Tracing the Naturalization of a Learning Progression–Oriented Assessment System in a Teacher Community

• In Event: 52.028 - Impact of Curriculum and Instruction on Students' Achievement in Mathematics

Abstract

The paper reports on a qualitative study investigating teachers’ implementation of a learning-progression-oriented assessment system in statistics to improve the quality of instruction and to support student learning. The research question focuses on how the assessment system supported the teachers to orchestrate productive classroom discussion informed by descriptions of conceptual understandings outlined in the learning progression. This case study suggests that a learning progression can be an effective tool to disrupt the historically developed classificatory system for assessment in modern schooling (i.e., right or wrong) and eventually overwrite it with a more nuanced interpretation of student thinking that serves goals of supporting conceptual change.

Authors

• Min-Joung Kim, Louisiana State University

• Richard Lehrer, Vanderbilt University