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586 matches found for How People Learn Brain,Mind,Experience,and School Expanded Edition. in 7 Implications for Learning in School

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... Implications for Learning in School...
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... What does the research we have discussed mean for learning in school? Our charge was to build on HPL I1 with a synthesis of research on learning from birth through adulthood, in both formal and informal settings. This ... of work has implications for the work of educators in schools, particularly those who teach at the kindergarten to twelfth grade (K-12) levels....
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... In previous chapters, we discussed the cultural nature of learning and the growing recognition that culture fundamentally shapes all aspects of learning, from the wiring of the brain to the way that communities and ... . We saw that there are many types of learning, which are supported by a suite of cognitive processes that the learner needs to coordinate and organize. We examined research on knowledge and reasoning, which indicates that developing expert knowledge brings both advantages and biases and ... simple accumulation of knowledge is insufficient for tackling sophisticated learning tasks and approaching novel problems and situations. Finally, we described how an individual’s beliefs, values, interests, and identities play an integral role in learning and are ... shaped by the learner’s experiences at home and in their communities....
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... All of these insights have implications for the way schools and classrooms are organized. In this chapter, we draw on findings from previous chapters to consider four implications for K-12 educators. First, ...
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... 1 As noted in Chapter 1, this report uses the abbreviation “HPL I” for How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition (National Research Council, 2000)....
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... thinking about how learning in different academic content areas requires approaches that take into account both general findings about learning and subject-specific differences. Third, we discuss instructional approaches that both engage and empower learners. Finally, we consider how ...
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... CULTURE AND LEARNING IN SCHOOL...
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... learning. The authors of HPL I recognized the importance of considering how culture influences knowledge transfer, noting, for example, that “school failure may be partly explained by the mismatch between what students have learned in their home cultures and what is required of them in school&#...
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... that taking a sociocultural view of learning means taking into account the social, emotional, motivational, cognitive, developmental, biological, and temporal contexts in which learning occurs. In short, the study of learning is the study of the relationships between learners and their environments. ... practice in very specific ways. Ideally, educators play a key role in determining the nature of the learning experiences available to their students, and they can also shape their students’ inclination and capacity to take advantage of their learning environments....
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... the role of culture in education would require at least another book-length report. We note here that for some students the culture and practices of school are not markedly different from those they experience outside of school, while for others going to school is a cross-cultural experience that can ... challenges. Thus, we highlight a few points about school and classroom contexts that illustrate the fundamental importance of attention to culture in providing all students an equitable opportunity to learn ...
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... When learners tackle a new task, they bring a wealth of previous knowl-...
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...BOX 7-1 Do Students Have a Dominant Learning Style? ...
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..., experimental research has consistently shown that learning styles do not exist as described by the concept’s proponents, so categorizing and teaching children according to such styles is problematic (Dembo and Howard, 2007; Pashler et al., 2008). ...
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... new tasks and demonstrate their learning (see Box 7-1). Learning happens as people move in and across the practices of everyday life (including home, school, and neighborhood), and people apply all sorts of learning as they navigate new situations and problems. ...
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...Optimal learning environments support this productive variation among learners in part by providing room for learners to interpret tasks and assessments in ways that broadly leverage their individual strengths, experiences, and goals. A theoretical framework for this idea was put forward ... a landmark 1995 paper (Ladson-Billings, 1995). Since that time, educators and researchers have explored what it means to make teaching and learning relevant and responsive to the languages, literacies, and cultural practices of all students (see, e.g., discussion of culturally sustaining ...
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...School and Classroom Contexts ...
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...Culture shapes every learning environment and the experience of each learner within that environment: learners who find the classroom environment unfamiliar, confusing, unwelcoming, or ... will be at a disadvantage. It has been well established elsewhere that attention to children’s and adolescents’ opportunity to learn—which is in large part determined by their ...
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... educational environments—is critical to addressing disparities among population subgroups (see, e.g., Boykin and Noguera, 2011; Duncan and Murnane, 2011; Reardon, 2011; Tate, 2001). Opportunity to learn is a multidimensional construct that encompasses not only the content available to ... but also what teachers do in the classroom, the activities in which students engage, and the materials and other resources that are used to support instruction. These features of the learning environment are shaped by the broader culture in which educators ... prepared and policy decisions are made—and those factors, in turn, are shaped by even broader cultural influences....
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... Learning Environments...
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... A learning environment is structured to promote particular ways of engaging in a specific set of activities, and the features of every learning environment reflect the cultural context in which it is situated. A classroom’s culture is reflected in, for ... , its physical features; the placement of chairs and desks or tables, the materials on the walls, and the resources available for use and reference all send signals about what is expected. Activities are structured to facilitate learning in a particular way in specific knowledge domains. ... The artifacts present in the room reinforce values, and researchers have suggested that cultural artifacts can have powerful cumulative effects on both adults and children (Azevedo and Aleven, 2013; Bell ...
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... One small example of this can be seen in the displays of the alphabet illustrated with animals (aardvark to zebra) that are ubiquitous in preschool and elementary classrooms. These educational resources, which are likely to show the animals as stylized representations or human-like characters&#...
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... As another example, Bang and colleagues (in press), examined cultural differences in the illustrations in children’s books that either were or were not written and ... features of the illustrations: the subjective distance from the reader to the illustrated object, established by the framing of the illustration (standard voyeur versus up-close or panoramic); perspective angle (straight-on view versus viewed from above or below); and the use of devices to encourage ... are effective). The Native American–constructed illustrations were more likely to have up-close views, included a greater range of angles and distances, and were more likely to encourage perspective-taking (often from the perspective of an animal actor). The illustrations not created by Na-...
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... tive Americans predominantly took a voyeur perspective, placing the reader outside of the scene and looking in....
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... These differences in illustrations parallel cultural differences some have observed between Native Americans and European Americans in whether experience of nature is foregrounded (e.g., a walk in the woods) or back-grounded (e.g., playing baseball outdoors) ( ... et al., 2007). They also parallel differences some have observed between the two cultures in typical goals for children or grandchildren in relation to the biological world. A European American goal might be, “I want my children to know they must respect nature and have a ... are a part of nature.” Cultural differences like these can have consequences for students who do not come from European American backgrounds and encounter a classroom that implicitly endorses European American perspectives....
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...). Students and teachers also bring to a culturally defined classroom context their own individual cultural meaning system, derived from their out-of-school experiences in homes, neighborhoods, and communities. Students not already familiar with the rules inherent in the classroom culture are at a ...
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... Some research has explored the larger context of schooling and the structures and practices that characterize classroom and school environments. Researchers have proposed, for example, that the structures of rules, assignment of classes, and grading in secondary schools match ...
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... may see themselves for various reasons as marginalized in a community (e.g., MacLeod, 1987, 1995; Willis, 1977). More recent work has examined three school phenomena that are related to delinquency (academic failure, suspension, and drop-out) at the elementary, middle, and high school levels (Christle et ... ., 2005). The researchers found that school characteristics, such as supportive leadership, dedicated and collegial staff, schoolwide behavior management, and effective academic instruction, helped to minimize the risk of delinquency. Furthermore, students who reported a sense ... belonging and connection with school were less likely to fail, be suspended, or be expelled....
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... very young children’s behavior, as research on disparities in the use of serious disciplinary measures such as suspension and expulsion in preschool settings suggests (Gilliam et al., 2016). Variation in the application of such serious disciplinary actions across racial groups is well documented ...
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... The effects of culturally based expectations may be even more subtle and potentially harmful. We have discussed in Chapter 2 and 3 evidence that observed differences in many cognitive processes and functions, such as attention and memory, have a cultural basis. Recent work by ... which children from other cultures should be assessed. This work suggests that “evaluating the development in one pathway with the principles and standards of the other is unscientific and unethical” (Keller, 2017, p. 833)....
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... The effects of such expectations is illustrated by controversy over the relationship between the richness of a mother’s speech and her child’s vocabulary development and academic outcomes such as grades, a relationship known as the word gap (Huttenlocher et al., 2002). ... many ways to foster learning (see Avineri et al., 2015). Children also learn through engaging in creative play on their own, interacting with others, and observing cultural norms (e.g., Lareau, 2011; Rogoff, 2003)....
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... Learning in school may be facilitated if the out-of-school cultural practices of students are viewed as resources, tools, or assets. If the cultural...
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... practices recognized and accepted in one context are recognized and accepted in another, that consonance will facilitate engagement and learning. This idea has sometimes been associated with a “deficit” model of cultural difference, in which consideration of cultural ... want to highlight the importance of shifting away from this model to a view that each student brings a unique combination of assets to the classroom and that every student’s learning is fostered in an environment that takes those assets into account....
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... where all students’ ideas are valued. In such classrooms, teachers support students as they explicate their ideas, make their thinking public and accessible to the group, use evidence, coordinate claims and evidence, and build on and critique one another’s ideas (Michaels and O’ ... , 2012). Group norms of participation, respect for others, a willingness to revise one’s ideas, and equity are all critical elements of this kind of classroom environment (Calabrese Barton and Tan, 2009; Duschl and Osborne, 2002; Osborne et al., ... ; Radinsky et al., 2010; Sandoval and Reiser, 2004)....
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...). This model is designed to engage students from nondominant backgrounds by guiding them to see connections between their own cultural experiences and the disciplinary ideas and ways of thinking being taught....
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... In one study of cultural modeling, Lee (2006) investigated how African American students can be encouraged to apply their understanding of everyday narratives with which they were familiar (e.g., rap lyrics) to their reading of material being taught in class. Teachers who were able ... figure out what texts mean. The students’ knowledge about the meaning of the everyday texts allowed them to act as interpretive authorities and then apply that experience in approaching other material. By making familiar home- or community-based practices visible in the classroom, this ... helps students feel comfortable with learning objectives and view them as accessible....
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..., researchers have found that many African American students prefer communal learning contexts (Dill and Boykin, 2000; Hurley et al., 2005), and when school instruction incorporates opportunities for students to work together, their learning can show striking improvements (Boykin et al., 2004; Hurley et ...
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... The Funds of Knowledge framework, originally developed in the 1990s, has been an influential example of using detailed analysis of skills and knowledge students are familiar with to link their unique experiences to instruction...
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... knowledge from aspects of everyday life, such as fixing cars, working in a business, or building homes. Though often overlooked by teachers and the school community, students’ funds of knowledge can be used as valuable resources in the classroom if the teacher solicits and incorporates them in the ... foster deeper understanding of domain knowledge (Lee, 2001; Rogoff, 2003) and how the skills, abilities, and ideas students have developed outside of school can be applied in a range of school contexts....
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...). These kinds of shared spaces can establish links between the types of knowledge and discourse (funds of knowledge) students experience outside of school and the conventional knowledge and discourses valued by schools (Moje et al., 2004). An ethnographic study of students in a middle school science ... showed not only that students’ funds of knowledge can be valuable resources for making sense of school texts but also how often students needed to be prompted and encouraged to draw on these funds in classroom contexts (Moje et al., 2004). Another ... study, of critical literacy among male African American high school students, illustrates this point (Kirland, 2008). In this study, students who explored themes of revenge, racism, xenophobia, and the social ...
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... Research in out-of-school contexts has the potential to expand educators’ understanding of students’ repertoires of knowledge and skill. For example, Morrell (2008) ... to build their academic and personal goals. Pinkard and colleagues (2017) found similar benefits in a study of Digital Youth Divas,3 an out-of-school program...
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... that supports middle school girls’ interests in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics activities through virtual and real-world communities....
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... DISCIPLINE-SPECIFIC LEARNING...
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... Academic disciplines each involve characteristic ways of thinking and intellectual challenges, and an important goal in both K-12 and postsecondary education is to develop students’ facility with the modes of thought in the subjects they study. Without becoming conversant with ... academic language used within and across content areas, students cannot readily engage in the type of deep learning that will enable them to go beyond the memorization of facts (Gee, ... have identified what it means to “talk science” (Lemke, 1990) or to participate in “the discourse of mathematics” (Cobb and Bauersfeld, 1995; also see, e.g., National Research Council, 2005, 2007)....
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... Goldman and colleagues (2016) conducted a “conceptual meta-analysis” in which they identified the reading, reasoning, and inquiry practices associated with the disciplines of literature, science, and history. They used the following five core constructs to characterize ...
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... Epistemology, that is, beliefs about the nature of knowledge and the nature of knowing...
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... Inquiry practices and strategies of reasoning...
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... Overarching concepts, themes, and frameworks...
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... Discourse practices, including the oral and written language used to convey information...
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... in that discipline—differ from one to another. Therefore, knowing which forms of a construct are essential to the way a discipline organizes and conveys information helps educators teach in discipline-specific ways....
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... supported in experiencing history as a process of investigation. Students might construct interpretations of historical events as they read primary and secondary texts, attending to the perspectives of the texts’ authors, the contexts in which the texts were generated, and the ways in which the ... , or fail to corroborate, one another (see Bain, 2006). Similarly, when learning science in a discipline-specific manner, students might generate and test explanations for scientific phenomena through investigations in which they collect and analyze data or interpret data collected by others...
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... (Chin and Osborne, 2012). In literary reasoning, readers draw on a repertoire of beliefs, experiences, rhetorical knowledge, and knowledge of literature to engage in argumentation about the meanings of literary texts (Lee et al., 2016)....
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... These variations across subject areas in the structure of knowledge, epistemologies, and disciplinary practices are as important to the design of effective learning experiences for students as the general principles of learning discussed ... area involves a process of engaging in disciplinary practices that require learners to use knowledge in the context of discipline-specific activities and tasks....
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... A summary of promising approaches in each of the subjects taught in school is beyond the scope of this chapter. Several reports by National Academies study committees have summarized some of the major findings related to ... (National Research Council, 2005) that explored learning in history, mathematics, and science; America’s Lab Report: Investigations in High School Science (National Research Council, 2006), Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8 (National Research Council, 2007), ...
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... The components that constitute proficiency in mathematics were articulated in the National Academies report Adding It Up (2001b, p. 107). The five strands of mathematical proficiency are...
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... Conceptual understanding, which refers to the student’s comprehension of mathematical concepts, operations, and relations...
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... Procedural fluency, or the student’s skill in carrying out mathematical procedures flexibly, accurately, efficiently, and appropriately...
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... Strategic competence, the student’s ability to formulate, represent, and solve mathematical problems...
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... Adaptive reasoning, the capacity for logical thought and for reflection on, explanation of, and justification of mathematical arguments...
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... Productive disposition, which includes the student’s habitual inclination to see mathematics as a sensible, useful, and worthwhile subject...
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... to be learned, coupled with a belief in the value of diligent work and in one’s own efficacy as a doer of mathematics...
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... These five strands are interwoven and interdependent in the development of proficiency in mathematics. This means that instruction in mathematics needs to address all five strands. ... , 2001b). In order to develop mathematical proficiency as described above, significant instructional time needs to be devoted to developing concepts and strategies, engaging in discussions, and practicing with feedback (National Research Council, 2001b). Discussions in the classroom need to build on ... ’ thinking, and attend to relationships between problems and solutions and to the nature of justification and mathematical argument (National Research Council, 2001b)....
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... from the National Research Council on learning science in kindergarten through eighth grade (National Research Council, 2007) described four strands of scientific proficiency....
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... Know, use, and interpret scientific explanations of the natural world...
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... Generate and evaluate scientific evidence and explanations...
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... Understand the nature and development of scientific knowledge...
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... Participate productively in scientific practices and discourse...
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... The four strands work together in the process of learning such that advances in one strand support and advance those in another. The strands are not independent or separable in the practice of science or in the teaching and learning of science (National Research Council, 2007)....
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... In contrast to these four strands, traditional views of science learning focused on individual learners’ mastery of factual knowledge. As a result, lecture, reading, and ... already established findings were common instructional strategies (National Research Council, 2007, 2012a). Contemporary views of science learning and teaching instead emphasize engaging students in the practices of a science framework including asking questions, developing and using models, ... out investigations, analyzing and interpreting data, constructing explanations, and engaging in argumentation (National Research Council, 2012a)....
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... This kind of approach is reflected in the “Guided Inquiry Supporting Multiple Literacies” model, which engages early elementary school students in scientific inquiry and the use of scientific practices (Hapgood et al., 2004). In a classroom-based study, the researchers designed a ...
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... a scientist formulates research activities that could answer questions about a real-world phenomenon, models the phenomenon, systematically gathers and interprets data, tests his ideas with scientific colleagues, and revises claims based on challenges from peers and new data (Magnusson and Palincsar, ... ; Palincsar and Magnusson, 2001). They found that second-grade students taught with this approach improved their ability to use data as evidence, to interpret ... representations, and to model scientific phenomena (e.g., the relationship between mass and momentum)....
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.... Students must learn to determine why particular events were singled out from among all possible ones as being significant; in doing so they understand not only the interpretive nature of history, but also that history is an evidentiary form of knowledge....
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... De La Paz and colleagues (2017) explored the use of an apprenticeship model to support eighth-grade students in historical writing, which they define as “an ... based on evidence that makes an argument about another place and time” (p. 2). They enlisted teachers in a large urban district to participate in the treatment condition and identified another group who ... in a comparison condition. The intervention began with teachers modeling and thinking aloud about the ways historians engage in historical thinking and writing. Students then engaged in such disciplinary practices as identifying and contextualizing primary sources, discussing and evaluating evidence, ... and developing historical claims and arguments, and writing narrative accounts of their work. The students’ writing products were evaluated for their general quality and for specific attributes ... , students in the treatment group outperformed students in the comparison condition; this finding applied to both higher-proficiency-level readers and those who struggled academically....
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... Stoel and colleagues (2015) developed a pedagogical framework to foster students’ ability to reason causally about history. The framework was designed to ... pedagogical strategies: (1) inquiry tasks, (2) social interaction, (3) situational interest, (4) teaching domain-specific strategies for history, and (5) epistemological reflections on history knowledge and reasoning. In this quasi-experimental study, students were taught explicit disciplinary ... through strategy instruction, concept instruction, and introduction to the epistemological underpinnings of history. For a control group of students, there was no explicit attention to historical thinking....
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... in which they investigated the outbreak of World War I. The researchers found that both the students who were taught using the pedagogical framework and the control students gained first-order knowledge, defined as concrete and abstract knowledge about the past and the event being studied ( ... and Limón, 2006). However, only the students taught using the disciplinary strategies gained second-order knowledge: knowledge of the concepts ... use to construct narratives and arguments about the past....
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... Reisman (2012) designed a quasi-experimental study to measure the impact of a curriculum intervention for juniors and seniors in secondary school on historical reading, content knowledge, and reasoning. The students in the study, from five urban high schools, were taught using a curriculum ...
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... 4 explicitly guided students in the use of sources, corroboration, and contextualization. More than 200 students from eight classrooms in two high schools were distributed across the four treatment groups. After 3 weeks, students were assessed on their content knowledge and ability to apply discipline-...
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... The researchers found that students using multiple documents (interventions 3 and 4) made the greatest gains in content knowledge and the greatest gains in knowledge in the use of the heuristic while reading. Those who learned from and interacted with multiple texts learned more ... , had higher reading-comprehension scores, and sourced and corroborated more often that the other two treatment groups in the study. The researchers emphasized that their study “highlights the ... of reading multiple texts to deepen content knowledge and facilitate the use of heuristics that historians typically use” (Nokes et al., 2007, p. 11)....
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... As highlighted throughout this section, the different academic disciplines have characteristic ways of thinking and intellectual challenges that reflect the disciplinary differences in epistemology, discourse, representations, and practices. Acknowledging these ...
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... ENGAGING AND EMPOWERING LEARNERS...
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.... For example, they recommended using a metacognitive approach to instruction to help students take control of their own learning. They advocated that schools and classrooms be “learner-centered” places, where educators pay attention to learners’ attitudes and expectations about learning (...
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... In the committee’s discussions of learning types and the developing brain (Chapter 3), processes supporting learning (Chapter 4), knowledge and reasoning (Chapter 5), and motivation to learn (Chapter 6), we identified a number of specific implications of learning research for learners. A ... in these findings is that people learn better when they are aware of and direct their own learning and when they engage in learning activities that pose a challenge:...
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... In Chapters 3 and 4, we noted that teachers can guide learners in developing sound academic habits by offering rewards, that effective feedback targets the specific ... a learner has reached and offers guidance the learner can immediately apply, and that helping learners establish connections with knowledge they already have assists them in learning new material. We noted that when learners are ... in constructing conceptual models for themselves, such models are particularly useful in helping them understand and organize what they are learning....
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... In Chapter 5, we noted that practices such as summarizing and drawing, developing their own explanations, or teaching others, all help learners remember information they are learning. In that chapter, we ... memory strategies share is that they encourage learners to go beyond the explicit material, to enrich their mental representation of information, and to create organized and distinctive knowledge structures....
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... In Chapter 6, we described ways to foster students’ feelings of autonomy, competence, and academic achievement, such as giving them the opportunity to make meaningful choices during instruction and, more generally, supporting their sense ... control and autonomy....
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... Each of these points contributes to the general finding that educators can foster learning of many kinds and in many situations through strategies that provide enough support so that students can be successful but that also encourage and allow students to ... charge in small and large ways of their own learning. In this section, we explore several ways of thinking about how learners become engaged and empowered. We first look briefly at the challenge of regulating one’s own learning. We then examine the evidence regarding some instructional ... for engaging and guiding learners....
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... Self-Regulated Learning...
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... HPL I noted that the capacity for self-regulation, like the beginnings of other aspects of metacognition, is evident in very young children and develops gradually with their growing knowledge and experience. As part of developing “strategic competence,” that report noted, children ... to understand “how to go about planning, monitoring, revising, and reflecting upon their learning” (National Research Council, 2000, p. 112). The growing body of research in this area has, however, highlighted ...
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... monitoring or controlling one’s learning poses its own distinct challenges. Learners need effective strategies to accomplish these things, and if metacognitive monitoring is inaccurate, then any decisions or choices the learner makes are likely to be off kilter. Even before HPL I was ... identified strategies that appear to support students in pursuing learning goals. These are ways in which learners process the content to be learned and the skills associated with learning to learn. Methods for teaching these strategies have been characterized as a learning-to-learn approach....
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... Recent meta-analyses provide overviews of research on learning strategies, including some that relate to self-regulation and others that do not. Hattie and Donoghue (2016) summarized the findings of 228 meta-analyses of the literature. They identified more than 400 learning ... ; for 302 of those strategies, a relationship could be demonstrated between their use and academic achievement outcomes. They found that the critical elements in the effective strategies were (a) the will to invest in learning, (b) ... and a willingness to explore what one does not know, and (c) the skills associated with coming to a deeper understanding of content. We note that these authors...
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... adopted a very broad definition of “strategy” and included ways of managing the environment (e.g., providing student control over learning and lessons in time management), as well as participation ... (e.g., peer tutoring and collaborative/cooperative learning)....
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... strength or ability that can be deployed in any domain), (2) motivation (the key is developing the motivation or will to regulate one’s self), and (3) cognitive processes (the key is mobilizing cognitive functions by, e.g., developing a habit or changing beliefs about self-efficacy). The review ...
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... The idea of teaching self-regulation is appealing to parents and educators, and numerous sources offer practical tips for doing this.4 A review article that examined research on teachers’ roles in teaching self-regulation ... that active involvement in one’s learning is associated with positive academic outcomes and that teachers can promote this involvement by such measures as guiding students toward meaningful goals and strategies, monitoring their motivation, ... providing useful feedback (Moos and Ringdal, 2012). These authors described a slightly different framing of models of self-regulation, reflecting the complexity of this active research ... , but they also highlighted important concepts such as forethought, performance control, self-reflection, cognition, and motivation. Regardless of the model, Moos and Ringdal (2012) suggested, the studies they reviewed support the idea that teachers can foster self-...
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... about the role of culture in self-regulation processes, suggested by studies such as a recent one on self-concepts and socialization strategies in preschoolers from Cameroon and Germany (Lamm et al., 2017). However, as the author of the overview of research on training noted, “there is disparate yet ...
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...-teach-self-regulation [October 2017]; http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/bruceperry/self_regulation.htm [October 2017]; https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/sr/cresource/q1/p02 [October 2017]....
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... Instructional Approaches for Engaging the Learner...
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... tasks, they will develop coping strategies that make sense for those situations, but such strategies will simply amount to “doing school.” In this section, the committee looks briefly at ways to make school activities an “invitation to thinking.” Two instructional ...
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... Problem- and Project-Based Learning...
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... with central concepts and principles of a discipline and to develop constructive investigations that resemble projects adults might do outside of school (Condliffe et al., 2016)....
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... Research showing benefits of this approach includes work with students in elementary and middle grades and in a variety of settings, though primarily in social science and science classrooms (see, e.g., Ferretti et al., 2001; Halvorsen et al., 2012; Kaldi ... al., 2011; Parsons et al., 2011; Rivet and Krajcik, 2004). In general, these researchers designed project-based units for students that engaged them in challenges, such as figuring out how ... make it easier to build big things or building a model aquarium, and involved them in a wide variety of activities. Researchers used a variety of methods to assess learning outcomes and identify features that were ... and to document positive results. However, Condliffe and colleagues (2016) have noted that while there is a growing research literature, most studies exploring the relationship between project-based ... and student outcomes are not designed in a way that supports causal inferences. They have urged caution in making claims about the efficacy of this ...
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... theoretical frameworks for problem-based learning are relatively abstract and thus do not easily support firm conclusions about how to design and implement problem-based instruction....
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... about implementing this approach. For example, there are questions about how much independence it is optimal for students to have, how much guidance and instruction teachers should provide, and whether a problem-based curriculum designed externally and provided to the teacher can yield the same ... as one devised by the teacher (Barron and Darling-Hammond, 2008; Halvorsen et al., 2012; Thomas, 2000). This debate highlights the time and effort needed to design and execute this kind of instruction, as well as questions about the challenges of meeting required academic objectives with ...
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... Collaborative Learning...
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... in the individual learner’s mind has focused a number of researchers’ attention on the classroom environment as a learning community, and on how students’ interactions among themselves and with their teachers influence learning (see, e.g., Brown and Campione, 1995; McCaslin and ... been on collaborative learning, in which peer members of a group each contribute their thinking as the group executes a complex task (e.g., revising and refining a scientific model), having been given the authority to divide the labor, develop relations of power and authority, and otherwise navigate ... task demands (Roschelle, 1992). Many of the features associated with instruction based on collaborative learning align with the findings from earlier chapters we ... above. For example, students take responsibility for learning and are encouraged to reflect on their own assumptions and thought processes, facilitated by the teacher (Kirschner and Paas, 2001)....
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... Several meta-analyses have examined the benefits of group learning across content areas (see Slavin et al., 2008, for studies specific to reading, and Slavin and Lake, 2008, for studies specific to mathematics; also see Johnson et al., 2000). Benefits that have been associated with cooperative ... experiences, include positive social acceptance among group members, greater task orientation, greater psychological health, higher self-esteem, and increased perspective taking. These studies indicate that these benefits occur when the group members have mutual learning goals and each member ...
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... One particular form of cooperative learning, complex instruction, was designed to promote equity (Cohen and Lotan, 1997; Cohen et al., 1999). In this approach, the groups must be engaged in an open-ended task that is structured such that the participants ...
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... task. The structure of the task positions students to serve as academic and linguistic resources to one another. An example of such a task would be pursuing the question “Why do people move?” by studying the ... of various immigrant groups from Central and South America. This question is complex, and addressing it adequately requires assessing a broad range of potential explanatory factors, including relief from economic hardship, seeking ... asylum, and the desire for a better life for oneself and/or one’s family....
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... Drawing on multiple resources (e.g., diaries, photographs, journals, news stories, texts), students construct an understanding of the multiple factors that influence immigrants’ choices. There is no one right answer; the task is both inherently uncertain and open- ... , both with respect to the responses the students will arrive at regarding the question and the processes they will use to generate their responses. Teachers are guided to pay particular attention to unequal participation of students. For ... , the teacher can emphasize that the issues the group is considering are open to interpretation, that there is no one right answer, and that the work group must work to consensus regarding their group product. Furthermore, the activities call on multiple abilities, so that all ... their respective strengths (e.g., in writing, graphics, or information gathering). Teachers also encourage students to explore alternative solutions and examine issues from a variety of perspectives....
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... Technology, particularly Internet-based resources, has opened up new avenues for collaborative learning and has provided new tools that have given rise to a research focus on computer-supported collaborative learning (Goodyear et al., 2014; Graesser, 2013). ... on collaborative learning that takes place through mediated Internet networks has pointed to the importance of the design of the learning experience and has suggested that successful tasks are those that (a) allow learners to take control of elements of the lesson (Kershner et al., 2010), (b) provide ... and multiple resources for making sense of and connecting complex ideas (Means et al., 2015), and (c) provide learners the means to share multiple representations of their learning (Scardamalia and Bereiter, 2006)....
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... ASSESSING LEARNING...
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... Assessment can drive the process of learning and motivation in a positive direction by providing feedback that identifies possible improvements and marks progress. It is most effective when the design of assessment reflects understanding of how people learn....
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... Assessments in K-12 education are directed to a range of audiences. Students need information about whether they are learning intended subject matter and skills. Teachers want to know whether their pedagogical approaches are helping individual students learn and helping their classes progress. Parents ...
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... material. Stakeholders—from school, district, and state officials to leaders in postsecondary education, business, and the federal government—need this information to make policy ... about areas of success, improvement, and needed actions. Assessments provide essential feedback for the improvement of learning and schooling....
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... an individual student has or has not learned about the material that has been taught. This information provides feedback to students about progress and helps teachers shape instruction to meet the needs of individual students....
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... To assess individual achievement or level of competency after completion of a period of schooling such as at the end of a school year or end of course. These are also known as summative assessments....
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... To evaluate programs and institutions and monitor learning at the school, district, state, or national level. These assessments are usually more removed from the classroom. They may reflect content of state standards, for ...
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... for all audiences. Although tests used for differing purposes can look quite different, they need to be aligned with each other in order to support learning. Systems of assessment need to be carefully designed using a broad range of assessment strategies tailored to these different purposes (National ...
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... Providing Feedback to Learners...
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... Formative assessment conducted in classrooms can generate meaningful feedback about learning to guide choices about next steps in learning and instruction (Bennett, 2011; Black and Wiliam, 2009; Valle, 2015). When grounded in well-defined models of learning, assessment information can be ... to identify and subsequently narrow the gap between current and desired levels of students’ learning and performance. It does so by providing teachers with diagnostic information about student misunderstandings and thus guiding teachers’ decisions ... how to adjust instruction and students’ decisions about how to revise their work and adjust their learning processes....
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... An overall positive association between formative assessment and student learning has been found in both early influential reviews (Bangert-Drowns et...
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..., 1998) and more recent meta-analyses (Graham et al., 2015; Kingston and Nash, 2011). The positive effects hold across different age groups, core school subjects, and countries (Chen, 2015)....
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... However, not all kinds of feedback are equally effective (Ruiz-Primo and Li, 2013; Shute, 2008; Van der Kleij et al., 2015; Wiliam, 2010, 2013). Effective formative assessment articulates the learning targets, provides ... to teachers and students about where they are in relation to those targets, and prompts adjustments to instruction by teachers, as well as changes to learning processes and revision of work products by students (Andrade, 2016). ...
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... focused on the task and learning targets; that is, detailed and narrative, not evaluative and graded;...
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... delivered in a way that is supportive and aligned with the learner’s progress;...
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... delivered at a time when the learner can benefit from it; and...
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... delivered to a receptive learner who has the self-efficacy needed to respond....
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... Recent studies are contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the features of effective feedback. Feedback may address how tasks are understood and performed. It may address the self-monitoring, regulating, ... and directing of actions needed to accomplish the tasks, or provide personal evaluations of the learner (Hattie and Timperley, 2007). Because learners’ judgments about and capacity to manage their own learning are often imperfect, researchers have explored ... to use accurate feedback to help them learn (Andrade, 2016; Zimmerman, 2002). Examples include strategies for developing students’ self-evaluation skills in the context of mathematics and ... (Ross and Starling, 2008; Ross et al., 2002), and for guiding students in using peer- and self-evaluation together (Andrade, 2016; Topping, 2013)....
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... Connecting Assessment to Evidence about How Students Learn...
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... Council report Knowing What Students Know described three necessary components of a valid assessment system: “a model of student cognition and learning in the domain, a set of beliefs about the kinds of observations that will provide evidence of students’ competencies, and an ... (National Research Council, 2001, p. 44). The model of student learning should be consistent with the research about how learners represent knowledge and develop expertise; it serves as the unifying basis for assessment design. The observations consist of identified assessment tasks or situations that ...
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... evidence about their learning. The interpretation method provides a way to make sense of the observations and can range from statistical models to intuitive or qualitative judgements. “These three elements—cognition, observation, interpretation&# ... ;must be explicitly connected and designed as a coordinated whole” (National Research Council, 2001, p. 2)....
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... Ten years later, Brown and Wilson noted that most assessments still lacked an explicit model of cognition, or a theory about how students represent knowledge and develop ... in a subject domain. They argued that without a model of cognition, assessment designers, presumably including classroom teachers, are handicapped by largely implicit knowledge of how understanding develops, with no clear guidance on how to create meaningful assessments. However, recent ...
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... Assessments Based on Learning Progressions...
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... about a topic, typically demonstrated by children as they learn, from naïve to expert (National Research Council, 2007). Based on research and conceptual analysis, learning progressions describe development over an extended period of time (Heritage, 2009). For example, if the learning target ... to understand that it gets colder at night because part of Earth is facing away from the sun, the students must first understand that Earth both orbits around the sun and rotates on its own axis. Box 7-2 shows a learning progression for this key concept, which positions the ...
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... Although learning progressions are often designed with state and federal standards in mind, they are more detailed than most standards, which do not include the significant intermediate steps within and across grade levels that lead to attainment of the standards (Heritage, 2011). ... Detailed descriptions of typical learning serve as representations of models of cognition that can guide instruction as well as the design and interpretation of the results of assessment. As shown in Box 7-3, learning progressions can also indicate common misconceptions students have about a ...
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... Learning progressions provide a blueprint for instruction and assessment because they represent a goal for summative assessment, indicate a sequence of activities for instruction, and can guide the design of ... assessment processes that provide indicators of students’ understanding (Corcoran et al., 2009; Songer et al., 2009). Teachers and districts can design summative assessments with a learning progression in mind, as well as formative assessments that move learning ahead (e.g., ... and Heredia, 2014). Questions that target common misconceptions can be designed in advance and delivered...
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...BOX 7-2 Scoring Rubric from Construct Map for Student Understanding of Earth in the Solar System ...
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...44 Student is able to coordinate apparent and actual motion of objects in the sky. Student knows that: ...
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...the Earth is both orbiting the Sun and rotating on its axis; ...
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...the Earth rotates on its axis once per day, causing the day/night cycle and the appearance that the Sun moves across the sky; and ...
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...COMMON ERROR: Seasons are caused by the changing distance between the Earth and Sun. ...
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...the Moon orbits the Earth; and ...
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...However, student has not put this knowledge together with an understanding of apparent motion to form explanations and may not recognize that the Earth is both rotating and orbiting simultaneously. ...
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...the Sun appears to move across the sky every day; and ...
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...BOX 7-3 Diagnostic Item Based on Construct Map for Student Understanding of Earth in the Solar System ...
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...The Sun and Moon switch places to create night. [Level 2 response] ...
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...verbally or in writing, to individuals or to groups. For example, at a particular point in a unit on the Earth and the solar system, a teacher can ask questions designed to reveal student thinking in relation to a specific learning goal in a progression, such as &# ... ;How long does it take the Earth to go around the sun, and how do you know?” The students’ responses to the questions provide insight into their learning and can guide the teacher’s next ...
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...Diagnostic questions can also be implemented in the form of multiple-choice items (Wylie et al., 2010). Briggs and colleagues (2006) demonstrated that well-designed multiple-choice items can provide teachers with diagnostic information about student understanding. ... each of the possible answer choices in an item is linked to developmental levels of student understanding, as in the example in Box 7-3, an item-level analysis of student responses can ...
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...reveal what individual students and the class as a whole understand. For example, if one-quarter of the students in a class choose option D, which suggests that they believe that darkness is caused by the Earth moving ... the sun once a day, the teacher might decide to provide opportunities for structured small group discussions between students who do and do not understand the day-night cycle. More intensive interventions can be implemented for the portion of the class who scored at level 2 or below by ...
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...According to Pellegrino (2014, p. 70), “research on cognition and learning has produced a rich set of descriptions of domain-specific learning and performance that can serve to guide assessment design, particularly for certain areas of reading, mathematics, and science. . . . That said, there is ... left to do in mapping out learning progressions for multiple areas of the curriculum in ways that can effectively guide the design of instruction and assessment.” ...
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... model of assessment is evidence-centered design (Mislevy et al., 2003, 2006), which grounds assessments in empirical evidence of cognition and learning. In this model, assessment is considered to be a process of reasoning from evidence to evaluate student learning. The design process begins ... examination of research evidence about both expert thinking and novice learning in a given subject area. All the elements associated with learning a subject are analyzed and documented and then used in refining ... believe “tests based on such learning science research can better flag when students are successful in engaging in such learning processes, and when they are engaging in counterproductive practices”(Yarnall and Haertel, 2016, p. 3). ...
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...In the second, “observation,” step of this design process, items or tasks are chosen to try to elicit evidence of the desired knowledge and skills. The observations (based on student responses to these tasks) provide the data that developers need to make inferences about student ... . Unlike conventional test development methods, evidence-centered design starts with evidence about how learning happens in a domain and builds the test from that base. Figure 7-1 illustrates the three essential components of the overall design process. The first step in the process is ... “defining as precisely as possible the claims that one wants to be able to make about students’ knowledge and the ways in which students are supposed to know and understand some particular aspect of a content domain” (National Research Council, 2012a, ... . 52–53). (For more on learning progressions and evidence-centered design, as well as ways of ensuring the reliability and validity of assessments, see National Research Council, 2005, 2012a, 2014; Pellegrino, 2014.) ...
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...FIGURE 7-1 Simplified representation of three critical components of the evidence-centered design process and their reciprocal relationships.SOURCE: National Research Council (2014, Fig. 3-2). ...
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...Our synthesis of research on learning supports five conclusions for learning in school. ...
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...Conclusion 7-1: Effective instruction depends on understanding the complex interplay among learners’ prior knowledge, experiences, motivations, interests, and language and cognitive skills; educators&# ... ; own experiences and cultural influences; and the cultural, social, cognitive, and emotional characteristics of the learning environment. ...
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... body of research points to the importance of engaging the learner in directing his own learning by, for example, providing targeted feedback and support in developing metacognitive skills, challenges that are well matched to the learner’s current capacities, and support in setting and ...
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...CONCLUSION 7-3: A growing body of research supports adopting an asset model of education in which curricula and instruc ...
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... tional techniques support all learners in connecting academic learning goals to the learning they do outside of school settings and through which learning experiences and opportunities from various settings are leveraged for each learner....
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... CONCLUSION 7-4: Purposefully teaching the language and practices specific to particular disciplines, such as science, history, and mathematics, is critical to helping students develop deep understanding in these subjects....
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... CONCLUSION 7-5: Assessment is a critical tool for advancing and monitoring students’ learning in school. When grounded in well-defined models of learning, assessment information can be used to identify and subsequently narrow the gap between current and ...

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