Once we had identified the 25 indicators we needed to know if they correlated with increased student learning. Thus we visited 84 classrooms in four different states and conducted rigor walks. We then correlated the overall score on the 25 indicators (from a low of 25 to a high of 100, with four levels of performance for each of the 25 indicators) with the percentage of students who gained a year of reading growth on the iReady assessment. It turns out that these 25 indicators have a moderate and statistically significant correlation with reading achievement (r(82) = .68, p < .001), establishing the relationship, or concurrent validity, between these two concepts: rigor and reading performance (Marshall et al., in press). We can now confidently say that focusing on these indicators and increasing attention to them contributes to students’ performance.

Let’s consider a few examples to highlight some of the components.  The first indicator in the instruction component is “Evidence of student learning is used to inform instruction.” In some classrooms, teachers collect evidence from students at regular intervals and adjust lessons in real time. This allows them to accelerate learning when students are understanding the content or provide additional examples and practice when they are not demonstrating mastery. In other classrooms, teachers progress through the lesson, rarely checking for understanding or using evidence to adjust the pace or content. Similarly, in some classrooms teachers design learning based on previous lessons and the evidence they collected, such as on exit slips or student self-assessments. In other classrooms, the lessons proceed in sequential order, irrespective (or despite) the data collected about students’ understanding.

In the goals category, one of the indicators is “Students can describe or demonstrate what successful learning looks like.” Rigorous learning environments ensure that students understand what it means to learn and students can explain what they are learning and how they know that they have learned something. In these classrooms, students are provided with clear success criteria that align with what they are learning. In other classrooms, there may be learning objectives but students are not sure what successful learning looks like or how they will know that they have learned. In other classrooms, there are no success criteria and the lessons focus on what students are doing rather than what they are learning.

We’ve only highlighted two of the 25 rigor indicators for this article, but each of the 25 indicators contributes to the student’s experience of rigor. We encourage you to self-assess and collaborate with colleagues to identify your individual and collective strengths on these indicators and then identify areas that you’d like to focus on to increase the level of rigor that students experience.

Importantly, rigor does not simply mean making things hard for students such that they struggle through every lesson. There is a role for productive struggle, but in rigorous learning environments, students are supported to experience success regularly. The quality of the instructional experiences, aligned with grade-level learning goals, combined with appropriate scaffolds that are faded as students learn, all contribute to student achievement. Our students deserve nothing less.