Learning Progressions CCSSO 2008

7/31/2019 Learning Progressions CCSSO 2008

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LEARNING PROGRESSIONS:

SUPPORTING INSTRUCTION AND FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

MARGARET HERITAGE

NATIONAL CENTER FORRESEARCH ONEVALUATION,STANDARDS, AND STUDENTTESTING (CRESST)

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION AND INFORMATION STUDIES

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,LOS ANGELES

Paper prepared for the Formative Assessment for Teachers and Students (FAST)State Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards (SCASS) of the

Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)


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THE!COUNCIL!OF!CHIEF!STATE!SCHOOL!OFFICERS!

!

The!Council!of!Chief!State!School!Officers! (CCSSO)! is!a!nonpartisan,!nationwide,!nonprofit!organization!of!public!officials!who!head!departments! of! elementary! and! secondary! education! in! the! states,! the!District!of!Columbia,! the!Department!of!Defense! Education! Activity,! and! five! U.S.! extra"state!jurisdictions.! CCSSO! provides! leadership,! advocacy,! and! technical!assistance!on!major!educational!issues.!The!Council!seeks!member!consensus!on!major!educational!issues!and!expresses!their!views!to!civic!and!professional!organizations,!federal!agencies,!Congress,!and!the!public.!

!

Formative!Assessment!for!Students!and!Teachers!State!Collaborative!on!Assessment!and!Student!Standards!

!

The Councils State!Collaborative!on!Assessment!and!Student!Standards!(SCASS)!strives!to!provide!leadership,!advocacy!and!service! in! creating!and!supporting!effective! collaborative!partnerships! through! the! collective!experience!and!knowledge!of!state!education!personnel!to!develop!and!implement!high!standards!and!valid!assessment!systems!that!maximize!educational!achievement!for!all!children.!

!

!

COUNCIL!OF!CHIEF!STATE!SCHOOL!OFFICERS!

!

Rick!Melmer!(South!Dakota),!President!!

Elizabeth!Burmaster!(Wisconsin),!Past!President!

T.!Kenneth!James!(Arkansas),!President"Elect!

!

Gene!Wilhoit,!Executive!Director!

!

!

!

John!Tanner,!Director!Center!for!Innovative!Measures!

Duncan!MacQuarrie

!and

!Douglas

!Rindone,

!Co

"Coordinators,

!FAST

!SCASS

!

!

!

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Council!of!Chief!State!School!Officers!

One!Massachusetts!Avenue,!NW,!Suite!700!

Washington,!DC!20001"1431!

Phone!(202)!336"7000!

Fax!(202)!408"8072!

www.ccsso.org!

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Copyright!!2008!by!the!Council!of!Chief!State!School!Officers,!Washington,!DC!

All!rights!reserved.


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LEARNING PROGRESSIONS:SUPPORTING INSTRUCTION ANDFORMATIVE ASSESSMENT MARGARET HERITAGE

I.

INTRODUCTION

By its very nature, learning involves progression. Toassist in its emergence, teachers need to understand the

pathways along which students are expected to progress.These pathways or progressions ground both instructionand assessment. Yet, despite a plethora of standards andcurricula, many teachers are unclear about how learning

progresses in specific domains. This is an undesirablesituation for teaching and learning, and one that

particularly affects teachers ability to engage informative assessment.

The purpose of formative assessment is to providefeedback to teachers and students during the course oflearning about the gap between students current anddesired performance so that action can be taken to closethe gap. To do this effectively, teachers need to have inmind a continuum of how learning develops in any

particular knowledge domain so that they are able tolocate students current learning status and decide on

pedagogical action to move students learning forward.Learning progressions that clearly articulate a progressionof learning in a domain can provide the big picture ofwhat is to be learned, support instructional planning, andact as a touchstone for formative assessment.

There is no shortage of standards or curricula ineducation today. However, as the Committee on ScienceLearning K-8 (2007) notes, "many standards and curriculacontain too many disconnected topics that are given equal

priority. The way many standards and curricula areconceived limits their utility for planning instruction andassessing learning. Too little attention is given to howstudents' understanding of a topic can be supported fromgrade to grade" (p. 231). Although the authors arereferring specifically to science, this charge can beleveled equally at other domains.

Even though meeting standards is the ultimate goal ofinstruction, most state standards do not provide a clear

progression for understanding where students are relativeto desired goals. In fact, many state standards do notnecessarily even provide a clear picture of what learningis expected. In the main, they consist of propositionalknowledge for different ages, without providingoperational definitions of understanding (Smith et al.,2006). While most existing standards describe whatstudents should learn, by a certain grade level they donot describe how students learn in ways that aremaximally useful for curriculum and instruction (NRC,2001:256). It is fair to say that if the standards do not

present clear descriptions of how students learningprogresses in a domain, then they are unlikely to be usefulfor formative assessment. Standards are insufficientlyclear about how learning develops for teachers to be ableto map formative assessment opportunities to them. Thismeans that teachers are not able determine where studentlearning lies on a continuum, and know what to do toclose the gap between current learning and desired goals.Explicit learning progressions can provide the clarity thatteachers need. By describing a pathway of learning theycan assist teachers to plan instruction. Formativeassessment can be tied to learning goals and the evidenceelicited can determine students understanding and skill ata given point. When teachers understand the continuum oflearning in a domain and have information about currentstatus relative to learning goals (rather than to the activitythey have designed to help students meet the goal), theyare better able to make decisions about what the nextsteps in learning should be.

There are a number of reasons why many curriculaare also problematic for planning learning and formativeassessment. Curricula are often organized around scopeand sequence charts that specify procedural objectives to

be mastered at each grade. Usually, these are discreteobjectives and not connected to each other in a largernetwork of organizing concepts (NRC, 2000). In thiscontext, rather than providing details about the status ofthe students learning relative to the desired learning goal,(the hallmark of formative assessment) that can inform

pedagogical actions, assessment related to the objectiveswill be of how well the student completed the task.Textbooks suffer from the same problems. Many mathand science textbooks, for example, cover a wide array oftopics, (which are not always organized in a logicallyconnected way see, for instance, Stern & Roseman,2004), often leading to superficial coverage of ideaswithout building connections between and among them.

This situation contrasts with how curricula are organizedin countries that outperform the U.S. on internationalassessments and leads to charges that students in the U.S.experience a curriculum that is a mile wide and an inchdeep (Schmidt, McKnight & Raizen, 1997:1)

Curricula organized into units of instruction aroundparticular topics present better, but less than optimal,opportunities for instructional planning and formativeassessment. When units are described in terms of a coreconcept or big idea and supporting sub-conceptsteachers are more easily able to map formative assessment

THE COUNCIL OF CHIEF STATE SCHOOL OFFICERS THE FASTSCASS!FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT FORSTUDENTS AND TEACHERS

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onto these learning goals. However, this approach toorganizing content has its own set of drawbacks. Units areoften not connected to each other in a coherent vision forthe progressive acquisition of concepts and skills, andtherefore limit teachers ability to see how learningdevelops in a specific domain. Teachers are unable tolocate students' learning status on a continuum ofdevelopment and are confined to seeing learning as a

chunk of content that has to be mastered in a giventimeframe. By contrast, learning progressions describe atrajectory of learning in a domain that spans a muchlonger period and provides multi-year image ofsuccessively more sophisticated performance levels.

This progression of learning allows teachers toposition their students' learning, not only in relation totheir current class(es) and the objectives for that cohort,

but also in relation to prior and subsequent classes.Consequently, teachers are able to view current learningagainst a bigger picture of development. In terms ofinstruction, they are able to make connections between

prior and successive learning. Also, information fromformative assessment can be used to pinpoint where

students learning lies on the continuum. Sometimes thiswill mean that teachers have to move backwards along thecontinuum, for example, if key building blocks aremissing. Similarly, they might move learning furtherforward if some students are outpacing their peers. In bothcases, the continuum allows them to make an appropriatematch between instruction and the learners' needs.

In this paper, I first present definitions and attributesof learning progressions. Next I discuss how learning

progressions can support instructional planning andformative assessment. Then I describe several differentlearning progressions and examine the implications oftheir design for instruction and formative assessment.Finally, I outline three different approaches toconstructing learning progressions.


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II.

DEFINITIONS AND ATTRIBUTES OF LEARNING PROGRESSIONS

A number of definitions of learning progressionsexist in the literature and include the following:

! Masters & Forster (1997) describe learningprogression as progress maps which are verticalmaps that provide a description of skillsunderstanding and knowledge in the sequence inwhich they typically develop: a picture of what itmeans to improve in an area of learning (p.1)

! Referring to the domain of science, Wilson andBertenthal (2005) define learning progressions asdescriptions of successively more sophisticatedways of thinking about an idea that follow oneanother as students learn: they lay out in wordsand examples what it means to move towardmore expert understanding (p.3).

! The authors of Taking Science to School (NRC,2007) define learning progressions asdescriptions of the successively moresophisticated ways of thinking about a topic thatcan follow one another as children learn aboutand investigate a topic over a broad span of time(p. 8-2).

! Stevens et al., (2007) describe learningprogressions as descriptions of how students gainmore expertise within a discipline over a periodof time. "They represent not only howknowledge and understanding develops, but also

predict how knowledge builds over time" (p.2).

! Popham, (2007) defines learning progressions asa carefully sequenced set of building blocks thatstudents must master en route to a more distantcurricular aim. The building blocks consist of subskills and bodies of enabling knowledge. (p. 83)

! For Smith et al., (2006) learning progressions arebased on research syntheses and conceptual

analyses and describe successively moresophisticated ways of reasoning in a contentdomain that follow one another as students learn(p.2).

Inherent in each of these definitions is the notion ofvertical development over an extended period of time.

Learning is envisioned as a development of progressivesophistication in understanding and skills within adomain. An important point to note is that none of thedefinitions contains references to grade or age levelexpectations, in contrast to many standards and curricula.Instead, learning is conceived as a sequence or continuumof increasing expertise. Current standards and curriculatend to define learning horizontally rather than vertically.For example, they describe what goes into the sixthgrade math curriculum or the ninth grade language arts

curriculum. A vertical conceptualization of learning isintrinsic to the notion of learning progressions, thussupporting a more developmental view of learning(Wiliam, 2007). In turn, a developmental view invitesteachers to conceptualize learning as a process ofincreasing sophistication, rather than as a body of contentto be covered within specific grade levels. It is axiomaticto learning that students do not proceed in lock step theydo not move forward at the same rate or with the samedegree of depth. Student learning is differential and maylie at different points along the vertical progression. Leeand Ashby (2001), for example, showed that theconceptual understandings in history ofsome 8-year-oldstudents are more advanced than those of many 14-year-

olds; other research indicates that instead of learningbecoming increasingly homogeneous as students movethrough school, the spread of achievement increases withage (for a full discussion of the achievement spread seeWiliam, 2007).

Another idea represented in these definitions oflearning progressions is progression, that is, there is asequence along which students can move incrementallyfrom novice to more expert performance. Implicit in

progression is the notion of continuity and coherence.Learning is not viewed as a series of discrete events, butrather as a trajectory of development that connectsknowledge, concepts and skills within a domain. Withclear connections between what comes before and after a

particular point in the progression teachers can calibratetheir teaching to any missing precursor understanding orskills revealed by assessment, and determine what thenext steps are to move the student forward from that

point.


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III.

USING

LEARNING

PROGRESSIONS FOR

INSTRUCTIONAL

PLANNING AND FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

Learning Progressions and Instruction

A well-constructed learning progression presents anumber of opportunities to teachers for instructional

planning. It enables teachers to focus on importantlearning goals in the domain, centering their attention on

what the student will learn rather that what the studentwill do (i.e., the learning activity). In planning instructionthe learning goal is identified first, and the sequence ofactivities or experiences that teachers will use to enablestudents to meet the goal is connected to the goal.Consequently, the all too common practice of learning

being activity driven rather than driven by the learninggoal is avoided.

A progression also helps teachers see connectionsbetween what comes before and after a specific learninggoal, both in the short and long term. For example, in theSmith, Wiser, Anderson & Krajcik (2006) progression ofMolecular-Atomic Theory (see Appendix), a teacher whowas focusing on the goal of understanding that "the

weight of an object is a function of the material it is madeof" would be able to see that understanding "objects have

properties that can be explained and measured "is animportant precursor for their current goal, and that a moresophisticated development of this understanding is " themass and weight of an object is explained by the massesand weights of its atoms." This means that teachers havethe opportunity to build explicit connections betweenideas for students that thread the development ofincreasingly complex forms of a concept or skill together.

Recent work by Heritage, Kim & Vendlinski (2008)has underscored the importance of clarity for teachers

about what comes before or after a particular learninggoal. In a study of teachers mathematical knowledge, 130sixth grade mathematics teachers reviewed studentresponses to assessments of their understanding of core

principles underlying mastery in algebra I. Teachers couldmostly identify the core principle that the assessmentaddressed, and for the most part could also drawappropriate inferences about what the student did or didnot understand about the principle. However, they hadconsiderable difficulty determining what they would donext instructionally, and what feedback they would givethe students to move their learning forward. A learning

progression, by providing a sequence for learning thatunder girds instruction, could remedy this situation. Takefor example the NCTM Focal Points (NCTM 2007).These are descriptions of the core mathematical ideas thatneed to be learned at each grade level. It would be

possible to develop a learning progression for these ideas.In the case of algebra, for example, among the core ideasfor grade 6 is:

! solve simple one-step equations by using numbersense, properties of operations, and the idea ofmaintaining equality on both sides of an equation

This idea extends into Grade 7 as:

! understand that when the properties of equality toexpress an equation in a new way are used,solutions obtained for the new equation alsosolve the original equation

The idea also has antecedents in the earlier grades,for example:

! use patterns, models, and relationships ascontexts for writing and solving simple equationsand inequalities (Grade 5)

! identify, describe and extend numeric patternsinvolving all operations and nonnumeric growingor repeating patterns (Grade 4)

! use properties of addition and multiplication tomultiply whole numbers and apply increasinglysophisticated strategies based on these propertiesto solve multiplication and division problemsinvolving basic facts (Grade 3)

Using these ideas, a sixth grade teacher whosestudents were having problems solving simple one-stepequations by using properties of operations might decidethat she needs to focus on developing a betterunderstanding of these properties, for instance, thatdivision undoes multiplication and that subtraction undoesaddition. It may be that for some students she needs torevisit antecedents of this from earlier grades, forexample, using models and relationships as contexts forwriting and solving simple equations. For others whohave full grasped the 6th grade idea, the teacher mightdecide to move them forward toward the 7th grade idea byworking on two-step equations.


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However, to be maximally useful for instruction andfor formative assessment, these ideas will need to befleshed out. In their current form they would provide theteachers in the mathematical knowledge study describedabove with a clear view of the building blocks in oneaspect of algebra. But to be able to know what to teachnext or what feedback to give students (recall that theywere by and large not able to do this), more detail and

connections among these ideas is necessary. Indeed, theNCTM specifies that the Focal Points should be used as aframework for planning. With the ideas providing thespine for a more detailed progression, it should be

possible for teachers in a school or district to poolexpertise and figure out the interlocking parts between thecore ideas, and to spell out, for example, what is involvedin understanding and using the properties of operations tosolve equations, or the kind of models and relationshipsstudents need to learn to use to solve equations, or thatmoving to solving two-step equations would be a nextstep in developing ideas from 6th to 7th grade. It is notdifficult to imagine the improvements to teachersknowledge, to instruction, and to formative assessment

that would accrue from such a process. Teachers wouldhave sufficient knowledge be able to pull out short-termgoals for manageable chunks of instruction and formativeassessment (e.g., teaching one of the properties ofarithmetic), while being able to locate the purpose of anyone lesson in a trajectory of instruction that supportsstudent learning over time (Alonzo & Gearhart, 2006).

Learning Progressions and FormativeAssessment

Formative assessment has three key elements: 1)

eliciting evidence about learning to close the gap betweencurrent and desired performance; 2) providing feedback tostudents; and 3) involving students in the assessment andlearning process. Learning progressions are foundationalto these elements.

Eliciting Evidence. To be effective, formativeassessment cannot be treated as a series ofad hoc events.Instead, evidence of learning needs to be elicited insystematic ways so that teachers have a constant stream ofinformation about how student learning is evolvingtoward the desired goal. A constant stream is necessary

because if assessment is used effectively to informinstructional action then that action will render previousassessment information out of date: student learning will

have progressed and will need to be assessed again so thatinstruction can be adjusted to keep learning movingforward. With clear learning goals outlined in a

progression, teachers can match formative assessmentopportunities to them, and can make plans in advance ofand during instruction about when, what, how and who toassess. Even when formative assessments arisespontaneously in the course of a lesson, interpretations ofhow learning is evolving can be made based on thetrajectory of learning represented in the progression. Theinformation from the assessments maps back onto the

progression and assists teachers to identify where studentsare in their learning and to decide what they need to donext.

Feedback to Students. Feedback to students iscritical to formative assessment. A considerable body ofliterature documents the nature and benefits of qualityfeedback for student learning, motivation and self-regulation (e.g., Bangert-Drowns et al., 1991; Butler,

1986; Butler & Nisan, 1986; Kluger & DeNisi, 1996;Pintrich & De Groot, 1990.) Quality teacher feedbackneeds to be timely, specific, linked to explicit criteria (thatare known to the student) and provide suggestions forhow to improve (OECD, 2005). The explicit criteria, orwhat a good performance looks like, Sadler (1989:120),have also been termed success criteria (e.g., Clarke,2005; Wiliam, 2007). These criteria serve as sign-postsfor students about where they are going in their learning,as a means for teachers to assess the current state ofstudents learning, and for students themselves to reflecton their performance.

Returning to the science goals described earlier, if

teachers are clear that their learning goal is to developunderstanding that "objects have properties that can beexplained and measured" they have a basis fordetermining what a good performance looks like. Forexample, in a classification task the students shouldaccurately sort objects according to weight, length andarea, be able to explain their classification system anddescribe reasons for why they have put specific objects inone category rather than another. The task would providethe teacher with information about students understandingof the goal and enable her to provide specific feedback tothe students, for example, "there are three objects that

belong in this category and one that doesn't. Look again,think about your explanations, and see if you can figure

out which one does not belong and why." The teacher isable to analyze how the student performance differs fromthe criteria and provides feedback that requires the studentto think more about the classification she has made. Theteacher also knows that these criteria connect with anearlier learning goal of understanding that "objects areconstituted of matter" (which she may need to return todepending on the information from the assessment task)and to the subsequent goal of understanding that "objectsare made of matter that takes up space and has weight"(which she may move to more quickly than sheanticipated as a result of the assessment).

The feedback is given in relatively frequent andmanageable chunks so that the requirements forimprovement are both understandable and doable(Brookhart, 2007). Quality feedback does not involvecomparison with peers, but instead helps students tounderstand their own performance in relation to thelearning goal. Thus, the learning process is transparentand also provides students with models of "learning howto learn" (OECD, 2005).

Involvement of Students. Cognitive theories note acentral role for metacognition (i.e., thinking aboutthinking) in students learning. In the context of formativeassessment, metacognition involves students in


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monitoring and evaluating their own learning process todetermine what they know and understand, and to developa variety of learning strategies so that they can adapt theirlearning to the task at hand. Sharing the criteria forsuccess with the students at the outset of the instructionalsegment not only provides transparency on the learning

process, it also means that the students can monitor theirlearning while engaged in the learning task. But how can

students monitor their learning while they are learning?Wont they need to have learned what they need to learnto be able to know if they have learned it? To answerthese questions, more on success criteria and the tension

between summative and formative assessment is in orderhere.

Teachers have traditionally been trained to writelearning goals as by the end of students will.Clarke (2005) refers to these as product criteria thatdescribe a longer-term learning goal. These productcriteria are often accompanied by rubrics, usually on aone to four point scale, that specify what performance foreach score point looks like. Rubrics are provided tostudents (or are developed by students and teachers

together) at the beginning of the learning sequence.Students know what they are aiming for and using therubric they are able to evaluate their product. Teachersmight use the rubric as part of the students grade. I wouldargue that this represents summative rather than formativeassessment. Students and teachers evaluate learningexpected at the end of a longer-term objective, whichstands in contrast to the notion of a steady stream ofinformation to guide minute-by-minute, day-by-dayinstruction and learning (Leahy et al., 2006).

Without a doubt it is desirable for students to knowwhat the longer-term goal is or what the final product ofthe learning will be. Increased involvement in learning

occurs when teachers share with the students what theirlonger-term goals are and enable them to participate inevaluating the degree to which they have met the goals.However, long-term goals represent too much of a stretchfor students (and for teachers) to be able to profitablymonitor their learning and to respond to feedback fromteachers and peers. Needed for formative assessment areshort-term objectives (for one or two lessons) and processcriteria for students to help them while they are engagedin the task. In other words the key steps or ingredientsstudents need to meet the learning goal of the lesson orlessons (Clarke, 2005). What does this look like in

practice? Take, for example, the long-term writing goal:students will use conditionals in past and future to

speculate about possible causes (past) and review a rangeof options (future). A short-term goal or objective towardmeeting this goal could be to have students use someconnectives in their writing to show causality. The

process criteria for the students might be: in your writingtoday remember to use words like because, so, as,however,therefore to express the reasons why things didor should happen. These criteria become the means forstudents to be reflective while they are learning to use theconnectives to show causality, as well as being the basisfor teachers assessment while the students are writing.Further reflection and the opportunity to be actively

involved in learning could come at the end of the lessonwhen students respond to the question "how well do youthink that you used connectives to show causality whydo you think this? and leave their responses on cards forthe teacher to read as they leave class. Alternatively, shecould ask them to review their writing against the successcriteria, identify where they have used the connectiveswell and note a place where they could improve their

writing the following day. Through this process studentshave a manageable way to be self-reflective about theirlearning while they are learning. Furthermore, theteachers observations from the lesson, analysis of thewriting samples against the criteria, and the students endof the lesson reflection, give her the means to makedecisions about how well learning is progressing and thekind of feedback she will give to the class as a whole or toindividual students. Not only does she have the criteria onwhich to provide specific feedback to the students abouttheir learning, she also has information to guide her lessonthe next day. At the same time, process criteria enablestudents to be involved in peer- as well as self-assessment. Peers can review each others work against

the criteria and provide feedback on areas forimprovement.

Ultimately, the teachers and the students will likelywant to evaluate how well they have met the longer-termgoal of using conditionals in past and future to speculateabout possible causes (past) and review a range of options(future), which could involve evaluating with a rubric a

piece of writing intended to display this competence.Critically, though, prior to this the students will have hadmany opportunities to reflect on the short-term goalsduring the course of learning, with corollary opportunitiesto adjust their learning in response to their own reflectionand to teacher and peer feedback.


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IV.

EXAMPLES OF LEARNING PROGRESSIONS

In this section I describe eight different learningprogressions (see Appendix for full text of progressions):1) A Counting and Ordering Process Map, (Masters &Forster, 1997); 2) The U.K. National Curriculum inHistory (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 2007);3) Stages of Listening Comprehension and SpeakingSkills(Bailey & Heritage, in press); 4) Stages of Spelling(Gillet & Temple, 2000); 5) A Developmental Model forLearning Functions (Kalchman & Koedinger, 2005); 6)FAST trajectory (Shavelson, Stanford EducationalAssessment Laboratory (SEAL) & Curriculum Research

& Development Group (CRDG), 2005); 7) A ConceptualFlow for Genetics (DiRanna & Topps, 2005); and 8) AProgression of Molecular-Atomic Theory (Smith, Wiser,Anderson & Krajcik, 2006). I have selected these

progressions not because they are necessarily exemplary,but rather because each addresses an area of K-12learning, and have sufficiently articulated a progression to

be able to characterize their main features.

Counting and Ordering Progress Map (Masters &Forster, 1997). The purpose of this map is to provide adescription of development in an area of learning that can

be used as a guide to instruction and assessment. Studentdevelopment in counting and ordering is representedalong a continuum from lower level to higher-level, moresophisticated skills and understanding. For example, atthe lower portion of the map the student progresses fromskip counting in 2s or 3s using a number line, hundredchart or mental counting, to using unitary ratios of theform of 1 part to X parts. The map presents a multi-yeartrajectory of development, thus providing a whole-school view of learning (Masters & Forster, 1997:2).Teachers are able to see the growth of student learning incontext of progress made in earlier and later years.Assessments are used in conjunction with the map tolocate student learning along the continuum so thatteachers can determine the instruction that is likely to bethe most beneficial for students at that particular point.

The U.K. National Curriculum in History(Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 2007). This

progression provides a description of levels of attainmentin history that span the early years of schooling to agesixteen. As in the previous example of counting andordering, a development of learning in history starts at arudimentary level with students recognizing thedistinction between present and past in their own andother people's lives, for example, and progresses at thehighest level to students using their factual knowledgeand understanding of the history of Britain and the widerworld to analyze the relationships between events, people

and changes, and between the features of different pastsocieties and cultures. Each attainment level isaccompanied by a program of study, which provides amore detailed description of the elements of learning. Thecontent of the programs of study builds progressively, and

provides sufficient detail for instructional planning. It isalso clear what the points of focus of formativeassessment should be to keep learning moving forward. Amulti-year, whole-school development of history isrepresented within which learning at any point on thecontinuum is set in the context of prior and successive

learning. A national system of assessment is linked to theprogression and student performance is described in termsof the level of attainment that has been reached.

Stages of Listening Comprehension and SpeakingSkills (Bailey & Heritage, 2008). The stages in thelistening comprehension and speaking skills progressionrepresent a typical range of development for studentsfrom five to twelve years of age. Each stage comprisesfour categories: word: sentence and discourse level and

prior content knowledge. Within each categorydevelopment increases in sophistication. For example, atthe sentence level in stage 1 speaking skills, students useword order conventionsto make meaning of syntacticallysimple sentences (e.g., subject + verb + object =declarative statement; verb + subject + object = questionform; verb + object = imperative form) and by stage 3they are expanding their repertoire of recognizablesentence structures to include frequently used complexsyntax (e.g., relative clauses) for meaning making. Aformative assessment task tied to this level might be thatchildren are asked to create their own question inresponse to content material so that teachers can ascertaintheir level of syntactic knowledge of this form. This

progression complements a progression in reading (also inthe same volume), which is organized into similarcategories. So while children are developing the speakingskills described above they are simultaneously using theirknowledge of syntactically simple sentences to aidreading comprehension. Together, the two progressionsillustrate the intertwined nature of language and readingdevelopment. This progression is not linked to a specificsystem of assessment, but rather is intended as a guide forteachers to map formative assessment to the descriptionsof development at each stage.

Stages of Spelling (Gillet and Temple, 2000). Thisprogression represents five stages of spellingdevelopment, ranging from pre-phonemic at the earlieststage of emergent literacy to derivational spelling. Thespelling progression has parallels to reading development.


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For example, at the pre-phonemic spelling stage, lettersand forms are used randomly in childrens attempts atwriting. This parallels childrens early reading when theyare isolating phonemes aurally and beginning tounderstand that phonemes have letter correspondences. Atthe derivational stage of spelling when they read studentsare using their knowledge of morphemes to makemeaning of text, for example, how verbs can change to

nouns (e.g., -ion, ism, -ology) and how nouns can changeto verbs (e.g., -ify, -en, -ize). The sequence of spellingdevelopment in this progression is generally thought totake from three to six years to complete. Teachers can usethe progression for formative assessment (e.g., examiningwriting samples against the stages, using a spellinginventory, collecting misspellings of the same words atintervals and contrasting the attempts) and, based on theirassessment, they can use the stages to plan instruction thatwill increase spelling competence.

A Developmental Model for Learning Functions(Kalchman & Koedinger, 2005). The Model for LearningFunctions is an instructional plan, encompassing fourlevels from 0 to 3. It is intended to build and secure

students conceptual understanding, their facility inrepresenting functions in a variety of ways, and theirability to solve for unknown variables so that they cantackle unknown problems with confidence. The authorsstate that the model is designed to produce groundedcompetence whereby students can reason with and aboutmultiple representations of mathematical functionsflexibly and fluently (p.389). In contrast to the priorexamples, this progression is intended as a unit of study,taking approximately 650 minutes of class time tocomplete rather than a multi-year description of learning.The unit is represented as a progression of numeric andspatial understanding, level 0 characterizing the kinds ofnumeric/symbolic and spatial understanding studentstypically bring to learning function, and level 3 describingthe understanding about how linear and nonlinear termscan be related that students achieve at this level. The unitcan be taught at the sixth, eighth, tenth and eleventhgrades and the authors recommend that, regardless ofgrade level, the unit should be taught in sequence becausethe concepts addressed in level 3 are dependent on a deepunderstanding of concepts in levels 1 and 2.

Buoyancy Trajectory (Shavelson et al., 2005). Thebuoyancy trajectory identifies progress variables for thedevelopment of student understanding of why things sinkand float. The trajectory contains tasks that are embeddedin instruction to provide teachers with formative feedback

about how students understanding of relative density isevolving. The trajectory encompasses a instructional time

period of approximately twelve weeks, and traces thedevelopment of student understanding about why thingssink and float from alternative conceptions like buoyancydepends on the object being flat, hollow, filled with air,etc., to understanding that buoyancy depends on thedensity of the object relative to the density of the medium(relative density). Tasks are embedded into instruction atcritical junctures in the trajectory. For example, afterseveral investigations of the relationship of mass tovolume and how both properties affect an objects

capacity for floating and sinking, students engage in tasksthat enable the teacher to differentiate between studentswho understand this concept from those students whohave different levels understanding on the trajectory. Each

performance level is defined in terms of what the studentknows (e.g., floating depends on having a small mass anda large volume), what the students needs to progress tothe next level (e.g., student needs to understand the

concept of density as a relationship between mass andvolume) along with a sample response (e.g., an objectfloats when its mass is small and its volume is large).Teachers know which students have understood theconcept and what they need to learn next, and they alsoknow which students still need more experiences todevelop the understanding that is the target of theinstruction at a particular point in the learning sequence.

Conceptual Flows (DiRanna & Topps, 2005). A partof the Assessment Centered Teaching Portfolio, TheConceptual Flow is intended to function as both a tool and

process that help teachers establish science learning goalsand the framework for an assessment plan. Essentially,the tool and process provide a means to engage in

backward planning (e.g., Wiggins & McTighe, 2005).Teachers identify the big ideas in a strand of science thatwill be the focus of an instructional unit and from thosedevelop a sequence of learning as a hierarchy of ideas.The big ideas are supported by small ideas, and thosesmall ideas are supported by even smaller ideas,representing a series of nested concepts. In therepresentation of the conceptual flow teachers areencouraged to use different widths of lines to connectideas. The lines indicate the strength of the links betweenideas - thicker lines indicate a strong link, while thinnerlines indicate a weaker link. Teachers can matchformative assessment to the ideas represented in the flowto assess how well students are progressing towardunderstanding the big ideas. Resources (e.g., textbooks,instructional materials) are then identified that can beused to support teaching. During the course of instructionteachers use formative assessment matched to the ideasrepresented in the flow to assess how well students are

progressing toward understanding the big ideas.

A Learning Progression of the Atomic-MolecularTheory of Matter (Smith, et al., 2006). This progressionis divided into three grade bands that progressivelydescribe the development of understanding: K-2 Developing an Understanding of Materials andMeasurement: 3-5 Developing an Explicit MacroscopicUnderstanding of Matter; and 6-8 Developing an Initial

Understanding of the Atomic Molecular Theory.Throughout, content and process skills are linked in fourinter-related strands: 1) know, use, and interpret scientificexplanations of the natural world; 2) generate andevaluate scientific evidence and explanations; 3)understand the nature and development of scientificknowledge; 4) participate productively in science

practices and discourse. The beginning stage of theprogression identifies several ideas that children have atthe start of school about matter, and the learning

progression is described, in part, by progressively moresophisticated answers to the questions. Each segment of


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the progression is dependent on the preceding one,enabling children to develop a framework for assimilatingincreasingly abstract ideas and exploring questions atdeeper levels.

In the next section I examine differences andsimilarities among the progressions and consider theirimplications for instruction and for formative assessment.

Design Implications for Instruction and

Formative AssessmentAll the progressions share the characteristic of

moving from less to more sophisticated understanding orskills. Where they differ is in the span of the progression,and in the level of detail or granularity. Some

progressions are described as a discrete unit of study,which is intended to take place over a relatively short

period, usually a matter of weeks (e.g., the buoyancyprogression, developmental model of functions and theconceptual flow). Others describe a multi-year trajectoryof learning, which might span several or all years of

schooling (e.g., the spelling progression, the counting andordering progress map, the history progression, theatomic-molecular theory progression). There arevariations in the progression in terms of the level of detail

provided - progressions that cover a shorter time spantend to provide a more detailed description. Thedifferences in time-span and detail of the progressionshighlight one of the tensions in creating a progression toserve the dual purpose of instruction and formativeassessment, namely, the appropriate degree of granularityfor teachers to see the big picture, understand what theessential building blocks are, make connections betweenand among them, and yet have the specifics to guideassessment and instruction without ending up with what

Lorrie Shepard terms the "thousand mini-lesson problem"(Shepard, 2007). Perhaps one way to resolve this tensionis to provide a big picture, multi-year progression thatoutlines essential building blocks and then drills downfrom the building blocks into more detailed descriptions.Teachers who are responsible for a particular range of the

progression could have the detail they need for planningand for formative assessment. They would also be able tosee how the focus of their instruction connects to a larger

picture of learning, and in the case when assessmentinformation shows that one or more of their students are

performing outside the range they would know whatprecursor understanding or skills need to be developed forstudents to move forward.

The U.K. National Curriculum presents an exampleof what this approach could look like. A program of studythat focuses on the core ideas of the domain is providedfor each of the attainment levels. The program of studyoutlines in some, but not overwhelming, detail what thecore ideas at each attainment level look like. For example,at the earliest stages the program of study for historicalinquiry specifies that students learn how to find out aboutthe past from a range of sources of information, (e.g.,stories, eyewitness accounts, pictures and photographs,artifacts, historic buildings and visits to museums,

galleries and sites, the use of information andcommunication technology based sources). Students buildon this learning in later stages to develop anunderstanding that people represent and interpret the pastin many different ways, (including in pictures, plays,films, reconstructions, museum displays, and fictional andnonfiction accounts) and that the interpretations reflectthe intentions of those who make them (for example,

writers, archaeologists, historians, filmmakers). The waythe core ideas develop progressively through theattainment levels is reminiscent of Jerome Brunersnotion of the spiral curriculum. He expressed thehypothesis that any subject can be taught effectively insome intellectually honest form to any child at any stageof development (Bruner, 1960: 33). Consequently, he

proposed that as any curriculum develops should revisitthese ideas and build on them in successive ways (ibid).

Clarity about how core ideas develop from theirearliest to more sophisticated forms presents a number ofadvantages for teaching and learning. First, thedescription of the ideas at each of the attainment levelshelps teachers keep the big picture in mind, and enables

them to see where their focus of learning fits in a largertrajectory. Thus, they expand their knowledge of thedomain and can connect prior and successive learning tothe students' current learning focus. Knowing that at alater stage students will be learning that representationsand interpretations of history differ, for example, could

prompt a teacher of an earlier stage to not only helpchildren understand there are different sources ofevidence about the past, but to also lay the ground workfor the future by connecting the idea of who provided thesource of evidence and what that person's role was or is.

Second, the descriptions of attainment at each levelprovide sufficient detail for instructional planning and

help teachers to map formative assessment opportunitieson to the key elements of learning in the description.Recall that there are several components of formativeassessment: eliciting evidence, providing feedback, andthe involvement of students. The descriptions in the

program of study support all these components. Teachershave sufficient detail from which to derive criteria forsuccess, which can be shared with students. They are ableto decide on appropriate pedagogical strategies that willassist students to meet the criteria and use these strategiesas formative assessments to elicit evidence of howlearning is evolving toward the criteria. For example, inthe history inquiry strand when students are learningabout source material they might investigate a set of

artifacts related to a period of history, noting importantdetails. Teachers might then give students other sourcematerial, photographs of the artifacts in use, for instance,and ask them to extract information about the period fromthe sources. This activity could serve the dual purpose ofsupporting the development of historical reasoning whileeliciting evidence of the students ability to reason beyondobservations. The criteria become the focus fordetermining how learning is progressing and enableteachers to provide descriptive, criterion-based feedbackthat can help students understand their current status inlearning and provide pointers so they know what to do to


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move forward. For instance, the teacher feedback couldlet the students know that are able to extract information

beyond the observations but that they are not yetcombining information from sources, which is theultimate goal. The feedback is in manageable chunks andlearning is transparent students know where they areand where they are going. Additionally, sharing criteriawith the students at the beginning of the instructional

sequence establishes the expectation that students will beinvolved in the learning process and helps them monitorand adjust their own learning.

A further way in which I suggest the progressionsdiffer is in their notions of development, which also hasimplications for instruction and assessment. The spelling

progression describes stages of typical development andspecifies what students could accomplish during eachstage. The progression of listening comprehension isorganized in a similar way, providing descriptions ofdevelopment without being prescriptive about grade level.The counting and ordering progress map is alsodevelopmental, as is the history progression. While bothare linked to levels of attainment, neither is specifically

linked to grade level expectations. The molecular-atomictheory progression is linked to grade level bands, butthese bands span several years of learning. In all these

progressions, learning is conceived of as moving along atrajectory and, although students might be expected toaccomplish a certain range of building blocks during thecourse of say one of more years, they are not restricted toa specific period time.

The unit progressions also clearly state a sequence oflearning and identify dependencies among concepts.However, implicit in the unit progressions is the idea thatmastery of the concepts will be achieved in a period ofseveral weeks of instruction, in contrast to the progression

that describe a multi-year trajectory. In terms of planningfor instruction and assessment the unit plans are tightlyorganized, presenting clarity about the hierarchy oflearning, (what building blocks precede others) and givingdefinition to what elements of learning need to beassessed to ensure each sub concept is in place beforemoving onto the next. However, we know that learningdoes not proceed uniformly, so what happens if studentsdo not master the concept(s) in the expected time frame?Does the unit as a whole get repeated later that year orduring another year? If not, how do teachers know how toconnect the concepts that have not been fully understoodto later learning? Furthermore, are students expected tolearn all there is to know about genetics, for example, in

the space of one unit covering a few weeks? What areearly understandings of genetics and how do conceptionsof genetics become progressively more sophisticated?How is the development of core ideas coordinated oversuccessive years? How is the study of genetics linked toother areas of the discipline? These seem to me to beimportant questions that are not answered by a unitapproach.

A developmental progression spanning a longerperiod and tracing how concepts and skills build

progressively can be organized into increments forinstruction. However, if teachers know how learningmoves forward or backwards along a progression theyhave greater flexibility in planning for learning. In thecase when all the learning goals of a unit of instructionhave not been met, teachers can trace the threads of theconcepts, identify subsequent opportunities along the

progression when these concepts connect with later ones,

and revisit them at this point. Alternatively, they mightneed to go further back in the progression to clear upmisconceptions or to fill gaps in students knowledge thatare preventing them from meeting the goals of the unit.Additionally, a longer developmental trajectory enablesteachers of students whose understanding outpaces that oftheir peers to focus instruction on developing theirthinking to higher levels, which might be beyond thatoutlined in the unit.

One more point about the differences among thelearning progressions. Some of the progressions advancein isolation and some are connected to other areas of thediscipline. For example, the spelling progression parallelsdevelopment in reading wherein students are using their

knowledge of sound/symbol correspondences to decodeas well as encode. The listening and speaking progression

parallels a progression for reading and writingdevelopment (these are not shown in the appendix) withclear links among them. This design provides an even

bigger picture of learning within the domain and enablesteachers to use formative assessment opportunities in onearea to inform how learning is progressing in another. Forexample, an examination of student writing might be usedto elicit evidence of students knowledge of sound symbolcorrespondences, which is important information not justfor encoding but also for decoding in reading. Similarly,students listening comprehension skills in relation tocertain syntactic structures can provide a window toreading comprehension. If students are not able tounderstand specific structures (e.g., subordinate clauses)in listening, then this is important information for teachersin relation to their reading instruction.

Each of the progressions I have discussed focuses onthe content of a discipline and the development of contentknowledge from less to more sophisticated forms. Informative assessment practices other aspects ofdevelopment are invoked, namely metacognition and self-regulation. Although a full discussion of these moregeneralizable features of development are beyond thescope of this paper, it is important to note both theirrelevance to learning and the need for teachers awareness

of how they can be supported through their actions in theclassroom. Indeed, recognizing the changing capacities ofa broad range of developmental characteristics prompts usto reflect on the wide range of necessary knowledge andskills for teachers to use learning progressions andformative assessment practices (for a description of theknowledge and skills teachers need see Heritage, 2007).


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V.

CONSTRUCTING

LEARNING

PROGRESSIONS

In Knowing What Students Know (KWSK) acommittee of the National Research Council advanced anambitious vision for a system of assessment based onthree critical principles: coherence, comprehensivenessand continuity (NRC, 2001). A coherent system is builton a well-structured conceptual base, which isfoundational to both large-scale and classroomassessments. The same constructs are being assessed

regardless of their level of implementation (although theymay be more differentiated at the classroom level). Thus,all assessment is aligned along a vertical dimension. Acomprehensive assessment system includes a range ofmeasurement approaches at different levels of detail to

provide the variety of evidence to support educationaldecision-making. Continuity refers to a system that istemporally aligned wherein student learning is measuredover time to provide a continuous stream of evidenceabout how learning is progressing. In the authors view,an important step toward realizing this vision is thedevelopment of user-friendly models of student

progression in learning, where clear targets for instructionand assessment are identified.

The authors ofKWSKalso stress the importance ofalignment of curriculum, instruction and assessment sothat all three parts of the system are working toward acommon set of learning goals. In their vision assessmentwill not simply be aligned with instruction, but integratedseamlessly into instruction so that teachers and studentsare receiving frequent but unobtrusive feedback abouttheir progress (NRC, 2001:256). Essentially, what is

presented here is a vision for formative assessment.

However, we remain at some distance from theimplementation of this vision. We lack comprehensivemodels of student progression in many domains. Currentresearch only defines how a limited number of areas can

be divided into learning progressions (Herman, 2006). Asdescribed earlier, what teachers have in the way ofstandards and curricula fall short of a coherent

progression of learning in a domain. Until there is asufficiently well developed research base to informlearning progression in each domain, we need otherstrategies for figuring out learning progressions (Herman,2006). Teachers cannot wait for the research communityto catch up. They need better tools than standards andexisting curricula to realize the promise of formativeassessment to student learning. Moreover, there isconsiderable value to the development of teachers

knowledge about a discipline when they define aprogression of learning.

In what follows I consider three examples ofapproaches to constructing learning progressions. Itshould be noted though that these approaches are by nomeans the only ways to construct learning progressions(see, for example, DiRanna & Topps, 2006; Stevens et al.,2007; Wiliam, 2007; Wilson & Draney, 2004), nor are

they the only possible progressions for a particularlearning outcome. While research and experience willlikely continue to show that some components of a

progression are best taught and learned before others, it isdoubtful that there would ever be complete agreement onthe sequence of a progression. The progressions Iconsider are intended to be illustrative, rather thanexhaustive, of possible approaches and sequences. Ingeneral, the different approaches to creating learning

progressions can be loosely described as 'top-down' or'bottom-up'. In a 'top-down' progression, experts in thedomain (e.g., physicists, mathematicians, historians), andother experts such as development specialists construct a

progression based on their domain and researchknowledge. The resulting progression represents theirdecisions about what constitutes the 'big ideas' of thedomain and how they connect together. A 'bottom-upapproach' involves curriculum content experts andteachers in developing a progression that is based on theirexperience of teaching children. Their sources fordeveloping the progression are curricula, their views ofwhat is best taught when, and their knowledge ofchildren's learning. For sure there are times when thedomain experts consult teachers and when teachersconsult researchers, but on the whole the genesis of the

progressions come from different sources of expertise.

First, progress maps developed by the Australian

Council of Educational Research (Masters & Forster,1996), which I consider a 'bottom-up' approach todeveloping a progression. The goal of the progress mapsis to obtain an estimate of students current location onthe map as a guide to the kinds of learning experienceslikely to be most useful at that stage in the studentslearning and as a basis for monitoring growth (p.1). Thedevelopment of the maps usually begins with teachersunderstandings from their day-to-day experiences abouthow student learning typically occurs in specific areas andwhat the indicators of progress are. Once this initialsketch is outlined it is then tested against a set of


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questions including: Do other teachers agree with this?What is the empirical evidence for this map? Is this

picture consistent with theoretical understandings of howlearning occurs? How useful is the resulting map in

practice? Once in use the maps are constantly checked,updated and enriched (p.13). Information derived fromobservations of learning and records of student

performance illustrate the nature of progress and are used

to revise the map. For example, the information mightshow that concepts that appear at one point in theprogression would be better addressed earlier or later.

The next approach I describe is a 'top-down'approach' to developing the atomic-molecular theory

progression and documented in Taking Science to School(NRC, 2007). Two design teams comprising scientists,science educators and experts on children's learning wereasked to use existing research to construct possiblelearning progressions for the atomic-molecular theory andevolution, both core ideas in modern science. The teamsapproached the task in similar way. First, they organizedthe learning progression around big ideas important to thediscipline. Second, both teams identified several high-

level abstract ideas that go into building the core ideas,but which are accessible to children at the start ofschooling, thereby acknowledging that young childrenhave the important domain-specific ideas that serve as thefoundation for their learning. Essentially, the atomic-molecular theory and the theory of evolution were seen asemergent ideas. These ideas provided a framework fororganizing children's learning of new facts, inquiry andexplanation. For example, in molecular theory thedistinctions that young children can make between objectsand what they are made of can be resources to support thedevelopment of understanding about why objects have thecharacteristics they do and for understandingtransformations. Third, the design teams, recognizing thatunderstanding an idea means that the learner must beengaged in practices that support using and developingthe ideas, specified the nature of those practices. Amongthese practices are using ideas to question, describe,classify, identify, predict, use data and evaluate ideas andmake arguments. Finally, the teams took the view thatunderstanding of the core ideas involves understandingthe data patterns and knowledge construction andevaluation practices that give rise to the ideas. In the caseof the atomic-molecular theory progression this meant thedesigners focused on ideas of measurement, models andevaluation of idea using data and argument (NRC, 2007).The authors note that this process is still partial andincomplete and has not yet been discussed and critiqued

by the larger community. Furthermore, teachers have notused it so evaluations of the utility to practice are notavailable.

The final example I describe is a ' bottom-up' processundertaken by Heritage and Osmundson, working incollaboration with the Wisconsin State Department ofEducation, to develop learning progressions in reading.Teams, comprising curriculum content experts who had adistrict-wide or school wide role and current classroomteachers (elementary, middle and high school), first

reviewed the Wisconsin content standards and isolated thesubcomponents. For example:

A4.1 Use effective reading strategies to achievetheir purposes in reading

! Use a variety of strategies and word recognitionskills, including rereading, finding context clues,applying knowledge of letter-sound relationships,

and analyzing word structures (subcomponentsare underlined)

The next step was to work collaboratively to identifythe sub skills or sub concepts that would lead tounderstanding of the concept or acquisition of the skill. Inthe case of analyzing word structure, for instance, subskills identified were use of knowledge of regularletter/sound correspondences to analyze words, use ofknowledge of irregular spelling patterns, diphthongs,digraphs, and use of knowledge of prefixes, affixes,suffixes, inflections to read words. To identify these subskills, teams drew from their combined expertise ofworking with students, and from their knowledge of thesubstantial body of literature on reading development.

Once the teams had decided on the key sub skills orsub concepts they laid them out in a progression that waslogical for them and made sense in terms of what theyknew about learning and instruction. For this process theyused sticky notes so that they could move around thesequence as ideas were discussed in the group. Onestriking factor was that teachers, no matter the level ofexperience and expertise with content, consistentlymuddled learning goals with the context for how thelearning would be achieved. For example, teachersidentified creating area models as the learning goal ratherthan viewing them as a means for developing studentunderstanding of the concept of equivalent fractions. Isuspect that these teachers are not atypical in gravitatingto the activities students will do or the materials thestudents need. However, in the course of the sessions theteachers did become much clearer about the difference

between the two, but not without a good deal of guidancefrom those facilitating the sessions. At one point, one ofthe facilitators went to a group and removed all the stickynotes that did not specify to a learning goal after this thegroup was left with two notes only. While this might beconsidered rather drastic action, it did have the effect ofreally making the teachers think about the goals, whichthey did with considerable success. The lesson learnedfrom this experience is that we cannot assume that allteachers will be able to identify a progression of learning

without there being expertise in the group from eithercolleagues or external resources. We also need to realizethat, while developing the progressions will take time andcannot be accomplished as a one shot deal, the benefits toteachers' understanding of the structure of knowledgedomains will be substantial.

With the Goldilocks metaphor in mind, anotherchallenge at this stage in developing the progression wasthe level of detail for building blocks in other words,deciding on the just right grain size. Teams decidedthat the issue could not be resolved at this stage in


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development, and progression would be adjusted whenexperience with them showed what building blocks were

providing too little or too much information to be helpfulfor instruction and formative assessment. Once the initial

progression was completed the following questionsprompted further discussion and planning:

! Are the major building blocks (i.e., criticalconcepts/skills) in the learning progression

addressed?

! Are they linked in way that helps buildunderstanding and skills?

! Do other teachers agree with this description ofthe progression?

! What is the research evidence for thisprogression of learning?

These questions could also be used for reviewing theprogression at regular intervals when teachers have thebenefit of implementation experience.

Although the process started with individual grade-

level standards, the intention was to ultimately develop aK-12 progression. Standards may be the "benchmark"along the way, but teachers would have a multi-yeartrajectory of learning, rather than simply chunks of a

progression for each standard.

Collaborating to develop the progressions forcedparticipants to think deeply about learning, an undoubtedbenefit of the process. Even with an early iteration of theprogression teachers were able to match instructionalplans to the progression and identify ways in which theycould formatively assess how learning was developing.The leader of one team, a district curriculum director,commented:

"We have done backwards designplanning in our district for many years butthis process gave us the missing piece.

Focusing on the important building blocks iswhat we needed. We can see what we needto teach and to assess."

A few words of caution about learning progressionsare in order here. First learning progressions are notdevelopmentally inevitable but are dependent on goodinstruction (NRC, 2007). As Herman (2006) notes"whether and how children are able to engage in

particular learning performances and the sequence inwhich they are able to do so are very much dependent on

previous opportunities to learn." (p.122). Therefore, a

coordinated approach to teaching and assessing in aschool is essential to effectively using learningprogressions.

Second, the notion of a learning progression implies alinear sequence. While concepts and skills may havespecific precursors, learning does not always take place ina linear trajectory. Stevens et al., (2007) define learning

progressions, in relation to science specifically, as "strategic sequencing that promotes both branching out andforming connections between ideas related to a corescientific concept or big idea" (p.4). This idea is equallyapplicable to other domains. In reading the strands of

phonological awareness, decoding skills, sight recognitionof familiar words, background knowledge of the subject

of the text, receptive and expressive vocabulary,knowledge of grammatical structures, inferential skills,and knowledge of different styles of discourse, includingdifferent genres (e.g., narrative, expository) are inter-related (Scarborough, 2001). In mathematics the strandsof conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, strategiccompetence, adaptive reasoning and productivedisposition do not advance independently but areinterwoven and interdependent (NRC, 2001). In historythe strands of chronological understanding, knowledgeand understanding of events, people and changes in the

past, historical interpretation, historical enquiry, andorganization and communication are all inter-related(QCA, 2007). Perhaps conceiving of progressions as a

braid of interconnected strands might be a useful way toshow connections among ideas of discipline.


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VI.

WHAT

NEXT

?

In this paper I have taken the view that learningprogressions provide an important foundation forinstructional planning and for formative assessment. Ihave described some extant learning progressions andthree processes for developing learning progressions.However, there is quite a row to hoe to successfullycultivate the development of learning progressions. Tothis end, I propose that three areas should be addressed: 1)re-thinking standards; 2) research on learning withindomains; and 3) the preparation and development of

teachers. In what follows I discuss each of these in turn.

Less is MoreA major obstacle to the creation of a learning

progression representing a trajectory of development ofincreasing sophistication in understanding and skillsinheres in the way that many state standards areconceived. Routinely, standards for each subject area

provide teachers with a long list of what needs to becovered for each grade level, which in turn leads to a

burgeoning and often disconnected curriculum thatcenters on coverage rather than on understanding coreideas of the domain from their least to most sophisticatedmanifestation over the K-12 period of schooling.Moreover, ideas are often given equal weight so that acore concept in a domain is not differentiated from a lesssignificant skill in terms of its importance.

The Commission on Instructionally SupportiveAssessment (2001) concluded that fewer, but more

powerful standards would lead to increased coherence incurriculum and instruction, deeper learning for studentsand more valid assessment. If standards were rethoughtand centered on the key ideas and topics of a domain (inother words, more powerful standards), then not onlywould the curriculum be more manageable for teachers,

but a clear progression of how these central ideas build on

each other could be developed and provide the sequenceof building blocks to guide curriculum planning andformative assessment. The National Council of Teachersof Mathematics Curriculum Focal Points (NCTM, 2006)represents a step in this direction of less is more? Intendedas a framework to guide curricular expectations andassessment, the Focal Points specify the most importantmathematical ideas for each grade level that a studentneeds to understand in-depth for future mathematicslearning. It is not difficult to see how teachers could cometogether to construct coherent and connected learning

progressions from these ideas with sufficient detail to beused effectively for formative assessment.

In the spirit of the French maxim, plus can change,plus chest la meme chose (the more things change, themore things stay the same) it is interesting to note thatnearly fifty years ago Jerome Bruner wrote about the roleof structure in learning and how it could be made centralto teaching: the teaching and learning of structure, ratherthan the simple mastery of facts and techniques, is at the

center of the classic problem of transferif learning is torender later learning easier, it must do so by providing ageneral picture in terms of which the relations betweenthings encountered earlier and later are made as clear as

possible (Bruner, 1960:12). Had we taken this sageadvice long ago, perhaps we would not be faced with thelaundry list of standards and the mile wide inch deepcurricula we have today. However, attention to the homilybetter late than never might serve us well.

Research that HelpsIdeally, learning progressions should be developed

from a strong research base about the structure of

knowledge in a discipline and about how learning occurs.Yet, the research base in many areas is not as robust as itmight be. The authors ofKWSKpropose that todevelop progressions, the necessary content expertiseshould be gathered together, and this expertise should beinformed by research on how students learn in specificdomains. To this end, they suggest "research centerscould be charged with convening the appropriate expertsto produce a synthesis of the best available scientificevidence of how students learn in particular domains ofthe curriculum" (NRC, 2001: 256). They also observe"findings from cognitive research cannot always bedirectly translated into classroom practice" (NRC,2001:258). Therefore, they conclude that research

syntheses would need to be couched in ways that areuseful for practitioners. However, until we have suchsyntheses, and indeed research that fills the gaps inexisting knowledge about learning, educators and othersinvolved in constructing learning progressions will haveto draw as best they can from what research does exist.Perhaps what is really needed is for domain experts,researchers, content experts and experienced teachers tounite in a common effort to develop clear conceptions oflearning. It is not difficult to imagine the benefits of

pooling expertise and perspectives on how children learn


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to create progressions that make sense to both theresearch and practitioner communities. Once constructed,such progressions could be empirically verified. As statedin Taking Science to School, ultimately, well-tested ideasabout learning progressions could provide much neededguidance for both the design of instructional sequencesand large-scale and classroom-based assessments (NRC,2007: 8-6).

Teacher Preparation and DevelopmentNo reader of this paper can fail to be impressed by

the extent of knowledge that teachers need to have todevelop learning progressions and to use them effectivelyfor formative assessment. If developing and usinglearning progressions is going to become a routine part of

practice then teachers will have to have more support intheir preparation and professional development programsthan they do currently. Why is it that so many teachershave difficulty in separating a learning goal from thecontext through which it will be achieved? Surely beforeentering the profession they should know the difference.

The fact that they dont speaks volumes about the natureof their preparation. Anecdotally, I can report that one ofthe newly credentialed teachers at the learning

progression session in Wisconsin described earlier,lamented that his preparation courses had not includedconsidering what a progression of learning might looklike in a domain, or developing skills in formativeassessment to analyze how learning was moving forward.We need to have teachers leaving their initial preparation

programs knowing more than they do about learning.

Similarly, too many professional developmentprograms fall into the category of tips for teachers ratherthan extending knowledge about learning develops in a

domain that can be applied and enriched as teachersacquire experience teaching. The emphasis in recent yearsacross the country on early literacy to make sure children

are competent readers by the end of third grade, combinedwith the strong research base in this area, has resulted insignificant increases in teachers knowledge of how earlyreading develops. More sustained efforts of this kind inlater reading and other content areas would go a long wayto shoring up teachers knowledge base.

At the risk of running into a chicken and eggproblem, it seems to me that better preparation and

professional development about the structure of learning,in combination with opportunities for teachers to cometogether with others (e.g., content experts, researchers) todevelop learning progressions, could enhance bothteacher knowledge and the learning progressionsthemselves.

Realizing learning progressions in all domains is nosmall task. Ultimately, it is an undertaking that will haveto involve the combined effort of researchers, teachereducators, administrators at the state, district and schoollevels, teachers, and policy makers. However given whatwe know about the benefits of formative assessment tostudents learning and the importance of learning

progressions to the practice of formative assessment, weneed to act now. We cannot wait for the researchcommunity to catch up, for standards to be rethought, andfor teacher preparation and professional development

programs to be changed. At the very least, support,encouragement and guidance need to be provided todistricts, schools and teachers about the necessity of

professional groups coming together to map out what areasonable and effective progression of learning in adomain might look like. Of course, this represents aconsiderable investment in time and resources. But the

potential benefits to teacher understanding of howlearning progresses in a domain, how ideas within thedomain are inter-related, and how instructional planning

and formative assessment can be mapped onto theprogression are surely worth the investment. Our studentsdeserve no less.


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Brookhart, S. M. (2007). Expanding views about formative classroom assessment: A review of the literature. In J. H.McMillan (Ed.),Formativeclassroom assessment: Research, theory and practice. New York, NY: Teachers CollegePress.

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Clarke, S. (2005).Formative assessment in the secondary classroom. London, UK: Hodder Murray.

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Curriculum Corporation. (1994). Mathematics profile for Australian schools, Carlton: curriculum corporation. In Masters, G.,& Forster, M. (1997). Developmental assessment. Victoria, AU: The Australian Council for Educational Research

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Documents

Learning Progressions CCSSO 2008