How to Name and Know Ambitious Instruction

certainly cannot reconsider rigor without what students actually do—or, at least, our intended goals, outcomes, and criteria for said work.

So. Tasks matter. Goals matter. What students read matters. This we all know. But lost in our conversations about understanding rigor levels, considering text complexity, and requiring lesson objectives on the board is that these things are not discrete; in fact, their interaction in support of student learning determines whether both teacher and students can meet that rigor. We can’t look at rigor and text complexity as separate issues; they are, in fact, the same (Valencia, Wixson, & Pearson, 2014). We can’t look at what we ask students to do as separate from our purpose, nor can we disconnect that purpose from our standardized expectation of what students should be doing; it is not rigor otherwise. After all, complex texts or tasks are the means, not the outcome; the goal is complex, sophisticated student thinking—that is rigor. In short, rigor is in practice, not just planning. It is not determined solely by the language in the task prompt; rather, it is realized in action, through the interaction of reader, content, and activity. Our attention must be on the interaction—including the teacher and student interaction during learning—if we are to truly support increased rigor schoolwide. Knowing this, and knowing when we can see it in classrooms or not, distinguishes instructional leaders who make ambitious instruction happen from those who don’t (Huff, Preston, Goldring, & Guthrie, 2018).

Thus, when we’re in classrooms, when we are reviewing curriculum, when we are thinking about how to help teachers improve their teaching, rigor is both academic and instructional. In plans, it is rich content and tasks that are equal to or above what is expected of students at the given grade level or course; in action, it is enactment that sustains and supports complexity while honoring and encouraging student thinking to support proficiency and mastery in the content and skill. Rigor is a fully realized articulation of good teaching and learning, essentially—the what and how. And ambitious instruction is the name for it.

How to Name and Know Ambitious Instruction Teachers of ambitious instruction are uniquely interested in the performance of their students on cognitively complex tasks—that is, their primary focus when planning and delivering instruction is on students’ ideas, how they come to know and develop them, and the supports (such as time, modeling, or differentiation) necessary to facilitate them. This is precisely the opposite of so-called “cute” instruction. No Pinterest. No Teachers Pay Teachers. No planning “cool” activities.

But how do you recognize ambitious instruction, anyway? In simplest terms, everything pedagogical is in the service of supporting the intellectual work of your