Instructionally Sensitive Assessments and Curricula Characteristics: Learning Goals, Opportunities to Achieve Them, and Opportunities to Transfer Them

• In Event: Assessing Transfer of Learning: Instructionally Sensitive Assessments, Curriculum, and Instruction

Abstract

Objectives
This paper focuses on three interrelated characteristics of the curricula that guided the development of the assessment items: learning goals, opportunities to achieve them, and opportunities to transfer them. The paper will: (1) describe what was learned by analyzing the curricula which guided the development of instructionally sensitive items, and (2) suggest some issues that curriculum developers need to consider in developing curriculum materials to facilitate learning transfer.

Perspective
Following our conception of instructional sensitivity, our approach focuses on three critical components: (1) defining critical characteristics of the intended curriculum; (2) developing items at different distances by manipulating these characteristics; and (3) evaluating the developed items judgmentally and empirically.

In order to define the intended curricula, we developed a strategy, called mapping the intended curriculum, to clarify and gather information about the critical characteristics of a particular science module. The purpose of mapping was twofold: (a) to deeply understand the learning goal(s) to be achieved; these learning goals were the focus of the ISAs, and (b) to understand how these learning goals were to be achieved by teachers and students regarding different aspects of instructional activities.

Methods
Participating teachers got together each summer to map different curricula, working in pairs or groups. Mapping participants were expected to contribute their own experience with teaching the module as well as their conceptual understanding of it. In an iterative and cyclical manner teachers analyzed the lessons, using a tool to track their analysis, looking for learning trajectories and identifying the learning targets by lessons and goals of the module. Groups discussed their maps to arrive to the identification of the big ideas tapped by modules.

Data Sources
Three sources of information were analyzed: videotapes of the mapping sessions with 23 participating teachers in pairs or groups, teachers’ maps, and researchers’ maps.

Results
The emerging themes from the mapping videos led to the following observations about the curricula across the three mapped science units:
1. Science modules rarely provide a clear link between the module objectives and big ideas which are concepts that have broad explanatory power within or across scientific disciplines and that typically form the foundation for more advanced learning.
2. The intentions of instructional activities seem unclear to teachers. Curriculum designers could write materials specifically to help teachers understand how each activity and component works toward the learning targets of the lesson and the module objectives.
3. Science modules are lean on providing opportunities for transfer of learning.
4. A closer analysis of the mapped instructional activities and the identified learning targets in the science modules revealed hat some learning targets lacked opportunities to achieved them.

Scholarly significance
The paper will provide evidence about analyzing the science modules used in the project. Findings can help curriculum developers: (1) improve how they present information in the modules, (2) gather new insights into their materials through the mapping process, and (3) gain a greater sense of how they can connect the component parts to serve the learning goals.

Authors

• Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo, University of Colorado - Denver

• Min Li, University of Washington

• Michael Giamellaro, Oregon State University

• Kellie Wills, University of Washington

• Hillary Mason, University of Colorado - Denver

• Ming-Chih Lan, University of Washington

• Deanna J. Sands, University of Colorado - Denver