Learning progressions outline the key aspects of learning for students as they progress through their elementary and secondary education. They run on a point A to point B system, where their initial learning intentions are fundamental by nature, but then as they move forward students begin to develop more and more skills, knowledge, and tools to help them learn deeper in a particular or all subjects for that matter. These progressions allow students to fall into a category that is suitable to their learning needs so that students don’t start with a lesson that is too far advanced or too simplistic for their learning level. I think learning progressions are also important for finding the balance in lessons between what is too difficult and what is too easy and simple for the student. Finding this balance allows the student to find the right amount of interest within the topic, which allows for the student to partake in further interest if the topic allows them to think freely about what further possibilities there are. In the learning activity, my group tackled the learning progressions of elements of story. We chose the k-9 category of learning progressions, where we started very basic with story, good and bad characters. We then moved into character and story development. Finishing off, we would touch on the students to understand plot diagram, in depth characters, and different literary devices with a summative assessment that gets the students to compose their own element of story writing. We found that sometimes you have to go back a grade or two in order to move on to more learning and that sometimes you can’t move forward without honing in a skill for student first if the job isn’t accomplished the grade before. I think that what is also important to consider is how these learning progressions translate into group work and collaboration with other teachers that you work with in the department. This teamwork is essential to come together for one common goal: working well with other teachers to get students the skills they need for university.
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