Four Levels of Knowledge
Webb (1997) offers a cognitive approach to learning, identifying four levels of knowledge:
- Recall and Reproduction:-includes basic tasks that require students to recall or reproduce knowledge and/or skills, working with facts, terms and/or properties of objects
- Skills and Concepts-content at this level involves working with a set of principles and categories
- Short-Term Strategic Thinking – items falling into this category demand a short-term use of higher order thinking processes, such as analysis and evaluation, to solve real-world problems with predictable outcomes
- Extended Thinking – curricular elements assigned to this level demand extended use of higher order thinking processes such as synthesis, reflection, assessment and adjustment of plans over time
Each Depth of Knowledge (DOK) is applied to each learning outcome. More specifically, the DOK level assigned should:
- reflect the level of work students are most commonly required to perform in order for the response to be deemed acceptable
- reflect the complexity of the cognitive processes demanded by the task outlined by the objective, rather than its difficulty
- be assigned based upon the cognitive demands required by the central performance described in the objective
Pros of Webb
- levels of knowledge are clearly identifiable
- provides clear outline on how to apply the taxonomy to writing learning outcomes
Cons of Webb
- less information is provided on intersection between the different levels of thinking
- fewer resources available online to support implementing this taxonomy
- does not include the affective / spiritual domains of learning
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Explore Webb’s Depth of Knowledge for Content Areas (PDF) for ideas on how to apply Webb’s framework to designing learning outcomes to specific subject areas. |
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