Writing assignment 6A

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2 Learning Progressions:

Blueprints for the Formative Assessment Process

You’ve seen that formative assessment is a process that can be

applied in several ways, all of which depend on the collection of

assessment evidence. Sometimes teachers collect this evidence

through the use of fairly formal tests; sometimes the evidence comes

from less formal assessment procedures.

It’s important to stress, though, that formative assessment

involves far more than a teacher’s spontaneously tossing tons of

tests at students or frequently calling for thumbs-up/thumbs-down

agreement to the question, “Does everyone understand?” No, for-

mative assessment is defi nitely a planned process, and the key com-

ponent of this planning is unquestionably the learning progression.

It is not an overstatement to assert that learning progressions are

completely indispensable if the formative assessment process is to

function properly. Th ey provide the blueprint for the process—the

structure for evidence gathering and adjustment occasions—and

serve as a measure of assurance that the evidence-informed adjust-

ments will improve student learning. If a ship without a rudder is, by

defi nition, rudderless, then formative assessment without a learning

progression often becomes plan-less.

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[ 25 ]Learning Progressions

Looking at Learning Progressions

I think the defi nition of “learning progression” I supplied in TA1 is

a good one:

A learning progression is a sequenced set of subskills or bodies of

enabling knowledge that, it is thought, students must master en

route to mastering a more remote target curricular aim. (Popham,

2008, p. 24)

Laying out what a student needs to master en route to mastering a

subsequent curricular aim requires clear thinking and the use of pre-

cise terminology. So let’s defi ne the key terms involved in the above

defi nition. Th at’s right; it’s time for defi nitions within a defi nition!

• Target curricular aim. Th is is an important curricular goal

being sought for students; it is preferably some sort of higher-level

cognitive skill. Frequently, a target curricular aim is simply an objec-

tive for an extended-duration teaching unit, such as a three-week

unit promoting students’ mastery of an important skill in social

studies. A target curricular aim might also be a key learning goal

for an entire course.

• Building block. Each building block within a learning pro-

gression is either (1) a body of knowledge or (2) a subskill that the

progression’s architect believes students must master before they

can conquer that learning progression’s target curricular aim.

• A body of enabling knowledge. This term describes and

attempts to circumscribe the nature of what students must know

or understand in order to master a learning progression’s target

curriculum aim. A body of enabling knowledge might be a set of

information, principles, or procedures.

• A subskill. Th is term describes what students must be able to

do in order to master a learning progression’s target curricular aim.

In most instances, subskill building blocks identify a specifi c cogni-

tive skill. If the target curricular aim happens to be psychomotor in

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[ 26 ] Transformative Assessment in Action

nature, the subskills in the learning progression would typically also

be of a psychomotor sort.

Put in colloquial language, a learning progression lays out the

sequence of lesser stuff a student must learn in order to master

subsequent, more signifi cant stuff . Learning progressions are often

depicted graphically, as you see in Figure 2.1.

F I G U R E 2 .1

A Learning Progression Model

Enabling

Knowledge

Enabling

Knowledge

Target

Curriculum

Aim D

Subskill

It is not necessary for knowledge-based building blocks to pre-

cede subskill-based building blocks, as they do in the fi gure, but in

actual practice this often turns out to be the case. We’ll talk more

about sequencing shortly, but before we do, I want to address a

critical and potentially confusing point: that the term “learning

progression,” even as it pertains to a sequenced set of subskills and

bodies of enabling knowledge it is thought students must master

en route to mastering a more remote target curricular aim, can be

used to describe two substantially diff erent things.

Two Conceptions, Both Useful

Currently, a number of fi rst-rate scholars are attempting to build

learning progressions to provide teachers with a better under-

standing of how students typically learn important things. Heritage

(2008) provides an especially useful picture of the nature of these

learning progressions when she concludes that they typically (1)

describe how students’ learning of particular things develops over

a lengthy period of time, perhaps several years or more in duration;

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[ 27 ]Learning Progressions

(2) are focused on students’ attainment of really important cur-

ricular outcomes such as the “big ideas” in a content area; and (3)

are research-confi rmed in the sense that serious empirical studies

have been carried out to demonstrate a learning progression’s build-

ing blocks—initially derived analytically—are both necessary and

properly ordered.

To illustrate the kinds of formal inquiry that might be needed

to confirm such a learning progression’s quality, we might find

researchers rounding up one group of students who had mastered

a particular building block and a second group of students who had

not. An experiment would then be carried out to see if, based on

their subsequent mastery of a more remote curricular aim, those

students who had mastered this particular building block were

more successful than those students who hadn’t. Other experiments

might track how variations in building-block sequence aff ect rates

of remote-aim mastery.

Th e kinds of learning progressions emerging from this approach

could be described as long-duration, research-ratified, and

focused on high-import outcomes. Th eir creation is exacting, time-

consuming, and costly. (Just imagine how much research activity is

necessary to demonstrate that most students learn things optimally

in a particular order.) For descriptive convenience, I will hereafter

refer to these as uppercase learning progressions. Th at is, considering

the amount of energy required to create and sanctify one of these

building-block sequences, I fi nd myself thinking of them as being

composed solely of capital letters: LEARNING PROGRESSIONS.

Would educators benefi t from uppercase learning progressions?

Absolutely! Could a teacher come up with better set of day-to-day

instructional activities if that teacher had access to research-verifi ed

insights into the sequence in which most students learn the topic

that the teacher is trying to teach? Again, absolutely. And this is why

I hope that those researchers who are striving to create uppercase

learning progressions will be sublimely successful. Th e more upper-

case learning progressions teachers have at their disposal, the better

job those teachers can do with their students.

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Here’s the catch, though. At the moment, there are relatively

few uppercase learning progressions available, and it’s likely to be a

decade or two before this situation changes. Th at’s about how long

it will take for researchers to come up with enough long-duration,

research-confi rmed learning progressions focused on really impor-

tant curricular aims.

But there are students to be taught in our classrooms right now,

and what the teachers of those students need in order to make

formative assessment fl ourish can be characterized as lowercase

learning progressions. Lowercase learning progressions focus on

instruction that requires between several weeks’ worth of class time

to a full semester or even an entire school year, if the target cur-

ricular aim is especially signifi cant. Th ey are based not on research

investigations but on teachers’ conceptual analyses and subsequent

conclusions about which building blocks are necessary to master a

target curriculum aim and the best way to sequence those building

blocks. Because we’re talking about informed best guesses here, not

every learning progression a teacher creates will automatically be

a winner, but most can be improved on the basis of trial-and-error

usage in real classrooms with real kids.

Both uppercase and lowercase kinds of learning progressions

can make a contribution to a teacher’s decision making. But practi-

cally speaking, if you are reading this book, you are more likely to be

working with lowercase learning progressions than with uppercase

ones. So, from this point forward, when I use the label “learning

progressions,” I will be referring to lowercase learning progressions.

Th e Role of Learning Progressions in Formative Assessment

Learning progressions indicate to teachers when to collect the

assessment evidence that undergirds the formative assessment

process. Here’s how this happens.

In order to master the target curricular aim for which the learn-

ing progression has been built, students must master each building

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[ 29 ]Learning Progressions

block in that learning progression. And the way for a teacher to

ensure that each building block is mastered is to assess its mastery

and look at the assessment evidence so an instructional or learning

tactic adjustment can be made if it’s necessary. Simply put, linking

formative assessment occasions to the building blocks in a learning

progression is eff ective because it allows the teacher to be certain

students are learning what they must learn. And, frankly, it’s an

extremely practical aid in planning. So for the teacher who wants

to know, “When should I gather data for the purposes of formative

assessment?” there’s a simple answer: “At minimum, before you

move on to the next building block in your learning progression.”

More specifi cally speaking, near the conclusion of whatever instruc-

tion is focused on that building block, leaving enough time in your

lesson plans so that adjustments in instruction or learning tactics

can have a positive eff ect on students’ learning.

In addition to assessing and then making adjustment decisions

about each building block, teachers can decide, based on personal

preferences and individual classroom circumstances (such as a par-

ticular class’s background knowledge), what else they might want

to assess. Th at might be subcomponents of the building blocks or

other topics teachers have worked into instruction that may not lead

directly to mastery of the target curricular aim, yet enrich students’

experiences.

In a moment, we’ll be looking closer at the particulars of how to

build a learning progression. As you read more about the process,

you’ll see that although the conceptual analyses to build these pro-

gressions can be carried out solo, there are advantages to teachers’

joining forces for this eff ort.

Key Choice-Points When Building a Learning Progression

Teachers who set out to build a learning progression face fi ve pivotal

choice-points, listed in Figure 2.2. Let’s look at each of them.

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F I G U R E 2 . 2

Five Choice-Points for Building a Learning Progression

1. Which curricular aims. What curricular outcomes should be the targets of learning progressions?

2. What the grain size of the building blocks should be. How broad or how narrow should a learning progression’s building blocks be?

3. How many building blocks there should be. For a particular target curricu- lar aim, what is an optimal number of building blocks?

4. Which building blocks. What subskills or bodies of enabling knowledge should constitute a learning progression?

5. How the building blocks should be sequenced. What is the optimal order for a learning progression’s building blocks?

Choice-Point 1: Which Curricular Aims Merit the Creation of a Learning Progression

Th is very fi rst choice-point is really more fundamental than it may

initially appear. Because teachers need to rely on a learning progres-

sion to make formative assessment function properly, decisions

about which curricular targets a learning progression should be

built for are, in fact, decisions about when to use formative assess-

ment at all!

One practical way of addressing this issue would be for a teacher

to prioritize the target curricular aims to be tackled during a semes-

ter/school year, then use formative assessment (complete with its

necessary learning progressions) only for those aims that can be

promoted without formative assessment’s becoming overwhelming.

It would be better for a teacher, year in and year out, to use forma-

tive assessment for only a few teaching units per year than to use it

so often one year that, in years to come, formative assessment isn’t

used at all.

Building a learning progression takes time and effort, and

it makes no sense to apply a potent-but-demanding process to

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promote students’ mastery of minutiae. I advise reserving formative

assessment and learning progression creation for curricular aims

that are complex, cognitive skills. For example, a 5th grade teacher

might create a learning progression aimed at getting students to

master writing summaries of stories they have read, but might forgo

one dealing with students’ mastery of the semicolon. A geography

teacher might create a learning progression aimed at getting stu-

dents to create maps that accurately illustrate a locale’s societally

salient geographic variables, but skip it when dealing with lessons or

units focused on students’ memorizing information of the location

of nations on a continent.

Knowledge-focused curricular aims, such as those calling for

students to memorize sets of facts, conventions, or principles, are

surely important, for such knowledge often serves as the spring-

board for higher-level skills incorporating this sort of knowledge.

But if students are supposed to memorize and understand large

lumps of knowledge, there is usually no need to employ any sort of

learning progression. Th at’s because the target curricular aim (the

knowledge to be mastered) is, itself, what students are supposed

to learn.

To help decide whether a target curricular aim is worthy of the

formative assessment process and, of course, worthy of having its

own learning progression, teachers might consider the following

questions:

1. Is this target curricular aim a cognitive skill—and one that

would take more than a class session or two to teach?

2. Will this skill be applicable in a wide range of subsequent

situations, either in school or in the non-school world?

3. Is this skill a foundation for future learning either in this

course or in courses students will be taking down the line?

4. Is mastery of this skill something that students must display

on a subsequent high-stakes assessment of some sort?

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5. Is this target curricular aim of such importance to students

that it warrants a meaningful expenditure of my energy in properly

implementing the formative assessment process?

Perhaps not all of these questions need to be answered in the

affi rmative before a target curricular aim is regarded as worthy of

having a learning progression created for it. But two or three nega-

tive answers should make a teacher think twice, or thrice, before

getting down to work of learning progression creation.

Choice-Point 2: What the “Grain Size” of the Building Blocks Will Be

Grain size describes the nature of a building block. It tells you how

narrow or how broad a body of knowledge is, or how complex or

demanding a subskill is. Th e “smaller” the grain of a progression’s

building block, the more building blocks there will be in that pro-

gression. Likewise, the “larger” the grain, the fewer building blocks

that progression will contain.

As discussed, a teacher must collect assessment evidence for

every building block in a learning progression. So teachers who

build learning progressions with lots of small-grain building blocks

need to plan, design, and administer more assessments; review

and analyze more assessment evidence; and be prepared for more

frequent instructional adjustments. Opting for fewer, larger-grain

building blocks means fewer mandatory assessments, less review

and analysis, and fewer occasions for adjustment. Th e “small-grain”

approach has the potential to be more exact, but it is also more

complicated and much more time-consuming. “Small-grainers”

are at risk for setting for themselves an assessment task that is so

ambitious as to become exhausting: too many tests to give, too many

tasks to monitor, and too much data to consider. A teacher who

takes a “large-grain” approach—who subsumes similar, small-grain

building blocks into fewer, larger ones—will need to design, admin-

ister, review, and base adjustment decisions on fewer assessments

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on fewer occasions. Generally speaking, a large-grain approach

means a more effi cient application of formative assessment.

With this in mind, when an architect is working on a learning

progression, it’s a good idea to look for similarities among subskills

and ask if they can be combined. As when attempting to subsume

lesser building blocks under a larger building block, the students’

status with respect to each building block must be ascertained via

some sort of assessment. So, as a potential building block is under

consideration—a building block of any grain size—the learning pro-

gression’s architect must constantly be asking, “What is a practical

way to assess students’ status with respect to this building block?”

Because learning progressions are most often crafted for

instructional units of several weeks’ duration, when deciding on

the grain size of building blocks, it can be helpful for the architect to

estimate how long it is likely to take for students to master the kinds

of building blocks under consideration. And, given that students’

mastery of each building block must be determined via some sort

of assessment procedure, how much time should be allocated to

such assessments? Part of the challenge in devising a crackerjack

learning progression is paying attention to the time that’s available

and using it wisely.

Choice-Point 3: Th e Number of Building Blocks in the Learning Progression

Th is decision fl ows clearly from the one that precedes it. Th e goal

for learning-progression architects is to ensure that every building

block is really and truly requisite, and that each assessment admin-

istered is worthwhile.

The leaner a learning progression is, the more likely it is to

be used. Heroic implementation of formative assessment using a

10-building-block learning progression is something that an ambi-

tious and dedicated teacher might wish to take on once—prior

to retirement. But, practically speaking, how likely is any teacher

to continue following that progression, which means gathering

assessment evidence for the purpose of instructional adjustment

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at 10 separate points throughout a unit of instruction? Th e ques-

tions for the architect to ask here are, “What is my tolerance level

for assessment and data analysis? What is my students’ tolerance

for assessment?”

Choice-Point 4: What the Building Blocks Should Be

Th e selection of the enabling subskills and bodies of enabling knowl-

edge for a learning progression is best informed by fi rst thinking

about how students’ mastery of the target aim will be measured at

the conclusion of the instruction, and then engaging in a rigorous

backwards analysis. Here, the learning-progression architect takes

the target curricular aim and asks: “What must a student know or

be able to do in order to master this aim?” Once a clear answer to

this question has emerged, a building block has been born. Th en it’s

a matter of repeating the question, focusing on that building block:

“What must a student know or be able to do in order to master this

building block?” Backwards analysis permits a teacher to eventually

isolate what he believes to be the truly necessary stepping stones

for a student’s successful journey toward mastery of the target

curricular aim. Is that analysis the defi nitive analysis? Of course

not; thoughtful people will often end up with diff erent views of

what students must know and do to learn certain things. Here, the

would-be architect must be bold, think hard, apply experience-won

wisdom (and colleagues’ wisdom, too, if possible), and map out the

best learning progression possible.

Teachers will diff er in how they prefer to identify a learning

progression’s building blocks. After fi rst becoming clearheaded

about the nature of the target curricular aim itself, some teachers

will prefer to “start from scratch” by using a backwards analysis

uninfl uenced by other information. On the other hand, many teach-

ers will realize that for most curricular aims there may be useful

analyses available, analyses that can be reviewed to see if they make

instructional sense. Where are these analyses? Well, they can be

found in the textbooks and other instructional materials supplied by

publishers. If you’re a teacher who’s using a particular textbook in a

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[ 35 ]Learning Progressions

class, you can locate the section in the book dealing with the target

curricular aim you’re considering and then fi gure out what major

chunks of knowledge or what subskills the textbook’s authors regard

as important. You can then decide whether you should make any

of these subskills or bodies of knowledge a building block in your

developing learning progression.

Another potential source for building-block possibilities would

be any plans a teacher already has in place for carrying out an

instructional unit. Just think about the way teachers plan their

instruction by laying out all the key stuff their students need to know

and fi guring out the order in which to present it. Well, lurking in that

“key stuff ” and those weekly lesson plans is an already sequenced set

of must-master building blocks that can form a defensible learning

progression.

By using backwards analysis and drawing on the instructional

thinking of others, even novice teachers can come up with a reason-

able set of building blocks. Will those building blocks always be the

“right” or “best” ones? No, but fortunately learning progressions

aren’t set in concrete. For a teacher’s next attempt to help a diff er-

ent group of students master a given curricular goal, a re-analyzed

and revised set of building blocks can be sent into battle. Learning

progressions, just like fi ne wine and teachers’ skills, can improve

over time.

Another bit of advice: When setting out to build a learning

progression, it’s imperative to focus on what must be taught dur-

ing the instructional period under consideration—the two weeks,

four weeks, two months, or other time period set aside for the

instructional unit. In other words, although the backwards analy-

sis might logically trace the pursuit of the target curriculum aim

all the way back to skills and knowledge like “Students must be

able to decode words” or “Students must know the multiplication

tables,” the building blocks in the learning progression should deal

with the necessary en-route student accomplishments associated

with the instruction that can realistically be provided. Th e myriad

collection of things students have learned or should have learned

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[ 36 ] Transformative Assessment in Action

in earlier units or prior grade levels are outside the scope of the

learning progression.

Choice-Point 5: How the Building Blocks Will Be Sequenced

Having completed a backwards analysis, most of the sequenc-

ing work will already have been done: which skills and knowledge

depend on mastery of which other skills and knowledge. Th is choice-

point asks the learning progression’s architect to take another look

at the building blocks and confi rm that they are in what seems to

be the best order.

In the Classroom

In a fairly large Midwest school district, for more than three years,

a cross-school professional learning community of social studies

teachers has been working together to develop their pedagogi-

cal skills. Currently, eight high school history teachers, two social

studies curriculum specialists from the district offi ce, and one high

school principal (a former history teacher) comprise the PLC. Th e

group meets at least once per month, and sometimes twice. Th ese

meetings usually last between 90 minutes and two hours.

Th e PLC is currently focusing on the task of building a learning

progression to help the district’s social studies teachers promote

students’ mastery of a new and particularly challenging history goal

set by the state school board:

When presented with a fi ctitious current-day societal problem,

students can identify from a specifi ed series of historical events a

signifi cant occurrence with suffi cient parallels to the current-day

problem so that students can compose a brief essay proposing a

defensible, history-based solution to the current-day problem.

In other words, this historical skill calls for students to fi rst be

able to identify an historical event that has suffi cient relevance to

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[ 37 ]Learning Progressions

a fi ctitious current-day societal problem, and then to be able to

use lessons drawn from an identifi ed occurrence associated with

that historical event to generate a sound solution to the current

social problem. Th e state’s school districts were given materials to

help clarify the nature of the new curricular aim, including the 20

historical events selected for study (drawn chiefl y from the content

of state-approved history textbooks) and up to four “signifi cant

occurrences” associated with these events. Th e events listed for high

school U.S. history classes include, for example, the Civil War, the

Industrial Revolution, America’s imperialism, and the Cold War.

One of the listed occurrences for the Cold War was the collapse of

the Soviet Union.

During the most recent meeting of the PLC, as members were

wrapping up their eff orts to isolate a set of building blocks under-

lying this new history skill, their meeting was observed by Marla

Jenson, a teacher education professor from the local state univer-

sity. Marla and her colleagues are interested in stressing formative

assessment with the prospective teachers in their program. But

neither Marla nor many of her colleagues understand much about

learning progressions or the role that progressions play in the for-

mative assessment process. So Marla, working through a contact at

the district offi ce, got in touch with several members of the PLC and

asked permission to sit in on the group’s deliberations. One of the

PLC members, high school history teacher Greg Cooke, agreed to

talk with her after the group’s most recent meeting and help clarify

“what goes on when a learning progression is being born.”

Key PLC Events

Th e PLC members met on the third Wednesday of the month, this

time at West High School. After Marla Jenson introduced herself

to the PLC members and explained her wish to better understand

learning progressions, she sat in a chair well behind the group so

she would not interfere with their work.

Jill, a 9th grade social students teacher, opened the meeting by

summarizing the PLC’s recent work, including how members had

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[ 38 ] Transformative Assessment in Action

initially developed several assessment items to measure students’

mastery of the new history skill—“our target curricular aim.” Jill

noted that this item-development task had taken a bit longer than

PLC members had anticipated, but it had been instrumental in

ensuring that all members of the team could move forward with a

fi rm idea about what the new “Using History’s Lessons Skill” actually

was. One of the administrator members of the PLC agreed, saying,

“As a clarifi cation technique, I thought it was wonderful.”

Jill then projected a slide showing the developing learning pro-

gression, containing two “fi rm” building blocks and one still up for

debate:

Th ey had dubbed the fi rst building block “Understanding Events

and Occurrences,” agreeing that students needed to know all of

the 20 state-specifi ed “events” and 40 or so “occurrences” within

those events. Together, this would constitute a large and important

knowledge-focused building block. Jill noted that students’ mastery

could be assessed with multiple-choice items requiring students to

match events and occurrences. Follow-up assessment data on mas-

tery might be gathered through short essays focused on describing

the focal features of each event and each occurrence.

Th e PLC had also agreed on a second building block—a subskill

focused on students’ ability to select an occurrence within a his-

torical event that is suffi ciently similar to the situation embodied

in a current-day societal problem. Th e PLC members dubbed this

building block “Identifying Relevant Historical Lessons,” and they

had estimated that it would likely take between three and fi ve weeks

to teach. Assessment data on students’ mastery might be collected

via constructed-response test items to which students would need

Using History’s Lessons

? ?

Composing an Analytic

Essay

Understanding Events and

Occurrences

Identifying Relevant Historical Lessons

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[ 39 ]Learning Progressions

to specify which events’ occurrence they had chosen and why they

had selected it.

With that summary of their agreements out of the way, another

PLC member, Karl, turned the group’s attention to a potential build-

ing block—a subskill that Jill had introduced and defended during

the PLC’s most recent meeting. Karl asked Jill to recount the nature

of the proposal, “for the PLC and for Professor Jenson.” Jill pro-

ceeded to make her case for including explanatory essay writing as a

building block. “I know we don’t want the district’s history teachers

to turn into English teachers,” Jill said, “but ‘students will compose

a brief essay proposing a defensible, history-based solution to the

current-day problem’ is right there in the standard’s language. If our

students don’t have at least rudimentary composition skills, they will

stumble when it comes to the Using History’s Lessons Skill.”

Th e PLC’s members were evenly split on this proposal. At one

point during a fairly heated disagreement, Jorge argued, “If we take

on the obligation of teaching students to do what they should have

been taught to do in their language arts classes, when are we going

to have time to promote all the content the district wants us to

teach—not to mention new, more powerful analytical skills like the

one we’ve been focusing on in these meetings? Let’s have English

teachers teach English and history teachers teach history!”

At one point in the discussion, Jill produced a set of student

papers displaying her students’ abilities to write summaries of what

they had read during an in-class silent read. She showed the other

PLC members (and Professor Jenson) how poorly her students were

writing, and again stressed her key point: “If we can’t fi gure out what

they’ve written, how will we be able to get at their cognitive mastery

of the new history skill?”

After almost a full hour’s discussion dealing with this proposed

third building block, the meeting came to a close. One PLC mem-

ber suggested that, prior to their next PLC meeting, all members

“should collect opinions from other members of their schools’

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[ 40 ] Transformative Assessment in Action

faculties, and not only from those who teach history, regarding the

unresolved issue of the third building block.”

The Interview of Greg Cooke

by Professor Marla Jenson

At the outset, Greg, I really want to express my appreciation to you

and your PLC for letting me horn in on your work. As you know,

most of the teacher education professors at the university are eager

to build formative education into our own classes. We want to model

how this process works, but we don’t have any experience building

learning progressions, so this was great today. I hope my presence

wasn’t a distraction.

On the contrary, Professor Jenson, after a few minutes, I think most

of us actually forgot you were there. Believe me, what you saw today

was no diff erent from what goes on during any of our meetings. So

what is it about learning progressions that you particularly want to

know more about?

Oh, please call me Marla, Greg. Th is is really going to be an informal

conversation. For openers, though, I was interested in learning how

your committee had actually created assessment tasks that could be

used to measure students’ mastery of this new history skill. Can you

go over that again for me? Do you actually intend to use the items

on your tests one day?

No, Marla, we’re not planning to actually use these new items, or

recommend that other teachers in the district use them. Th e only

purpose of writing these items was to help us get our thinking

straight about what this new history standard requires students to

be able to do. Although I don’t think Jill mentioned it as part of her

summary, during one committee meeting session we each tried to

come up with our own best personal response to every sample item

we had generated. Responding to and then evaluating each other’s

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[ 41 ]Learning Progressions

responses really helped us see far more clearly just what we were

asking our students to do.

How did your PLC actually get under way in identifying what you

call the learning progression’s “building blocks”?

Well, as you saw, the fi rst step was to fully clarify the nature of what

it was we wanted students to be able to do at the close of instruc-

tion, which was why we created the sample items and then tried to

answer them. Th en, as our second step, we undertook what most

folks call “a backwards analysis” that started with the target cur-

ricular aim. In this instance, that was the cognitive skill embodied

in the History’s Lessons standard. We simply laid out that goal, then

worked backwards to identify what sorts of precursor subskills or

understandings our students would need to be able to master the

target skill. Backwards analysis sounds simple, but you have to be

alert as you try to think what precedes what when it comes to stu-

dents’ learning.

Just to review a bit, tell me again about the fi rst building block you

all agreed on.

Well, although the standard is a skill—an analytical skill—it also

covers a lot of historical content: 20 events and approximately 40

occurrences associated with those events. Obviously, students

need to know about these events and understand the chief features

of each occurrence. It’s impossible to promote this sort of wide-

ranging historical understanding in a week or two, or even in a

month or two. So our PLC concluded that at least a full year of study

could be devoted to promoting students’ mastery of a knowledge-

focused building block dealing with these designated events and

occurrences. Th at’s our “Understanding Events and Occurrences”

building block.

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[ 42 ] Transformative Assessment in Action

Got it. And your second building block is a skill, if I recall. Did you

identify it by a backwards analysis as well?

Yes, and yes we did. Th ere was quite a bit to talk through in our

group, but after a couple of meetings we concluded that our second

building block would consist of a subskill, namely, the ability to iso-

late the key features of the fi ctional “current societal problem,” and

then choose an occurrence—from the set of 40 or so occurrences

students would be learning about—that matched those salient fea-

tures well enough. We refer to this second building block as “Iden-

tifying Relevant Historical Lessons.” It’s a really signifi cant subskill.

Did your PLC assume that the fi rst “knowledge” building block had to

be totally mastered before teachers could start teaching this second,

skill-based building block?

Th at’s a great question. We agreed that if a student was knowledge-

able about at least some of the events and occurrences associated

with this standard, then teachers could begin to promote mastery

of the second building block’s subskill. For example, I might go

ahead with second-building-block instruction related to early 19th-

century events and occurrences before proceeding to fi rst-building-

block instruction on late 19th-century events. Accordingly, we’ll

probably encourage teachers to assess students’ mastery of the fi rst

building block, the knowledge-focused one, at least three times

during the year.

What would you say has been the most challenging part of your PLC’s

learning progression work?

I guess the toughest thing for us has been to resist the temptation to

put lots of building blocks into our learning progression. Take the

second building block—the subskill one. To master this particular

building block, students have to be able to do a lot of things. Th ey

must be able to analyze the fi ctitious current-day problem presented

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[ 43 ]Learning Progressions

to them, then they need to be able to identify a relevant event—

such as the Industrial Revolution—and then they need to isolate a

key occurrence during that event—such as the introduction of the

assembly line. Well, what our subskill currently does is put all three

of those smaller subskills into one coalesced larger subskill. In the

early days of our deliberations, most of the PLC members wanted

to present those subskills as three separate building blocks.

And why would that have been so bad?

Because we’d have been setting ourselves up for failure. Th at’s what

I think, anyway. As you may know, when carrying out formative

assessment, a teacher must measure students’ attainment of each

and every building block. Practically speaking, that would mean

creating one assessment to measure students’ ability to analyze a

fi ctitious current-day problem, another assessment to measure stu-

dents’ ability to identify a historical event that parallels a given prob-

lem, and a third assessment that measures their ability to isolate an

occurrence within a given historical event that particularly parallels

a given problem. Bear in mind that for each of these subskills to be

assessed, a teacher would be designing appropriate instruction, giv-

ing the assessment, analyzing the assessment results, and adjusting

instruction as needed. I know that this degree of granularity—and

the amount of work it entails—might be palatable to some teachers,

but if our committee came up with a learning progression contain-

ing a huge number of to-be-assessed building blocks, we’d have

produced a learning progression that most district teachers would

not even consider using.

I should also point out that when developing a learning progres-

sion, there’s sometimes a tendency to try to coalesce everything in

sight. People want to group together all the little subskills and small

lumps of knowledge that seem related to the targeted curricular

skill. And you also need to be careful not to coalesce fundamen-

tally diff erent kinds of cognitive subskills. Th e lesser subskills in

the example we’ve been talking about are compatible, but if you’re

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[ 44 ] Transformative Assessment in Action

attempting to scrunch together skills that are not really compat-

ible, then you’re fooling yourself. For instance, in math, if Subskill

A involves performing basic arithmetic operations and Subskill B

requires estimating the area encompassed by various geometric

problems, those two subskills don’t belong together. One thing to

ask yourself when you’re thinking about coalescing a subskill is,

“Could I assess students’ mastery of the larger combined subskill

with the same assessment technique?” If you’d need dramatically

diff erent kinds of assessment techniques, then you’re probably try-

ing to coalesce when you shouldn’t.

Interesting. What else about building this learning progression has

been challenging for your PLC?

Well, Marla, one thing we always need to keep reminding ourselves

is that every building block we consider putting in our learning pro-

gression must be amenable to accurate and effi cient assessment. It’s

so easy to get caught up in our backwards analyses that we tend to

overlook the always-present assessment requirement for all build-

ing blocks.

And why is it so important not to do that?

Because this entire formative assessment enterprise is rooted in

assessment-based evidence! It is easy to go rolling along and talk-

ing about all the cool things we’d like our history students to know

and do, but when you start putting those cool things into building

blocks—measurable building blocks—then you have to think hard

about what’s actually practical.

I guess I should add that, for me personally, the most diffi cult

thing has been to make sure that our building blocks capture all the

key subskills and knowledge a student would need to have in order

to master the Using History’s Lessons Skill. I want very much to

come up with the right number of the right building blocks.

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[ 45 ]Learning Progressions

I see what you are saying about locating the correct building blocks,

Greg. We would have trouble with that at the university, I am sure, if

we were to try to carve out learning progressions for key pedagogical

skills in our own teacher education program. All right, now I have

to ask: How will you ever resolve the dispute that took up most of

the PLC’s time today? You seemed so divided on the issue of that

third building block—the composition skill. Th ere were persuasive

arguments on either side of that issue, and nobody seemed willing

to budge. . . .

No, they didn’t, did they? OK, so take a look at the diagram of our

current learning progression over there on the fl ip chart. As you can

see, we have a target curricular aim and two very demanding build-

ing blocks. Building Block 1 consists of straightforward knowledge,

that is, getting students to both memorize and understand some

seriously large hunks of knowledge. Building Block 2 represents a

sophisticated and complex cognitive subskill—composed of three

lesser subskills, if you’ll remember. And there’s the third, under-

consideration building block, surrounded by question marks.

What I have been thinking of, Marla, is asking the PLC to gener-

ate two learning progressions, one with a third building block and

one without. Maybe we could explain the diff erence between the

two to our colleagues and let the district’s history teachers choose

whichever learning progression they prefer. It just might work.

I suppose that would be a good way to go about it. Do you think your

PLC would want to tackle this kind of a learning progression again?

Th at is, can a group of educators, essentially on their own, come up

with defensible learning progressions?

I think the answer is a definite yes. We would, and they could.

Remember, the learning progression we have been struggling with

represents a remarkably challenging historical skill. Not every cog-

nitive skill is as tough as this one. Furthermore, I believe teachers

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[ 46 ] Transformative Assessment in Action

are defi nitely up to the task of creating learning progressions for

their own individual units of instruction. Th ey won’t have to worry

so much about reaching consensus, for one thing, and their existing

lesson plans give them a real head start when it comes to identifying

the skills and knowledge that must be taught and assessed in order

for students to master the unit’s objectives. And, of course, every

teacher can include the number of building blocks that he or she

is comfortable with! And bear in mind that learning progressions,

just like lesson plans, can always be improved and refi ned. Learning

progression creation is something teacher can defi nitely do.

An Interview Look-Back

In this interview, we saw Professor Marla Jenson dig into many of

the key issues facing those who try to create learning progressions.

She started off with questions regarding the committee’s eff orts to

clarify the target curricular aim by (1) generating actual assessment

items to measure students’ mastery of that aim and (2) evaluating

each other’s responses to those items. Such an early-on activity

forces the creators of a learning progression to come to grips with

precisely what it is that’s being sought of students. If the architects

of a learning progression do not have a clear and common under-

standing of a target curricular aim, the likelihood of their ending up

with a defensible learning progression is minimal.

In response to the professor’s inquiry, Greg indicated that the

PLC had trouble getting some members to resist tossing too many

building blocks into the progression. Greg also pointed out the

importance, and the occasional diffi culty, of the committee’s mak-

ing sure that the potential for practicable assessment methods was

always present. Th e whole mission of a learning progression is to

help identify the moments when assessment evidence should be

gathered. During the creation of sound learning progressions, it

is rare that there can be too much attention given to the realistic

assessment possibilities associated with each of its building blocks.

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[ 47 ]Learning Progressions

You will fi nd in forthcoming chapters that almost any worth-

while application of formative assessment is dependent on the avail-

ability of a serviceable learning progression. Learning progressions,

developed by educators on the basis of their best backwards analyses

of what’s needed by students, will not always be perfect. But without

such learning progressions as blueprints for planning when and how

to collect evidence of students’ current status, formative assessment

is almost certain to misfi re.

Refl ection Questions

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of teachers’ devising

learning progressions by themselves versus designing them with

others?

2. If you were offering guidance to a group of teachers trying to

select curricular aims suitable for formative assessment, what

advice would you give?

3. What do you see as the pros and cons of the “large-grain”

approach to learning progression development—coalescing

separate, smaller-scope subskills into larger, broader-scope

subskills? Try to come up with some examples of “small-grain”

subskills that should and should not be combined.

4. How would you go about persuading a group of teachers that

learning progressions are indispensable to a properly conceived

implementation of formative assessment?

5. Which of your current curricular aims seem like good candi-

dates for formative assessment, and why? Take a look at your

plans for a unit (or units), and see if you can map out a learning

progression for it.

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