Using Multiple Learning Progressions to Support Assessment

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

To use learning progressions to support students’ conceptual and linguistic development, teachers must elicit samples of student reasoning and discourse. This requires a change in pedagogical approaches, from the traditional teacher-fronted direct instruction to the facilitation of meaning-making discourse and student reasoning. Both educators and students need resources to enact these changes, and it is critical that these resources support the full inclusion of English learners. This paper discusses an NSF-funded project to develop and pilot such resources. Teachers implementing this discourse-focused instruction reported that it provided them frequent opportunities to track students’ conceptual understanding and to assist them, in the moment, to probe more deeply and to model the academic language that students needed to express themselves effectively.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Cognition and Assessment

Chair

• E. Caroline Wylie, ETS

Papers

• Using a Proportional Reasoning Learning Progression to Develop, Score, and Interpret Student Explanations - E. Caroline Wylie, ETS; Malcolm Bauer, ETS

• Tandem Learning Progressions Provide a Salient Intersection of Student Mathematics and Language Abilities - Alison L. Bailey, University of California - Los Angeles; Margaret Heritage, WestEd

• Simultaneous Assessment of Two Learning Progressions for Mathematical Practices - Gabrielle Alexis Cayton-Hodges, Educational Testing Service; Leslie Nabors Olah, Educational Testing Service; Sarah Ohls, ETS; Allyson J. Kiss, University of Minnesota

• Professional Development to Support Formative Assessment of Mathematics Constructs and Language in Mathematics Classrooms - Rita MacDonald, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Discussant

• Guadalupe Carmona, The University of Texas at San Antonio