AI DOK Alignment Tool for Teachers

How it works

From assessment items to a DOK check.

Paste your questions

Mr. Chen teaches 11th-grade US History. He pastes the 25 questions from his unit test directly into the tool, multiple choice, short answer, and document-based questions. The AI reads each question individually, identifying the cognitive action the student must perform: recall a fact, apply a procedure, reason about evidence, or design an extended response.

AI assigns DOK 1–4 to each item with rationale

For each question, the AI assigns a DOK level: Level 1 (Recall and Reproduction), Level 2 (Skills and Concepts), Level 3 (Strategic Thinking), or Level 4 (Extended Thinking). The sheet describes what students must do at each level, and with Improve with AI on, your own AI key can suggest a level and a reason, for you to check.

Count the DOK balance

The count shows the cognitive demand balance across the entire assessment: how many items are at each DOK level. Mr. Chen discovered that 18 of his 25 questions were DOK 1, recall of dates, names, and definitions. The count made the imbalance visible. The sheet asks whether at least one in four questions is at DOK 3 or above, and whether the balance matches what you taught.

Get specific revisions to reach higher DOK levels

For the three lowest questions that matter most, the AI rewrites them so that they reach a higher level. Rewriting "Who was the 16th President of the United States?" into a DOK 3 question requires fundamentally rethinking the cognitive demand, so check any revision at each DOK level to choose the best fit.

The recall-heavy assessment problem

Many classroom assessments lean heavily on DOK 1 or DOK 2, recall and basic skills. Yet teachers often report that their assessments feel rigorous because the content is challenging. DOK is about cognitive demand, not content difficulty: a hard recall question is still just recall.

Students who can recall facts but cannot reason with them will fail standardized tests, college coursework, and workplace challenges that require applying knowledge to new situations. The DOK Alignment Tool gives you a sheet to make the cognitive demand of any assessment visible, and actionable.

What the DOK alignment tool includes

Every check gives a level guide, a count, and a balance review.

Webb's DOK framework built in

The sheet uses Webb's Depth of Knowledge framework. DOK level descriptors differ between English Language Arts (DOK 3 in ELA involves analyzing author intent), Math (DOK 3 involves multi-step reasoning with non-routine problems), and Social Studies (DOK 3 involves reasoning with primary sources and conflicting evidence). You apply the right subject-area interpretation for each question, since the sheet's descriptors are the same for every subject.

Item-level sorting

You decide why each item sits at its level, what cognitive action it demands, and what a student must do to answer correctly at that level. This helps teachers understand the framework deeply (not just see the label, but understand the reasoning), so they can write higher-DOK items independently over time.

DOK balance counts

The counts show the cognitive demand profile of an entire assessment at a glance, and whether it skews toward recall or higher-order thinking. Teachers can share the sheet with department chairs or instructional coaches in a discussion of assessment rigor.

Higher-DOK revisions

The sheet gives an example of one question at DOK 1, 2 and 3; with Improve with AI on, your AI key can suggest versions of your items, so the teacher can see what the question looks like at different cognitive demands. The teacher chooses the version that best fits the assessment purpose. This can help you build a library of higher-order questions on any topic.

Subject-area DOK descriptors

DOK means different things in different subjects. The sheet uses one set of descriptors, and you adapt it for ELA, Mathematics, Social Studies, Science, World Languages, or Arts. A DOK 3 task in science involves designing an experiment; a DOK 3 task in ELA involves supporting a claim with textual evidence across multiple sources. Teachers adapt the descriptors to their subject.

A balance check

The sheet asks whether at least one in four questions is at DOK 3 or above; a K-2 comprehension check, a middle school unit test, a high school AP-style assessment, and a college course exam may have different appropriate DOK profiles. You compare the current count with your own target to see how many items to revise.

Who uses the DOK alignment tool

Teachers preparing students for standardized assessments can use the sheet to check that classroom tests reflect the cognitive demand they want. When a state test leans toward DOK 3 or above and the classroom unit test is mostly DOK 1, students are not being prepared for the actual test.

Instructional coaches conducting classroom walkthroughs use DOK as a lens for evaluating instructional rigor. The tool generates a DOK profile that coaches can include in observation notes or post-conference documentation.

Department chairs reviewing assessment quality use the tool during common assessment development to ensure the shared assessment includes an appropriate distribution of cognitive demand levels, not just content coverage.

Teachers building question banks can use the sheet to sort existing questions by level, making it easier to build assessments with a chosen cognitive demand profile.