Sense-Making About Evidence of the Classroom Utility of Research-Based Tools: Learning Progressions as an Example

• In Event: 43.033 - Roles of Tools, Resources, and Routines for Supporting Teachers' Professional Learning

Abstract

Educational research is often not taken up in K-12 classrooms, but efforts to explore the utility of research-based tools face a dilemma: If these tools do not have hypothesized utility in K-12 classrooms, what needs to be modified? Support for teachers? The tools themselves? Hypotheses about their use? We explore this dilemma through a study of six high school physics teachers’ use of learning progressions (LPs) to support formative assessment practices, highlighting our analytic approach. Using a sensemaking lens, we a) identify discrepancies between hypothesized and actual uses of LPs, b) make conjectures as to why teachers used LPs as they did, and c) evaluate the likelihood of each conjecture in order to posit an appropriate response to each discrepancy.

Authors

• Alicia C. Alonzo, Michigan State University

• Julie Christensen, Michigan State University

• Michelle Marie Wooten, Michigan State University