Students with Significant
Disabilities:
Learning Progressions
PowerPoint Slides
to be used in conjunction
with the Facilitator’s Guide
Copyright © 2011, East Carolina University.
Recommended citation:
Hess, K. (2012). Students with significant disabilities:
Learning progressions – A PowerPoint presentation for
professional development. Modules Addressing Special
Education and Teacher Education (MAST). Greenville,
NC: East Carolina University.
This resource includes contributions from the module
developer and MAST Module Project colleagues (in
alphabetical order) Kelly Henderson (Facilitator Guide
Editor), Tanner Jones (Web Designer), Diane Kester
(Editor), Sue Byrd Steinweg (Project Director), Bradley
Baggett (Graduate Assistant), and Sandra Hopfengardner
Warren (Principal Investigator).
Session Agenda
•
•
•
•
Introduction
Session Goals and Objectives
Set the Course
Current Alternate Assessment Designs and
Design Challenges
• Distinguishing among Access Skills,
Foundational Skills, and Academic Content
• Evaluation
Introduction
• What promise do learning progressions
hold for Alternate Assessments based on
Alternate Achievement Standards (AAAAS)?
• “A Horse Story”- Read page 1 of
Developing and Using Learning Progressions as a Schema for Measuring
Progress, (see Guide and available at
http://mast.ecu.edu/modules/lpssd/lib/doc
uments/CCSSO2_KH08.pdf .)
Introduction, continued
• How is the training of this head-shy horse
similar to applying a learning progressions
schema to instruction and assessment for
students with significant cognitive
disabilities?
• The concepts behind the horse story and
possible answers to the open-ended question
will be addressed throughout the session and
revisited in the self-assessment.
Session Goal and Objectives
• The goal of this module is to deepen
participants’ understanding of what learning
progressions are and are not and how the
use of learning progressions can influence:
(a) teacher perceptions of what students can learn,
(b) entry points for learning,
(c) classroom teaching and assessment practices,
(d) test designs for developing content and
measuring progress in alternate assessments
based on alternate achievement standards.
Session Objectives, continued
Objectives: Participants will be able to:
1.Match each common alternate
assessment design (checklist/rating scale,
performance tasks, and portfolios) with its
description and identify at least one major
challenge currently presented by each.
Session Objectives, continued
2. Distinguish age-appropriate academic
content for inclusion in alternate
assessments from foundational skills
and/or access skills.
Session Objectives, continued
3. Identify examples and non-example of
content-specific learning progressions,
applying two guiding principles of
learning progressions: having a
common unifying thread and
demonstrating increasing complexity,
breadth, or sophistication (novice to
expert).
Set the Course
• What are “learning progressions”?
• For the answer, review one of these
articles:
– Nichols (2010). What is a learning
progression? Available at
http://mast.ecu.edu/modules/lpssd/lib/documen
ts/Bulletin_12.pdf or
Set the Course, continued
– Clements & Sarama (2009). Learning
trajectories in early mathematics – sequences
of acquisition and teaching. Encyclopedia of
Language and Literacy Development at
http://literacyencyclopedia.ca/index.php?fa=ite
ms.show&topicId=270 , pages 1 and 2, or
– Hess (2008): Developing and Using Learning
Progressions as a Schema for Measuring
Progress. Available at
http://mast.ecu.edu/modules/lpssd/lib/docume
nts/CCSSO2_KH08.pdf#page=2
Set the Course, continued
• Key ideas to remember about learning
progressions:
– Learning progressions are based in research
about how children typically learn and
develop understanding in each content
domain.
– Learning progress depends on combining
best practices in instruction with clear
learning targets, not simply “natural”
development over time.
Set the Course, continued
– There are several possible inter-related
pathways learning progressions can take,
depending on the unifying ideas being learned
over time.
– Learning progressions are hypotheses about
how learning will occur that must be validated
with actual students/student work samples.
Set the Course, continued
Connecting the Four Guiding Principles of
LPs to assessing students with severe
cognitive disabilities. Principles include:
1. LPs are developed (and refined) using
available research.
2. LPs have clear binding threads that articulate
the essential/core concepts and processes.
3. LPs articulate movement toward increased
understanding.
4. LPs go hand-in-hand with well-designed/
aligned assessments.
Set the Course, continued
Principle 1: LPs are developed (and
refined) using available research.
• Little existing research about how students
with significant cognitive disabilities
(SWSCD) learn academic content. Why?
– SWSCD have not been expected to learn (due
to AA-AAS content assessed) and have not
been taught academic content;
Set the Course, continued
– teachers of SWSCD often lack content
expertise needed to design meaningful
academic learning that is grade-appropriate;
and
– perhaps an underlying belief that SWSCD
cannot or do not need to learn academic
content.
Set the Course, continued
• The National Alternate Assessment
Center (NAAC) believes that academic
learning progressions for the general
student population can serve as a starting
point for designing learning for SWSCD.
– National content experts and master teachers
from both general and special education have
been working to develop a learning
progressions framework using the Common
Core State Standards (CCSS).
Set the Course, continued
– While the CCSS are not necessarily researchbased in their development, the NAAC
committees have applied cognitive research to
the development of the NAAC Learning
Progressions Frameworks (LPFs) for ELA,
mathematics, and science.
– Once piloted by teachers in 2010-2012, the
NAAC LPFs will be validated and refined using
student work analyses and teacher
observations about how SWSCD learn gradeappropriate academic content.
Set the Course, continued
Principle 2: LPs have clear binding
threads that articulate the
essential/core concepts and processes.
• Development of Learning Progression
Frameworks using the CCSS began with
identifying the unifying threads, big
ideas, of each content discipline. T
Set the Course, continued
• These big ideas were used to articulate
key learning targets for a progression
across grade levels that would
demonstrate learning of the big ideas.
– This key component – an articulated
continuum of learning - has been missing in
the discussion of learning progress, not only
for SWSCD, but for the general population
as well.
Set the Course, continued
• To see the NAAC LPF big ideas, read
“Identifying learning progressions in
Common Core State Standards for
alternate assessments” at
http://www.nciea.org/publications/ASE
S_%20KH2010%20edits.pdf
Set the Course, continued
Principle 3: LPs articulate movement
toward increased understanding.
• After establishing the big ideas (unifying
threads) for the NAAC learning
progressions, development of grade
span learning targets began.
– Careful thought was given to how these
learning targets should be “ordered along a
continuum” for academic learning across
grade levels.
Set the Course, continued
– In many cases, several big ideas and thus
several sets of learning targets were
established with the expectation that student
would be learning content described in not
just one single progression, but from several
interrelated progressions.
– Review an example LP at
http://mast.ecu.edu/modules/lpssd/lib/docum
ents/ME_example.pdf.
Set the Course, continued
Principle 4: LPs go hand-in-hand with
well-designed/aligned assessments.
• In a recent 3-year study, researchers
worked with the Hawaii Department of
Education and teachers grades K-8 to
develop Progress Maps (learning
progressions) for mathematics and ELA
grade-level benchmarks.
Set the Course, continued
• Teachers were asked to track the progress
of struggling learners in their classrooms
using formative assessments aligned with
the progress maps and collaborative
student work analysis to support learning.
• Findings from this research study showed
that use of learning progressions with
aligned formative assessments and student
work analysis affected:
Set the Course, continued
– Changes in teachers’ perceptions of teaching
to the content standards
– Teachers began to understand what a path to
proficiency or “approaching proficiency” might
actually look like for a specific grade level.
– Many teachers reported they had been using
the grade-level benchmarks for years, but
never really understood them in this way (how
to get to “there” from “here”).
Set the Course, continued
• Changes in teachers’ perceptions of low
performing learners:
– Teachers found they had to know the student
better to “place them” on a learning continuum
– they needed specific formative assessment
data and designed assessments accordingly.
– Teachers began to see students according to
what the students COULD do, not what they
COULD NOT do (some said it was the first
time they had not seen students as “behind
the others”).
Set the Course, continued
– Said that indicators in the progressions
presented the “big picture” of what students
could do that they could build on and use
them with parents and students alike.
• Changes in teachers’ day-to-day
assessment practices:
– Pre-assessments were used as “entry points”
to differentiate instruction.
– Pre-assessments focused on the prerequisite
skills needed to be successful, not the “end
point” of the continuum (i.e., the benchmark).
Set the Course, continued
– Teachers’ use of pre-assessments
increased the use of formative assessment
data, including using it as new way to
flexibly group students for targeted
instruction/support
– Teachers' assessments – both formative
and summative - had greater focus and
therefore assessment data are more useful.
Set the Course, continued
• These research findings - along with
other anecdotal feedback from teachers
- give us hope that the use of welldesigned learning progressions for
planning both instruction and
assessment for students with significant
cognitive disabilities will greatly impact
teacher practice and student learning
(Hess, June 2010).
Current Alternate Assessment
Designs and Design Challenges
• “States typically begin development of their
AA-AAS by adopting a general method to
assess all students participating in the
alternate assessment system; however,
the specific assessment tasks and the
breadth and difficulty of content included
for assessment vary widely from state to
state, even when the test designs are
similar” (Hess, Burdge, & Clayton, in press, p. 3).
Assessment Designs, continued
• Three most commonly used approaches for
alternate assessments (Roeber, 2002):
– A portfolio/body of evidence is a purposeful
and systematic collection of student work,
collected over time and graded by the teacher.
Overall performance is evaluated and judged
against predetermined scoring criteria (e.g.,
accuracy, independence, complexity), usually
described in a rubric and usually by one of
more scorers other than the teacher.
Assessment Designs, continued
– A performance task/event is a direct, ondemand measure of a skill in a one-to-one
assessment situation (e.g., the student
responds to questions about the plot in a
preselected, grade-level, fictional text) and the
teacher scores the student responses
according to an answer key. Performance
tasks are highly structured and scripted for the
teacher, which strengthens standardization of
administration and technical quality.
Assessment Designs, continued
– A rating scale/checklist is a sequential
listing of skills, tasks, or activities and
requires teachers to identify whether
students are able to perform them or not.
Scores are then based on the number of
skills the student is able to perform
successfully. Teacher recall and
observation, not student work samples are
used to evaluate and make judgments
about performance.
Assessment Designs, continued
• Each common alternate assessment
test design struggles to find the balance
between standardization of
administration and flexibility to meet
individual student needs (Gong & Marion, 2006).
• The following table summarizes some
strengths and challenges of alternate
assessment designs (adapted from Hess, Burdge,
& Clayton, in press, p. 9).
Common AA-AAS Test Designs
Major Strengths
Portfolios
•
•
Performance
Tasks
•
•
Checklists/
Rating Scales
•
•
Major Challenges
Links between curriculum, instruction,
and assessment are more obvious than
in other test designs because the work
samples are collected over time.
Teachers have the flexibility to
customize assessment tasks to meet
individual student needs.
•
Teachers are provided with structured
tasks, increasing standardization of
administration.
With training, can provide a high
degree of standardization of
performance tasks, increasing
technical adequacy.
•
Standardized across standards
assessed, but are flexible in that
assessment activities are developed by
teachers with specific student needs in
mind.
Have some of the same flexibility and
standardization issues as with
portfolio formats.
•
•
•
•
Requires teacher content expertise in order to
develop multiple assessment tasks in each content
area.
Too much flexibility – individual customization can result in lack of standardization and an overall
lack of technical quality. In other words, students
are not being tested on the same academic content
and constructs.
Requires extensive development of comparable
assessment tasks that can be used across large
numbers of students and rotated yearly.
Less flexibility in terms of tailoring the
administration and performance to a particular
student’s needs – tasks are the same across students
and some students might be excluded.
Variability in scoring is often noted; sometimes a
second scorer is needed to attain scoring reliability
Often lack student work samples to validate
scores/judgments about proficiency.
Activity - Assessment Designs
• Look at the two tables of examples of
Alternate Assessments, provided to you
or found at
http://mast.ecu.edu/modules/lpssd/summ
ary/#1.
Assessment Designs, continued
– Example #1: While no access skills are
assessed on the Academic Learning –
Alternate (VITAL-A), teachers are
encouraged to have students practice use
of access skills during learning of academic
content. Access skills and foundational skills
become the means, not the end in
academic learning. Academic skills and
concepts become increasingly more
complex over time/across grades 2-5.
Assessment Designs, continued
– Example #2: Here is a science inquiry
example for grades K-5. Academic skills
and concepts become increasingly more
complex over time/across grades.
• After examining both examples, reflect
on how the distinctions between access
skills and foundational skills.
• Then discuss the progressions
presented in the right hand columns.
Distinguishing among Access
Skills, Foundational Skills, and
Academic Content
• Academic content has been
underrepresented in past instruction and
research with students with significant
cognitive disabilities.
Distinguishing Skills, continued
• Therefore, the “extension” of grade-level
content standards for AA-AAS can
sometimes produce assessment targets
that miss the mark of being academic,
even though a deliberate development
process was used to make “links” to the
alternate assessment targets (Flowers, Browder,
Wakeman, & Karvonen, 2007).
Distinguishing Skills, continued
• To determine whether the content is
academic (i.e., reading, writing,
mathematics, or science content) and to
what degree the AA-AAS includes
academic content for instruction and
assessment, one must examine the
strength of the content links between the
grade-level content expectations and the
content assessed in the AA-AAS at the
same grade level or grade span.
Distinguishing Skills, continued
• In the following table, there are
examples of content that would not be
appropriate to include in AA-AAS
assessments because they are only
skills that facilitate learning of academic
content, but are not considered
academic (adapted from Hess, Burdge, & Clayton, in press,
p. 13).
Access Skills
(skills not content-specific, but often included
in IEP goals that facilitate learning)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Student sustains interest in a teacherdirected activity.
Student listens attentively to texts read
aloud.
Student develops gross motor skills.
Student develops fine motor skills.
Student activates a switch to respond.
Student uses a communication device.
Student demonstrates visual and auditory
discrimination.
Foundational Skills
(skills that form the basis or foundation for
learning the academic content that comes
later)
Reading & Writing
•
Student demonstrates concepts of print:
tracks print.
•
Student learns letters and sounds.
•
Student distinguishes letters from words.
•
Student generalizes use of pictures,
symbols, objects, and actions to identify
their meaning.
Mathematics
•
Student identifies numbers.
•
Student counts objects using 1:1
matching.
•
Student distinguishes numbers from
letters.
Science
•
Student follows a one-step direction.
•
Student can identify an obvious external
physical difference (e.g., color, size,
shape) in objects.
Activity - Distinguishing Skills
• Look at the fill-in table of access and
foundational skills for writing provided or at
http://mast.ecu.edu/modules/lpssd/lib/docu
ments/Activity02.pdf
• Complete some examples of access skills
and foundational skills for this learning
progression in writing (Source: Adapted from Biggam &
Itterly. (2009). Literacy profiles: A framework to guide assessment,
instructional strategies and intervention, K-4).
Focus and Reflection Questions
Focus and Reflection Questions,
continued
Application and Extension Activities
Application and Extension
Activities, continued
Application and Extension
Activities, continued
Self-Assessment
• A self-assessment with response
feedback is available at
http://mast.ecu.edu/modules/lpssd/quiz/.
Participants may take this assessment
online to evaluate their learning about
content presented in this module.
Session Evaluation
• A form for participants to evaluate the
session is available in the Facilitator’s
Guide.