What was the speakers’ best quote?

“Education Week reported that ‘rigor was the last favorite buzzword of 2023’ in a poll of principals and teachers.” This comes because it is vague and undefined. Fisher and Frey defined it as: “rigor in teaching and learning means challenging students with high expectations, engaging them in deep and meaningful learning experiences, and supporting them to achieve their full potential.”

What were the top three ideas from the session?

1. Rigor is made up of 5 components, with subcomponent actions that can help us grow. R is representative of relationships. I encompasses instruction. G relates to goals. O details organization within the classroom. R demonstrates the relevance of the learning.
2. There are 25 indicators within the 5 components of rigor. Each component has indicators that increase in complexity of implementation with strong research demonstrating their effectiveness when used in classrooms.
3. I was reminded of the importance of opportunities for students to respond to learning. Universal Responses are micro-assessments that propel learning. However, there has been a reduction of this post-Covid with less checks for understanding. A good rule of thumb for the frequency of opportunities to respond is at least every 10 minutes with instruction.

What is one strategy that you will implement immediately?

We have been focusing on Teacher Clarity in our district, linked to the work of Frey and Fisher. This school year, I plan to develop the understanding and importance of implementing clarity around the what, the why, and the how of each lesson, linking the success criteria for students to what they will learn on that specific day.

What are resources you will check out?

Fisher and Frey have many books. Ones linked to the learning they presented in this session include:

• The Teacher Clarity Playbook
• Rigor Unveiled

I can’t wait to tell my teachers about this idea:

I want to remind my teachers of the power of implementing regular universal responses to increase frequent opportunities for learning. We have gotten away from the practice of response cards across our building, but what an easy tool to provide each teacher to have on hand to rapidly draw students into learning in different ways.

What are some relevant or surprising stats you learned?

68 percent of the variance of reading achievement can be attributed to the 25 indicators of rigor. Instructional practice for rigor matters and makes a huge difference in how students perform.

Notes by Amy Balsbaugh, principal of Bonfield Elementary in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Read more session notes in the NAESP Conference Blog.