“Rigor” is one of those education buzzwords that we hear all the time as teachers. We’re all expected to provide rigorous opportunities without a common definition of the term. Often, as I speak with educators and administrators about rigor, I notice a lot of inconsistencies and misconceptions in describing what rigor actually means. I’m here to debunk the myths about rigor and provide a clear definition as a starting point to creating truly rigorous classroom environments.
Rigor is, in essence, creating an academically, intellectually, and personally challenging learning environment ( Williamson & Blackburn, 2013). It means not only providing rich, complex tasks that encourage curiosity, risk-taking, and high engagement, but also creating an environment that embodies this belief. “Rigor” is not defined by a single task or assessment, it is defined by the educator’s core values and the culture in that classroom.
Myth #1: more work = high rigor
Many times we see expectations of providing a certain number of hours worth of work, or pages worth of reading, or words that must be written for a task to be “rigorous.” The truth is that you can have egregiously long reading homework or essays to be written but this doesn’t guarantee that it’s rigorous. If a student views the work as daunting, or they try to “fake it till they make it” or fluff their word count, they’re not really engaging with the work. Tasks can be concise and offer more rigor if students are willing to be ENGAGED with challenging work.
If the task being requested of students is long or there are tasks just for the sake of creating tasks, not only do we see students making sacrifices to their learning just to cross everything off their list but we also see piles and piles of assignments to provide feedback on, and we as teachers are just unable to provide QUALITY feedback with such a massive quantity of work to go through.
It’s totally possible to provide complex tasks that are also intentionally concise that encourage higher learning and quality work over quantity.
Myth #2: Providing supports = low rigor
Different students in our classes are going to have different needs. It’s our job as teachers to create supports to ensure that every student can access higher learning. I’ve received pushback as an educator for showing exemplar essays or projects and for providing sentence starters and guided notes to any student who wants them. But what I’ve learned is that many students are not ready to ask for the help they need to get started, and providing supports empowers them to engage in more challenging work.
Providing supports EMPOWERS students to take risks and engage in more challenging or rigorous tasks.
– Letters and Ink
I have students who will use every support that I provide, and students who will pick and choose. Often, the students who don’t need the supports just won’t use them which is totally fine. I find the quality of ALL student work increases when a variety of supports are offered. None of this means the task you’ve created now suddenly has more rigor, it just means that you’re providing equitable opportunity for success at that task.
Myth #3: Higher stakes = high rigor
In fact, tasks like these can be harmful to a rigorous environment. There is so much pressure on students to succeed at ONE task – if they don’t have the confidence to complete that one task, they’re likely to disengage not just for that task, but for the rest of the grading period. A rigorous environment is one that encourages students to take risks for new, challenging learning – but if the stakes are too high students might feel it’s too hopeless to attempt.
Myth #4: Accessible tasks = low rigor
Tasks that offer multiple stages of entry, like one- pagers or choice boards, are often dismissed as low rigor tasks. But with the right design and guidance by the instructor, you actually see an assessment that every student can see success on, and that every student can be pushed intellectually.
They might seem simple on the surface, but done well they are tasks that require students to synthesize, evaluate, or analyze source texts and concepts – the hallmarks of rigor (Jones, 2010).
Often, too, these type of tasks tap into student’s other skills – such as drawing, design, or music – to foster curiosity and creativity in their final product. If a teacher is intentional about crafting these tasks to ensure there’s no “easy way out” then the possibilities for student achievement become exciting and engaging for all stakeholders!
Myth #5: High compliance = high rigor
Just because a room full of students is doing exactly what is asked of them doesn’t mean that classroom is rigorous. Compliance is an outdated value in education. Students should not be sitting in desks, meekly completing the task set for them. Classrooms like this, where the teacher is the only ‘expert’ or the only one with the right way of thinking negates the world of experience, values, ideas, and positions of the learning bodies in that classroom. Students will work hard at trying to guess what answer the teacher is looking for, not at actually learning the content.
In a truly rigorous environment, the teacher is the guide or facilitator, who encourages dissent and debate in the classroom. Students should not be forced to do work out of fear of the consequences of non-compliance, they should feel free to question and evaluate what’s in front of them in a safe environment where they know their thoughts have value. One of my favorite teaching strategies, Socratic Seminar, fosters an environment that encourages challenging others’ ideas in a way that pushes everyone in the room toward higher learning.
Myth #6: More technology = high rigor
Is it important to teach students how to use technology? Of course. However, it’s one thing to make an analog task digital and another to design a task intentionally to leverage a specific digital tool for a learning purpose. Just because we put it in our LMS doesn’t mean that it is suddenly innovative or rigorous. Kasey Bell of Shake Up Learning goes into a lot of detail on her blog ( and her book, which I’m a huge fan of!) about ways to intentionally use technology to elevate the learning experience in a digital medium.
It’s so important to focus on rigor as we create learning tasks in our classroom. It’s more important, however, to really know what rigor is and isn’t before we do.
References
Jones, R. D. (2010). Rigor and relevance handbook – in.gov. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://www.in.gov/gwc/cte/files/ncteb-rigorrev.pdf
Senn, D. (2021, October 13). The Ultimate Guide to Academic Rigor. Learning Sciences International. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://www.learningsciences.com/blog/academic-rigor/
Williamson, R., & Blackburn, B. (2013). Rigorous schools and classrooms. Education Partnerships. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315856438
