The more I read about Learning Progressions (LPs), the less sure I am of their feasibility in education. At the beginning of my LP indoctrination, which began with Wilson’s JRST article (2009) and Corcoran et. al’s publication Learning Progressions in Science: An Evidence-based Approach to Reform (2009), I was completely sold on the idea of Learning Progressions. As stated in Corcoran’s report on page 15, “Learning progressions in science are empirically-grounded and testable hypotheses about how students’ understanding of, and ability to use, core scientific concepts and explanations and related scientific practices grow and become more sophisticated over time, with appropriate instruction (NRC, 2007). These hypotheses describe the pathways students are likely to follow to the mastery of core concepts. They are based on research about how students’ learning actually progresses–as opposed to selecting sequences of topics and learning experiences based only on logical analysis of current disciplinary knowledge and on personal experiences in teaching.” Adding Wilson’s ideas regarding the assessment of learning progressions, it seemed like the answer to our curriculum and standards problem. It just seemed to make sense.
However, because of this class, I am becoming much more discriminating in my evaluation of peoples’ ideas and articles. As I was rereading Wilson’s article (2009), I had to smile at the statement “The idea of a learning progression is one that is undergoing swift development at the current time. However, it is really just the latest manifestation of a much older idea, that of regularity in the development of students as they learn a certain body of knowledge or professional practice.” pg. 716. This is often the case of education in which the language changes but the concepts and ideas are largely the same. As I reread Wilson’s article, I was struck by the theoretical aspect of his idea. He seemed to focus more on the “big idea” of learning progressions and left the details for others to decipher. At least he was attempting to bring in the idea of assessment and how best to accomplish this aspect with learning progressions, even though I’m not so sure he really provided a concrete answer.
Yet many researchers are trying to decipher the details. According to Duncan and Hmelo-Silver’s editorial, the purpose of the special JRST issue was to “explain the motivation for developing LPs, propose a consensual definition of LPs, describe the ways in which these constructs are being developed and validated, and finally, discuss some of the unresolved questions regarding this emerging scholarship.” pg. 606. A question that kept coming to mind as I was reading these various articles surrounded their comments about the expectation that LPs needed to be empirically validated. My question is this: Is there common agreement on how to empirically test these learning progressions? According to Duncan and Hmelo-Silver, there were three general approaches. However, it seemed others were validating in ways not suggested in this editorial. And how does one completely validate an LP? According to Steedle and Shevelson (2009), “it is not feasible to develop learning progressions that can adequately describe all student’s understandings of problems dealing with Explaining Constant Speed” (pg. 713). So is this true of a large number of LPs? If this is the case, then what are the implications for LPs? Could the big movement turn out to be a wrong turn? I guess only time will tell.
Tags: pals
Feasibility does seem to be the big question in our group, but I also see that you picked up on the “new version of the old thing” comment in Wilson’s article. Seems that the research on LPs does neet to mature more before we, as a community, try to implement them. I really like Alice’s comment of messy and irrational…had to laugh at that one.
I agree with your feasibility comments. Maybe I think too small, but does everything in education have to be applicable in every classroom in every district? We know there are so many variables that are, well, variable. Perhaps learning progressions came be more intimate by being tinkered with at the smaller grain size. I thikn we all know that there is no one size fits all. As you have said before teaching is hard. And I think we should add messy and irrational.