Learning Progressions by Taylor Costin

Learning Progressions

What are learning progressions?

LEARNING PROGRESSIONS (LP’S), PROGRESS MAPS, DEVELOPMENTAL

CONTINUUMS, AND LEARNING TRAJECTORIES ARE ALL TERMS THAT HAVE BEEN

USED IN LITERATURE OVER THE PAST DECADE. WHILE MANY VARIATIONS ON

THE DEFINITION EXIST, THE CONCEPT GENERALLY REFERS TO RESEARCH-

BASED, DESCRIPTIVE CONTINUUMS OF HOW STUDENTS DEVELOP AND

DEMONSTRATE DEEPER, BROADER, AND MORE SOPHISTICATED

UNDERSTANDINGS OF THE BIG IDEAS!! (HESS, 2014)

Why LEARNING PROGRESSIONS?

“Educators often criticize American k-12 sciences education as

a mile wide and an inch deep” (Duncan, 2013). Duncan continues by

stating, “Students learn about different topics in science – the water

cycle one year, cell mitosis the next – but they’re often not

connected to one another or to anything students can see, feel or

Experience for themselves.”

But with learning progressions, students learn the “big ideas” in

science – atomic and molecular theory, for example – with increasingly

sophisticated levels of understanding as they move through the K-12

science program. At each level, students should learn to use scientific

practices to create new knowledge that they can use as “stepping

stones” to the next level. The best way to study science, is to do more

science (Duncan, 2013).

Lucy Calkins Video (scroll to overviews. the video in the middle)

An example of learning

Progressions being used -----------> https://vimeo.com/55951304

in the classroom

References

K. H. (2014). EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH IN ACTION. Retrieved February 3, 2018,

Duncan , Ravit. “Learning Big Ideas By Doing Science: Radical Changes in

K-12 Science Teaching.” Rutgers Today, Rutgers, 24 Jan. 2013,

news.rutgers.edu/news-release/learning-big-ideas-doing-science-

radical-changes-k-12-science-teaching/20130124#.WnYrhZM-dTY.

Learning Progressions