I think there may be two kinds of rigor: process rigor and content rigor. What you described above is all about process rigor. Content rigor would be about how “seriously” to subject matter is covered, whether it’s “dumbed down” to the point that students are not really learning the material or discipline in a way that is level appropriate and up to date with the discipline. When I went to elementary school, rigor in arithmetic would mean that I had to learn how to do long division. Nowadays, rigor would actually exclude that. But if that same grade did not teach me how to work with division or fractions, it would fail the content rigor test.
"Content rigor" could be a name for what we discuss under the section "Clearly defined standards with marks that indicate progress". That is, your choice of standards -- and how to actually assess those -- is exactly about which content is included, and in what depth it is covered.
You got me laughing with footnote # 5 !
My favorite definition of rigor is "Harder than easy, but not as hard as impossible"...
I think there may be two kinds of rigor: process rigor and content rigor. What you described above is all about process rigor. Content rigor would be about how “seriously” to subject matter is covered, whether it’s “dumbed down” to the point that students are not really learning the material or discipline in a way that is level appropriate and up to date with the discipline. When I went to elementary school, rigor in arithmetic would mean that I had to learn how to do long division. Nowadays, rigor would actually exclude that. But if that same grade did not teach me how to work with division or fractions, it would fail the content rigor test.
"Content rigor" could be a name for what we discuss under the section "Clearly defined standards with marks that indicate progress". That is, your choice of standards -- and how to actually assess those -- is exactly about which content is included, and in what depth it is covered.