, too).

Students explore this generation about how problems lead to new rules, and new rules lead to new problems.

So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Power? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.

Here’s how effects be causes and causes can be effects!

Can we get students as young as kindergarten discussing ethical issues? Learn some ideas for integrating these multiple perspective problems throughout your curriculum.

Can you think of times when power is unseen, but we can clearly see its effects?

So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Systems? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.

Once students know the prompts of Depth and Complexity, let’s take them much higher up Bloom’s Taxonomy.

What would Socrates have thought if he watched Frozen?

So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Conflict? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.

Once your students can identify the rules, language, or big ideas of a topic, we’ve got to move them up Bloom’s Taxonomy! Let’s start by contrasting with a related topic.

Take your students further up Bloom’s Taxonomy by asking them to make a change using one of the prompts of depth and complexity and then consider what the effects of that change would be.

How can one idea pull in opposite directions, being both true and false or right and wrong at the same time? It’s time to explore Paradoxes!

Take students back to the beginning by using the Content Imperative ⏺️ Origin.

How would an economist read Goldilocks? How would they see a rainforest? How would they study the American Revolution?

Get students thinking broadly by exploring similarities across multiple topics. Combine with Depth and Complexity for bonus points!

Students explore this generation about how order can be both natural and created by humans.

Ask students to consider how a specific factor is affecting (or ⏬ Contributing) to a topic.

Add complexity by considering how multiple factors 🔄 Converge within one topic.

What if your students rewrote Dickens in the style of Hemingway and vice versa?