Table Of ContentLEARNING PROGRESSIONS IN SCIENCE
LEARRNING PRROGRESSSIONS INN SCIENCCE
Curreent Challennges and FFuture Direections
Edited bby
Alicia CC. Alonzo
Amelia Wenk Gotwalls
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-94-6091-822-3 (paperback)
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CONTENTS
I. Framing Section
1. Introduction: Leaping into Learning Progressions in Science 3
Amelia Wenk Gotwals and Alicia C. Alonzo
2. Reflections on Learning Progressions 13
Richard J. Shavelson and Amy Kurpius
3. The Importance, Cautions and Future of Learning Progression
Research: Some Comments on Richard Shavelson’s and Amy Kurpius’s
“Reflections on Learning Progressions” 27
Joseph S. Krajcik
II. Defining Learning Progressions
4. Addressing Challenges in Developing Learning Progressions for
Environmental Science Literacy 39
Kristin L. Gunckel, Lindsey Mohan, Beth A. Covitt
and Charles W. Anderson
5. Challenges in Defining and Validating an Astronomy Learning
Progression 77
Julia D. Plummer
6. MoDeLS: Challenges in Defining a Learning Progression for
Scientific Modeling 101
Christina Schwarz, Brian J. Reiser, Andrés Acher, Lisa Kenyon
and David Fortus
7. Exploring Challenges to Defining Learning Progressions 139
Lindsey Mohan and Julia Plummer
III. Assessing Learning Progressions
8. Developing Assessments for a Learning Progression on
Carbon-Transforming Processes in Socio-Ecological Systems 151
Hui Jin and Charles W. Anderson
9. Assessing Students’ Progressing Abilities to Construct Scientific
Explanations 183
Amelia Wenk Gotwals, Nancy Butler Songer and Lea Bullard
10. Using Learning Progressions to Inform Large-Scale Assessment 211
Alicia C. Alonzo, Teresa Neidorf and Charles W. Anderson
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
11. Eliciting Student Responses Relative to a Learning Progression:
Assessment Challenges 241
Alicia C. Alonzo
IV. Modeling Learning Progressions
12. A Bayesian Network Approach to Modeling Learning Progressions 257
Patti West, Daisy Wise Rutstein, Robert J. Mislevy, Junhui Liu,
Roy Levy, Kristen E. DiCerbo, Aaron Crawford, Younyoung Choi,
Kristina Chapple and John T. Behrens
13. The Psychometric Modeling of Ordered Multiple-Choice Item
Responses for Diagnostic Assessment with a Learning Progression 293
Derek C. Briggs and Alicia C. Alonzo
14. Responding to a Challenge that Learning Progressions Pose to
Measurement Practice: Hypothesized Links between Dimensions
of the Outcome Progression 317
Mark Wilson
15. Making Progress in the Modeling of Learning Progressions 345
Derek C. Briggs
V. Using Learning Progressions
16. Learning Progressions as Tools for Curriculum Development:
Lessons from the Inquiry Project 359
Marianne Wiser, Carol L. Smith, and Sue Doubler
17. Learning Progressions to Support Ambitious Teaching Practices 405
Erin Marie Furtak, Jessica Thompson, Melissa Braaten and
Mark Windschitl
18. The Potential of Learning Progression Research to Inform the
Design of State Science Standards 435
Jacob Foster and Marianne Wiser
19. Learning Progressions for Multiple Purposes: Challenges in Using
Learning Progressions 461
Amelia Wenk Gotwals
IV. Concluding Section
20. Leaping Forward: Next Steps for Learning Progressions in Science 475
Alicia C. Alonzo and Amelia Wenk Gotwals
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Appendix A: LeaPS Conference Partcipants 491
Appendix B: Chapter Reviewers 495
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
Andrés Acher is Assistant Research Professor at the School of Education and Social
Policy at Northwestern University. His research examines how to capitalize on ideas
students bring to the classroom in order to support them in developing more
sophisticated understandings of science knowledge and practices over time.
Examples of this research include his participation in (1) MoDeLS, a National
Science Foundation (NSF) project that is developing a learning progression for
modeling practices and metamodeling knowledge and (2) Modeling Materials at
Early School Years, a European Union project that is developing a pathway of
articulated ideas to support students in pre-K to fourth grade elementary classrooms
to develop more sophisticated understandings of materials while they engage in
modeling the properties of and changes in these materials. Previous to his position at
Northwestern, he conducted research in four European institutions: King’s College
London; University of Leeds, UK; University of La Sapienza, Rome; and Autonomic
University of Barcelona, where he obtained his Ph.D. in science education.
Alicia Alonzo is an assistant professor of science education in the Department of
Teacher Education at Michigan State University. Her research explores knowledge
and tools (including learning progressions) that support teachers’ formative
assessment practices. She has been involved with the development of learning
progressions and associated assessment items since 2001, resulting in several co-
authored papers. She is a member of the Steering Committee for US Involvement
in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and a member of the
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Science Standing
Committee. She served on working groups charged with exploring the inclusion of
learning progression items and interactive computer tasks in the 2009 NAEP
science assessment. Currently, she serves as an editorial board member for the
Journal of Research in Science Teaching and Educational Assessment. She is a
research fellow of the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation and a Lilly Teaching
Fellow.
Charles W. (Andy) Anderson is Professor in the Department of Teacher
Education, Michigan State University, where he has been since receiving his Ph.D.
in science education from The University of Texas at Austin in 1979. Dr.
Anderson's current research focuses on the development of learning progressions
leading to environmental science literacy for K-12 and college students. He has
used conceptual change and sociocultural research on student learning to improve
classroom science teaching and science teacher education, science curriculum, and
science assessment. Dr. Anderson is past president of the National Association for
Research in Science Teaching (NARST). He has been co-editor of the Journal of
Research in Science Teaching and associate editor of Cognition and Instruction.
He recently served as a consultant to the National Research Council's (NRC)
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
Committee on Test Design for K-12 Science Achievement and as a member of the
NRC's Committee on Science Learning, K-8. He served as a member of the NAEP
Science Framework Planning Committee and the NAEP Science Standing
Committee, and he is currently a member of the NRC's Climate Change Education
Roundtable.
John Behrens is Director of Networking Academy Learning Systems
Development at Cisco and Adjunct Assistant Research Professor in the Department
of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN. Dr. Behrens is
responsible for the design and development of the Networking Academy’s global
on-line instructional offerings that integrate interactive curricular and assessment
technologies with hands-on activities. These curriculum, assessment, and gaming
tools serve more than 700,000 students per year in 165 countries across more than
10 languages. Dr. Behrens received his Master’s degree in special education and
Ph.D. in educational psychology from Arizona State University. He received his
B.A. in psychology and philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. Prior to
joining Cisco, he was a tenured associate professor of psychology in education at
Arizona State University.
Melissa Braaten is an assistant professor in the School of Education's Department
of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her
research interests include teacher learning in collaborative inquiry groups,
ambitious science instruction that is responsive to students, the construction of
explanatory models in school science, and the use of classroom discourse to create
generative and equitable learning environments. Earlier in her career she was a
middle school and high school science teacher in Tennessee, Texas, and
Washington. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington.
Derek Briggs is Chair of the Research and Evaluation Methodology Program in
the School of Education at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he also
serves as an associate professor of quantitative methods and policy analysis. His
research agenda focuses on building sound methodological approaches for the
valid measurement and evaluation of growth in student achievement. Examples of
his research interests in the area of educational measurement include (1)
characterizing the gap between validity theory and practice in the context of high-
stakes standardized testing and (2) developing and applying psychometric models
to assess learning progressions.
Lea Bullard is a doctoral candidate in science education at the University of
Michigan and a research assistant at the University of North Carolina at
Wilmington. Her professional work is focused on assessing student learning
outcomes in higher education. Her personal research interests center on the nature
and evaluation of visitor learning in science museums.
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