[Teaching] and Learning Progressions: Their Contributions and Limits

1. [Teaching] and Learning Progressions:Their Contributions and Limits Corcoran, Mosher, and Rogat Consortium for Policy Research in Education Teachers College, Columbia University This work is supported by Pearson Education and the Hewlett Foundation

2. Why Talk about [Teaching] and Learning Progressions? • Begin with goals of instruction • Based on studies of how children’s thinking develops with instruction • However, they take student thinking seriously • They are our hypotheses about the order in which to proceed to help students understand concepts • In this sense, they are like standards

3. What are Teaching and Learning Progressions? Testable hypotheses about how students’ understanding and ability to use knowledge and skill in core school subjects develop and become more sophisticated over time • In science, learning progressions are usually focused on core ideas and practices • Based on research on how students’ learning actually progresses, given appropriate instruction. • Need to be tested

4. Components of a Teaching and Learning Progression • Targets (defined by core ideas): • Understanding of core science ideas and practices at the level thought to support postsecondary success; The end points society cares about • Starting Points: • Children’s initial, or early, ideas and ways of thinking that they bring with them from their home language and culture or their entering understandings • In between: • A hypothesized ordered progression of stages through which understandings and practices develop toward the desired target.

5. What Questions do Teaching and Learning Progressions Answer? • How do students’ understanding and abilities to use core ideas and practices typically develop over time? • What kind of performance can we aspire to over time given good instruction? • What kinds of standards would be realistic? • How can students’ progress towards targeted understandings and abilities be tracked? • How can instructional experiences be identified and sequenced to promote the most progress for most students?

6. Validation of Learning Progressions:What is being done? Construct validity • A learning progression hypothesizes a sequence of partial or intermediate levels of understanding en route to the target understanding or ability. Do students go through these levels? Research groups are collecting evidence to test their hypothesized progressions with longitudinal* or cross-sectional data Consequential Validity • Does the use of curricula based on learning progressions raise performance? • Do teachers who monitor progress of students using progressions and intervene instructionally get better results?

7. Recommended Next Steps • Continue development and validation of learning progressions for big ideas in science • Build curriculum based on the progressions (existence proofs) • Build assessments that measure and report progress along the relevant progression. • Make the available learning progressions accessible to teachers • Encourage states revising their standards to consider learning progressions

8. Panelists Who Informed Report • Charles (Andy) Anderson, Michigan State University • Alicia Alonzo, Michigan State University • Karen Draney, University of California-Berkeley, BEAR • Ravit Golan Duncan, Rutgers University • Janice Earl, National Science Foundation • Joseph Krajcik, University of Michigan • Richard Lehrer, Vanderbilt University • Charles Luey, Pearson Education • Ron Marx, University of Arizona • Mike Padilla, University of Georgia • James Pellegrino, University of Illinois-Chicago • Linda Reddy, Pearson Education • Brian Reiser, Northwestern University • Ann Rivet, Teachers College, Columbia University • Jo Ellen Roseman, Project 2061, AAAS • Leona Schauble, Vanderbilt University • Amelia Gotwals, Michigan State University • Mark Wilson, University of California-Berkeley, BEAR