Guide to Tripod’s 7Cs™ Framework
Challenge
Teachers who challenge students insist that they persevere and do their best work.
They hold students to high academic standards, encourage persistence, and monitor student effort.
Message to Students:
“I insist upon real understanding, not just memorization, and I will not let you give up, even when the work becomes difficult.”
Sample Student Survey Items
(for different grade levels)
- My teacher makes sure that I try to do my best.
- My teacher makes us explain our answers–why we think what we think.
- My teacher doesn’t let people give up when the work gets hard.
Indicators of an Exemplary Classroom
Teachers effectively challenge students through practices like these:
Pressing for rigorous thinking
The teacher sets high standards for thinking and reasoning.
- The teacher asks probing questions that require students to think deeply.
- The teacher requires students to explain their thinking.
- The teacher encourages students to generate original, creative ideas.
Pressing for quality work
The teacher sets high standards for student performance.
- The teacher requires all students to strive for high quality work and clearly conveys a belief in their capability.
- The teacher requires students to revise work based on feedback.
- The teacher differentiates instruction to provide appropriate levels of challenge for students at different skill levels.
Pressing for persistence
The teacher requires students to work hard and persist in their learning.
- The teacher consistently requires all students to try hard, especially those who may tend to be disengaged.
- The teacher communicates that when work is difficult, effort and persistence lead to personal growth and ultimate success.
Reflection Questions
Consider these questions as you reflect on your classroom practice:
- How do you set challenges that are at the appropriate level for each student’s growth?
- How do you scaffold instruction to support students in rising to the challenges facing them?
- How do you engage students in thinking deeply about key ideas?
- What do you do when students respond superficially or incompletely?
- How do you model the persistence and rigor that you expect from students?
- How do you respond when students express doubts about their own abilities or begin to give up?
- How do you recognize and provide positive reinforcement for students who succeed beyond their expectations?
Sample Strategies
Try implementing teaching strategies like these in your classroom:
- Regularly communicate the expectation that all students can achieve challenging learning goals and you will support them in doing so.
- Ask open-ended, higher-order questions and use thinking routines such as Think/Pair/Share to engage students in deepening and explaining their ideas.
- Probe student responses with additional questions that invite them to expand their thinking.
- Ask students to refine their work in light of feedback until it meets criteria for success.
TEACHING RESOURCES
We’ve curated a set of teaching resources for Challenge. As you set goals and pursue professional learning opportunities, use these resource collections to access additional strategies, tools, and examples of effective practices in action.
Challenge: Pressing for Persistence
Teachers who challenge students insist that they persevere and do their best work. They hold students to high academic standards, encourage persistence, and monitor student effort. Find resources offering classroom strategies that support the practice of requiring students to work hard and persist in their learning.
Using Gaming Principles to Engage Students
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Mindset Kit – Praising the process: See it in action, Praise the Process, Not the Person
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Encouraging Students to Persist Through Challenges
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Mindset Works Resources
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Embracing Failure: Building a Growth Mindset Through the Arts
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How to help every child fulfil their potential – RSA
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The Biggest Lie Students Tell Me (and How to Turn It Around)
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Building a Classroom Culture of Trust and Collaboration
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Austin’s Butterfly
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The Perils and Promises of Praise
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UDL Guideline 8: Provide options for sustaining effort and persistence
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Challenge at the Heart of Deeper Learning: Teaching Channel Deeper Learning Series
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Implementing the Writing Process – ReadWriteThink
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Challenge: Pressing for Quality Work
Teachers who challenge students insist that they persevere and do their best work. They hold students to high academic standards, encourage persistence, and monitor student effort. Find resources offering classroom strategies that support the practice of setting high standards for student performance.
Strategies to enhance peer feedback
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Educational Leadership: Looking at Student Work: The Secret of Effective Feedback
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Using Gaming Principles to Engage Students
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Encouraging Students to Own Their Work
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Solving Real-World Issues Through Problem-Based Learning
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Creating High-Quality Work in EL Education Schools: Multiple Levels of Support | EL Education
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The Who, What, and Why of Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback | EL Education
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Using Webb’s Depth of Knowledge to Increase Rigor
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Attributes of High-Quality Work | EL Education
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Making Sure They Are Learning
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RubiStar Home
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Seven Keys to Effective Feedback
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Adapting Curriculum to Learners’ Needs
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What Are Rubrics and Why Are They Important?
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Mindset Works Resources
Read More
Embracing Failure: Building a Growth Mindset Through the Arts
Read More
The Biggest Lie Students Tell Me (and How to Turn It Around)
Read More
Austin’s Butterfly
Read More
UDL Guideline 8: Provide options for sustaining effort and persistence
Read More
Challenge at the Heart of Deeper Learning: Teaching Channel Deeper Learning Series
Read More
The Big Ideas of Understanding by Design
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Student Choice Leads to Student Voice
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Thinking Big About Engagement
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ICT Literacy Maps – P21
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Instruction | Teaching Tolerance – Diversity, Equity and Justice
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Personalized Learning: Enabling Student Voice and Choice Through Projects
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Implementing the Writing Process – ReadWriteThink
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It Takes a Village: Teenagers Use Community Resources to Pen a Guidebook
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Kindergarteners as Experts
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Challenge: Pressing for Rigorous Thinking
Teachers who challenge students insist that they persevere and do their best work. They hold students to high academic standards, encourage persistence, and monitor student effort. Find resources offering classroom strategies that support the practice of setting high standards for thinking and reasoning.
How to Increase Higher Order Thinking
Read More
Solving Real-World Issues Through Problem-Based Learning
Read More
Using Webb’s Depth of Knowledge to Increase Rigor
Read More
Attributes of High-Quality Work | EL Education
Read More
What Makes You Say That
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Making Sure They Are Learning
Read More
What Makes a Question Essential?
Read More
3-2-1 Bridge
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Encouraging Students to Persist Through Challenges
Read More
Building a Classroom Culture of Trust and Collaboration
Read More
Challenge at the Heart of Deeper Learning: Teaching Channel Deeper Learning Series
Read More
Keeping It Relevant and “Authentic”
Read More
The Big Ideas of Understanding by Design
Read More
The Doing What Works Library
Read More
Thinking Big About Engagement
Read More
Science Talk: Management in the Active Classroom
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Reciprocal Teaching | Reading Rockets
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ICT Literacy Maps – P21
Read More
Enliven Class Discussions With Gallery Walks
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Big Paper – Building a Silent Conversation
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Fishbowl
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Instruction | Teaching Tolerance – Diversity, Equity and Justice
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Collaborative Culture: Academic Talk | EL Education
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Barometer – Taking a Stand on Controversial Issues
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Analyzing Perspectives through Primary Sources, Part 1 in Core Practices in Action: Laying the Foundation for Deeper Learning with Literacy
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Personalized Learning: Enabling Student Voice and Choice Through Projects
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5 Ways to Help Your Students Become Better Questioners
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Oracy in the Classroom: Strategies for Effective Talk
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Implementing the Writing Process – ReadWriteThink
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Think Pair Share
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Chalk Talk
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Circle of Viewpoints
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Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy
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