Using Learning Progressions in the Classroom

The best hammer in the world is a worthless tool unless you know how to use it. Use it to hammer in a screw, and you’ll think it worthless. Leave it sitting on a shelf, and it’s nothing more than a waste of resources.

Sometimes I worry that this is what I do with learning progressions when I spend so much time writing about them without really diving into how best to use them. If you’re here and have never seen any of my work around learning progressions, know that (A) they were the most valuable thing I brought into my own classroom, and (B) this is a good place to go to learn more about what they are and how to make them.

The focus of this post is all about how to maximize their effectiveness in the classroom. For today, let’s use this learning progression as an example.

Before I talk about how I use it, I want to pause to talk about how I plan a little bit differently once I have a learning progression. For one, typically I have at least three lessons very carefully aligned to the latter three phases. Phase three is often where I introduce new concepts, so the following phases all become lessons that I teach, usually leveraging direct instruction (different than lectures, for those not too familiar with actual direct instruction) for those lessons.

So, I know I need lessons for those. Additionally, I create a student tracker that students will use. This is typically a Google Doc that supports reflection around the progression (or progressions). This is what that often looks like.

Once I have that set up, then I start planning out my assessment sequence. My favorite approach is to create two versions of an assessment aligned to the learning progression. Here’s an example of what one of those assessments may look like.

For these mastery checks, they are broken down by the phases of the learning progression with questions aligned to each phase. This helps students very clearly pinpoint what phase they need to be focused on.

Once I have the progression, student tracker, and assessments made, then I’m ready to start using them in class with students.

Using Learning Progressions in a Unit

To begin with, I provide students with their unit learning guide that has the learning progression on it and space for reflection. With this, I try to have an assessment that covers the first three phases of the progression as a diagnostic. Students take the diagnostic and then use those results to establish their baseline for the unit.

Once they have their baseline, we then revisit these learning progression reflections almost every day. Here are some of the ways we do that.

Entry Tasks: Often times our entry task is to check our learning progressions and then do something either independently or in small groups to gain a bit of understanding that might move us towards the next phase. This could be small group instruction, independent examination of curated resources by phase, or a chance to talk to their partners about what they know. This new learning gets recorded on their reflection sheet. Additionally, during these entry tasks I often have students set an intention for the day based on what they need to learn.

During the Lesson: I hate the simplified practice of simply writing the objective on the board, changing it every day, and pretending that makes sense to students. It’s box-checking at its finest in education, and it’s a waste of everyone’s time. (Did I put that bluntly enough?) Instead, I try to have the learning progression printed and up on the wall. This way, during the lesson I can ask students to identify which phase we are talking about, connect it back to previous phases, or identify where they are at on the progression throughout the lesson as a self-check on their understanding.

After the Lesson: This is where I’ll bring back up the multiple formats of the mastery check I showed earlier. I like to use one form of the mastery check as a rolling exit ticket. For example, on day 1 of the unit, I may have students complete phase 1 of the mastery check before they leave. I will either go through those on my own after class or have students correct them the next day, but my purpose for this is to identify gaps in background knowledge. As we complete lessons aligned to each phase, I use the corresponding phase on one of the assessments as the exit ticket. Typically, we will then review that phase the next day to aid in recall of information from the previous day.

Now, a note about this is that the format of the questions is important here. I’ll talk about the actual formative assessment later on, but for this rolling exit ticket, as often as possible I will use low-level question types that can be answered quickly (think multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, etc.) and actually aid in the recall of information (as opposed to things like short response, drawing models, etc., which don’t have cues for helping recall the information). The purpose of this is because I actually want students to get these questions right for two reasons. (A) Answering questions incorrectly early on in the learning process can actually confuse students later about what the correct answer is. (B) I use this to build student self-efficacy by providing them with tangible evidence of success on the content as they are learning it, helping them build the belief that they can be successful in the future.

As an Assessment Reflection: If we do a piece of writing or some sort of activity that they get feedback on, I will have them pull up their learning progression reflection sheet alongside their assignment and ask them to reflect on their results as a way to better pinpoint where they are at. In this process, they usually will also record any feedback (not just comments from me or peers, but broadly defined as any information a student can use to determine their current location in relation to the learning goal) on the sheet. Then, when we take another assessment or do another task to practice the skill, students will then revisit these notes to remember what they learned from their previous assessment.

Assessing and Evaluating the Learning

Obviously the previous section involves a lot of evaluating and reflecting on the learning, but I get more specific with this as we get towards the end of the learning progression, and eventually towards the end of the unit.

As a Formative Assessment: Once we’ve completed a progression and students have completed all of the phases of the rolling exit ticket, we will then take nearly the identical assessment but with different question types. For example, if phase one was all multiple choice questions and fill-in-the-blank from the rolling exit ticket, I will make sure the questions in this section are open-ended short-response questions. The purpose of this is to ensure they can retrieve the information or engage in the skill without excessive cueing from the question itself.

When students have completed the formative, I will use those results to create groups for small group instruction. This assessment usually requires me to set up structures and routines afterwards that allow for a more personalized approach to learning. I often package modules that focus on each phase so students struggling with specific sections can learn what they need to learn based on what they were made aware of from the formative.

Portfolio Reflections and Discussions: As we near the end of the unit, we then use the progressions in our learning conferences. Students will compile evidence of their learning, and then we will talk about what their evidence shows in terms of where they are at on the progression.

Grading and Evaluating: During these discussions, we will agree on their current score for the learning progression. I favor a 5-point scale, and the way I record their scores for the learning progression is quite simple. It’s out of 5 points, and their current phase on the progression determines their percentage. Because 4 is really a moderately proficient phase, that results in a B. Lower than that at a 3 is technically a passing score, but it sits at a 60%.

The thing I really like about using the learning progression to determine their grades is that the level recorded actually has meaning, and students understand what needs to be done to improve that score. It isn’t just an arbitrary percentage, but each level has tangible, concrete learning the student could engage in to improve both their skills and their score.

Final Thoughts:

Nothing in education is a perfect system, and nothing will ever be 100% true for all our kids. However, integrating learning progressions into my practice helped turn me into the teacher I wanted to be, my students into the motivated and independent learning I knew they were, and my classroom into a place where learning was the focus.

Questions? Leave me a comment, and I’ll give you the best answer I can.