LEARNING PROGRESSIONS
Definition: What are learning progressions?
There are many definitions of learning progressions. One definition describes learning
progressions as “developmental sequences of content/skills, proficiency, and/or learning
experiences” (Gong, 2008), and another, a “carefully sequenced set of building blocks that
students must master en route to a more distant curricular aim” (Popham, p. 83). For
Pennsylvania, a learning progression might be viewed as a road or pathway that students travel
as they progress toward mastery of the skills needed for career and college readiness. Each road
follows a route composed of a collection of building blocks that are defined by the content
domains for a subject. Along the road there will be many intersections; these intersections are the
building blocks or foundational content standards (assessment anchors as defined by eligible
content) students will need to master as they progress toward the mastery of more sophisticated
skills. The intersections will show what comes before and after a particular point (eligible
content) along the road. These intersections may not necessarily be linear, but they will articulate
movement forward. Ultimately, learning progressions provide teachers with the opportunity to
determine whether students have navigated successfully through the intersections and are able to
move forward along the road to career or college readiness.
Why is there a need for learning progressions?
Teachers may have a very clear understanding of what students should know and be able to do
for a specific subject and grade level, but they may still be unclear about how learning connects
and builds from one year to the next or how learning progresses from year to year within the
given subject. What students are expected to know and be able to do (curriculum content
standards, assessment anchors, and eligible content) at a given grade and content area describes
learning horizontally. Learning progressions, on the other hand, describe learning vertically and
show a sequence along which students can move from beginning learner to advanced learner.
Consequently, student learning is viewed as a progression along a path that connects knowledge,
concepts, and skills or the big ideas—the essence of concepts/processes.
How are learning progressions tied to student learning?
Learning progressions can provide teachers with a foundation for planning and modifying
instruction; developing classroom-based assessments; utilizing and interpreting formative,
diagnostic, and summative assessment results; and using voluntary model curriculum units and
lesson plans or other instructional resources to strengthen students’ instruction in targeted areas.
Learning, by nature, is a progression no matter what the subject matter. While teachers may have
a clear understanding of what students should know and be able to do at a given grade level, they
may not know how learning actually develops in any particular subject, knowledge that is critical
when determining which intersection a student may have missed and/or is still struggling to
master. Without a clear understanding of how learning develops and where the intersections are
along the road, providing targeted student instruction might become more difficult.
The Pennsylvania Academic Content Standards and the assessment anchors as defined by the
eligible content provide teachers with the definition of what students should know and be able to
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do at a specific point in their education. They are the WHAT students should learn. Learning
progressions provide teachers with information about the HOW students might learn and/or even
HOW learning develops. When the “WHAT” and the “HOW” are combined, along with
students’ results from the diagnostic classroom tools, teachers are provided with guidelines or a
map for how to best plan instruction. In other words, by showing teachers where learning lies on
a continuum or by providing them with a description of the road to learning with its intersections
defined, combined with what students should know and be able to do, teachers will have more
information to plan successfully students’ next steps along the road to career or college
readiness.
How are learning progressions tied to the voluntary model curriculum, units, and lesson
plans?
Curricula is often organized around scope and sequence charts. Often scope and sequence will
provide information as to what students should master at each grade for a given content area;
however, scope and sequence charts do not always provide information designed to help teachers
understand where students are in their learning relative to the curricular aim or goal. In addition,
scope and sequence charts may not always be organized in such a way that teachers can clearly
visualize the intersections along the road to learning. Learning progressions are not scope and
sequence charts. Rather, they serve to define expectations through competencies, objectives, key
concepts/content, foundational sub-skills, and prerequisite knowledge.
When units and lessons plans are aligned to learning progressions, teachers can more easily
begin to provide instruction targeted at points where the building blocks or intersections may
have been skipped or not mastered to the degree necessary for more complex work. Because
learning progressions show the entire progression over many years, teachers are able to view
current student learning against the big picture, and they are more able to provide instruction
targeted at the intersections between prior and future learning. As needed, teachers can trace the
threads of the concepts, identify subsequent opportunities along the progression when these
concepts connect with later ones, and revisit them as needed. Alternately, teachers may
determine that targeted instruction might involve the need to go further back in the progression
to clear up misconceptions or to fill gaps in knowledge that might be preventing students from
meeting the goals of the unit. The ability for teachers to have information about student learning
that allows them to look up and down the road to career or college readiness is especially
relevant given today’s highly mobile and diverse student populations.
As a result, learning progressions provide a number of opportunities for instructional planning.
Teachers can focus on important learning goals, concentrating on what the student has learned
and will learn rather than what the student will do. The voluntary model curriculum units and
lessons plans are aligned along the learning progressions. Each serves to provide the learning
goal, along with activities, instructional resources, and lesson-specific assessments.
How were the learning progressions developed?
Learning progressions were developed by a team of education professionals with content
expertise involving how students learn in specific domains, additionally drawing on existing
research and reviews by and feedback from Pennsylvania educators. The process was an
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extension of previous work leading to the development of Pennsylvania’s academic content
standards and the assessment anchors as defined by the eligible content. Because eligible content
statements are familiar to most Pennsylvania teachers and the eligible content statements provide
the most specific information of content expectations compared to other components of
Pennsylvania’s Curriculum Framework, eligible content statements were selected as the building
blocks for the learning progressions. Eligible content for a subject were grouped by the
Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) Reporting Categories and then by two or
three sub-categories within each reporting category so that eligible content statements can be
easily compared by their common or shared characteristics. Finally, the learning progressions
were organized, by grade, in a logical sequence from grade 3 to the Keystone course modules.
How learning progressions may be applied for mathematics?
To use the Mathematics Learning Progressions, teachers should first read through all of the
mathematics progressions to become familiar with the content. Teachers will want to think
about what some of the lessons associated with the eligible content statements might look and
sound like. They will then want to consider which eligible content statements are most related to
each other—how they are related and how it is possible to build on one another as students
become more adept at recognizing the connections between learning different skills. For
example, when students learn the mechanics of subtraction and recognize how closely that
operation is associated with addition, they can generalize the concept of inverse operation and
apply it to the relationship between division/multiplication, and later, extend it to square/square
root, and further, to function/inverse function. Therefore, one of the keys to understanding this
building process for teachers is to recognize which eligible content describes knowledge and
skills that precede the targeted eligible content at a given grade level. In doing so, teachers will
want to think about “preceding” knowledge and skills as antecedents. Similarly, recognizing
which eligible content proceeds from the targeted one at a given grade level is also key to
recognizing the progression of learning and development. Proceeding eligible content is
generally understood at higher levels of abstraction and/or more complex categories of reasoning
than are preceding eligible content. Therefore, teachers will want to think about the
“proceeding” knowledge and skills as successors.
As an example of the relationship between antecedent and successor eligible content, teachers
may want to look at eligible content M6.D.2.1.2, Solve a one-step equation (i.e., using the
inverse operation—whole numbers only). In the progression of learning, the knowledge and
skills necessary to accomplish M6.D.2.1.2 begin to develop before grade 6, and related eligible
content in this domain (Algebraic Concepts) includes: identifying the inverse operation needed to
solve a one-step equation (M6.D.2.1.1), match a realistic situation to an equation, inequality,
table, or graph (M5.D.2.1.2), and identify the missing symbol (+, –, ×, ÷, =, <, >) that makes a
number sentence true (M4.D.2.2.2); all are recognizable as antecedents, in whole or in part, to
the solving of a one-step equation. While other antecedent eligible content exists for M6.D.2.1.2,
when working with students who experience difficulties or require additional help in solving
one-step equations, teachers may find it useful to examine and evaluate those students’
knowledge and skills in at least these three eligible contents (M6.D.2.1.1, M5.D.2.1.2, and
M4.D.2.2.2).
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Because students must have the knowledge and skills to solve one-step equations before they can
be expected to solve two-step equations, M8.D.2.1.1 (Solve one- or two- step equations and
inequalities) is a successor to M6.D.2.1.2. Working backwards from M8.D.2.1.1, eligible content
M7.D.2.2.1 (Identify expressions, equations, or inequalities that model mathematical situations)
is likewise an antecedent of M8.D.2.1.1. It is also worth noting that antecedent/successor
relationships, being content driven, are more significant in identifying and remediating student
deficits than the grade-level associations for the relevant eligible content.
Another way teachers may want to make effective use of the learning progressions for eligible
content is to consider ways in which they relate to each other across domains. For example, in
high school, geometry students will likely tackle eligible content G.2.2.2.4 (Develop and/or use
strategies to estimate the area of a compound/composite figure). Again, because the knowledge
and skills to find the area of composites and compound figures are developed and mature in
earlier grades, antecedents are available and recognizable in both the Measurement and
Geometry domains. Just as solving one-step equations is a requisite skill for solving multi-step
equations, finding the individual area of a simple polygon, such as a rectangle, must be within
the student’s grasp before undertaking composites. Sampling the inventory of eligible content in
Measurement yields M5.B.2.2.2 (Find the area of a square or rectangle) as antecedent to
G.2.2.2.4, as well as M7.B.2.1.1 (Develop and/or use strategies to find the perimeter and/or area
of compound figures). Therefore, M5.B.2.2.2 is an antecedent to M7.B.2.1.1. As in the previous
example of considering instructional extension in solving one-step equations before moving to
solving multi-step equations, it is more important for teachers to recognize the details of the
eligible content (finding area) than either grade level (5, 7, or high school) descriptors or domain
(Measurement or Geometry).
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REFERENCES
Alonzo, A. C. & Gearhart, M. (2006). Considering learning progressions from a classroom
assessment perspective. Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives, 4(1&2), 99–
108.
Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (2004). The formative purpose: Assessment must first promote learning.
In M. Wilson (Ed.), National Society for the Study of Education Yearbook: Vol. 103(2). Towards
coherence between classroom assessment and accountability (pp. 20–50). Chicago, IL: National
Society for the Study of Education.
Gong, B. (2008, February). Developing learning progressions to inform formative assessment:
Five areas to develop. Presentation at the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)
Formative Assessment for Teachers and Students (FAST) State Collaborative on Assessment and
Student Standards (SCASS) Meeting, Atlanta, GA.
Heritage, M. (2008). Learning progressions: Supporting instruction and formative assessment.
National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Tests (CRESST) paper
prepared for the Formative Assessment for Teachers and Students (FAST) State Collaborative on
Assessment and Student Standards (SCASS) of the Council of Chief State School Officers
(CCSSO).
Hess, K. (2008). Developing and using learning progressions as a schema for measuring
progress. Dover, NH: National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment.
Hess, K. (2008, February). Tools and strategies for developing and using learning progressions:
Five areas to develop. Presentation at the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)
Formative Assessment for Teachers and Students (FAST) State Collaborative on Assessment and
Student Standards (SCASS) Meeting, Atlanta, GA.
McTighe, J. & Wiggins, G. P. (2005) Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Popham, J. W. (2007). The lowdown on learning progressions. Educational Leadership, 64(7),
83–84.
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