1. Assessment and Higher-Order Thinking
ASSESSMENT SESSION 2
Assessment and Higher-Order Thinking

2. In life, almost everything we do requires using knowledge in some way, not just knowing it.”
SUSAN M. BROOKHART 1

3. Objectives:
Self-assess questions, assessments, and tasks to determine the level of thinking and reasoning students are being asked to engage in
Ensure that students are engaging in thinking and reasoning across a range of levels in response to prompts that are thoughtfully sequenced

4. Read and Reflect:
Read the excerpt from How to Assess Higher-Order Thinking Skills in Your Classroom by Susan Brookhart.
Highlight elements of the text that:
resonate with you,
reinforce your existing thinking, and/or
challenge your current teaching practice

5. Share and Discuss:
To what extent are students at our school asked to recall information versus use that information?
What about in the questions we ask and the assessments we give?

6. The Hess Matrix:
Synthesizes Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge
Provides a structure for thinking about thinking
Captures a continuum of increasingly deep thinking
Maps cognitive rigor based on both required skill complexity and necessary depth of knowledge
Hess Matrix
Webb’s DOK Levels 1 and 2
Recall/Reproduction & Skills/Concepts
Webb’s DOK Levels 3 and 4
Strategic Thinking/Reasoning & Ext. Thinking
Lower Level Bloom’s
Remember
Understand
Recognize or locate basic facts or explicit ideas
Define or describe details
Identify main ideas of texts
Provide examples and explain connections
Connect ideas to supporting evidence and/or themes from other areas of study
Describe how text features may influence inferences
Write multi-paragraph compositions for a specific purpose and audience
Mid-Level Bloom’s
Apply
Analyze
Produce structured paragraphs
Categorize and compare different terms, facts/details, literary elements, or data
Analyze structures and identify and categorize key features
Distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information, facts vs. opinions
Apply an earlier concept in a new context
Gather and analyze complex texts/sets of information to address original questions
Use reasoning and evidence to support inferences
Higher Level Bloom’s
Evaluate
Create
Brainstorm ideas or questions based on observations
Critique arguments and conclusions of others
Synthesize information across multiple sources
Develop models of complex situations/ideas
Develop and justify alternative approaches
Introducing the Hess Matrix
Most educators have heard of Bloom’s Taxonomy when thinking about HOT skills. Bloom’s taxonomy was developed in the 1950s to classify and rank intellectual behaviors in terms of the complexity of the thought processes being used. It is an enormously important tool for thinking about thinking. However in practice, Bloom’s has numerous shortcomings in that some of the “higher” thinking skills can be used in superficial manners -- for instance, when asked to brainstorm a list of creative writing topics, students would be creating new knowledge, but they would not be doing so at a particular deep level. In response Norman Webb created an alternate Depth-of-Knowledge Matrix that looks at how students interact with knowledge, placing their thinking in a more practical context.
The Hess Matrix represents a synthesis of these two methods of thinking about cognitive rigor. Karin Hess combined the two scales, mapping cognitive rigor both along complexity of the skills required and depth of knowledge needed to complete them, creating a tool for describing rigor and deep learning. The most superficial quadrant is in the upper left corner, while the deeper more complex quadrant is in the lower right.

7. Single-Step Thinking Process Multistep Thinking Process
The Hess Matrix
Webb’s DOK Levels 1 and 2
Recall/Reproduction & Skills/Concepts
Single-Step Thinking Process
Webb’s DOK Levels 3 and 4
Strategic Thinking/Reasoning & Ext. Thinking
Multistep Thinking Process
Lower Level Bloom’s
Remember
Understand
Recognize
Define
Identify
Connect
Describe
Compose
Mid-Level Bloom’s
Apply
Analyze
Categorize
Compare & contrast
Support
Higher Level Bloom’s
Evaluate
Create
Brainstorm based on observations
Critique
Synthesize
Develop & justify
Introducing the Hess Matrix
Most educators have heard of Bloom’s Taxonomy when thinking about HOT skills. Bloom’s taxonomy was developed in the 1950s to classify and rank intellectual behaviors in terms of the complexity of the thought processes being used. It is an enormously important tool for thinking about thinking. However in practice, Bloom’s has numerous shortcomings in that some of the “higher” thinking skills can be used in superficial manners -- for instance, when asked to brainstorm a list of creative writing topics, students would be creating new knowledge, but they would not be doing so at a particular deep level. In response Norman Webb created an alternate Depth-of-Knowledge Matrix that looks at how students interact with knowledge, placing their thinking in a more practical context.
The Hess Matrix represents a synthesis of these two methods of thinking about cognitive rigor. Karin Hess combined the two scales, mapping cognitive rigor both along complexity of the skills required and depth of knowledge needed to complete them, creating a tool for describing rigor and deep learning. The most superficial quadrant is in the upper left corner, while the deeper more complex quadrant is in the lower right. 6

8. Apply:
Analyze a sample assessment task for both required skill complexity and necessary depth of knowledge.
Add the question to the blank Hess Matrix to indicate where it resides.
Craft versions of your sample assessment task that align with each square of the matrix.

9. Discuss:
What would you expect to learn about your students’ understanding or skills from each of the iterations of the task?
How is it useful to consider the same question at varied levels of skill complexity and depth of knowledge?
How can assessments sequence and scaffold students toward increasingly higher-order thinking?

10. Learning Wrap-Up Reflect on what you learned today.
How do your takeaways compare to the session’s Learning Objectives? How were these objectives addressed today?
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Self-assess questions, assessments, and tasks to determine the level of thinking and reasoning students are being asked to engage in
Ensure that students are engaging in thinking and reasoning across a range of levels in response to prompts that are thoughtfully sequenced

11. What’s next? Learn more about frameworks for higher-order thinking
Repeat today’s activity with additional assessments
Revise with Analyzing Alignment of Questions to Higher-Order Thinking
Apply framework to unit planning
Analyze student work