Using Depth and Complexity Icons

Are you familiar with the Depth & Complexity Icon Chart?  When I was first exposed to these icons, I found them a bit intimidating.  But once I got into them a little, I realized that these incorporate the thinking that I was trying to draw out of my students.  By teaching one icon at a time, I was able to make these abstract concepts more concrete for my students.  These icons add an important layer to my curriculum; increasing both rigor and engagement.  I find that these icons are particularly good for differentiating for my gifted students.  They can have the same assignment, but just delve in a little deeper.  I teach the icons to everyone, but there are times that only the gifted students will use them with an assignment.

Each of these eleven tools (language of the discipline, details, patterns, unanswered questions, rules, trends, ethics, big ideas, across disciplines, changes over time and differing perspectives) are considered the essential elements for mastery of subject.  When students think using these tools, they learn to approach subjects from the point of view of an expert. In doing so, they will understand concepts in a deeper and more complex way.

I teach fifth and sixth grade students, so I never use all of the icons at once.  As a matter of fact, I rarely use more than one or two at a time.  Some of the icons I use a lot, and some I rarely use at all.  I like having the entire chart, and the ability to pick and choose, as it serves my purposes.

Some of the things I have done with the icons are:

• Literature:  
• Comparing big ideas among different pieces of literature.
• How a character changes over time
• Differing perspective of an event from various character's view points
• Patterns of behavior
• Social Studies
• Contrasting differing points of view toward the American Revolution
• Comparing the big ideas of our government structure and the Ancient Roman's government structure
• English Language Arts
• Identifying the details that make one sentence more powerful than another sentence
• Math
• Identifying patterns that connect multiplication and addition or even inverse operations such as multiplication and division
• Science, Social Studies, Math
• Use the language/vocabulary - sound like an expert

Give them at try!  They aren't as difficult as they look, and you will love the results that you get from your students!

Click here to download your own copy of the Depth and Complexity Icon Chart