W. Va. Code R. § 126-44V-4
Background on the Dynamic Learning Maps Essential Elements
The Dynamic Learning Maps Essential Elements are specific statements of knowledge and skills linked to the grade-level expectations identified in the Common Core State Standards. The purpose of the Dynamic Learning Maps Essential Elements is to build a bridge from the content in the Common Core State Standards to academic expectations for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. The initial draft of the Dynamic Learning Maps Essential Elements (then called the Common Core Essential Elements) was released in the spring of 2012.
The initial version of the Dynamic Learning Maps Essential Elements (DLM EEs) was developed by a group of educators and content specialists from the 12 member states of the Dynamic Learning Maps Alternate Assessment Consortium (DLM) in the spring of 2011. Led by Edvantia, Inc., a sub-contractor of DLM, representatives from each state education agency and the educators and content specialists they selected developed the original draft of DLM EEs. Experts in mathematics and English language arts, as well as individuals with expertise in instruction for students with significant cognitive disabilities, reviewed the draft documents. Edvantia then compiled the information into the version released in the spring of 2012.
Concurrent with the development of the DLM EEs, the DLM consortium was actively engaged in building learning maps in mathematics and English language arts. The DLM learning maps are highly connected representations of how academic skills are acquired, as reflected in research literature. In the case of the DLM project, the Common Core State Standards helped to specify academic targets, while the surrounding map content clarified how students could reach the specified standard. Learning maps of this size had not been previously developed, and as a result, alignment between the DLM EEs and the learning maps was not possible until the fall of 2012, when an initial draft of the learning maps was available for review.
Alignment of the DLM EEs to the DLM Learning Maps
Teams of content experts worked together to revise the initial version of the DLM EEs and the learning maps to ensure appropriate alignment of these two critical elements of the project. Alignment involved horizontal alignment of the DLM EEs with the Common Core State Standards and vertical alignment of the DLM EEs with meaningful progressions in the learning maps. The alignment process began when researchers Caroline Mark and Kelli Thomas compared the learning maps with the initial version of the DLM EEs to determine how the map and the DLM EEs should be adjusted to improve their alignment. The teams of content experts most closely involved with this alignment work included:
Mathematics | English Language Arts |
Kelli Thomas, Ph.D. (co-lead) | Caroline Mark, Ph.D. (lead) |
Angela Broaddus, Ph.D. (co-lead) | Jonathan Schuster, Ph.D. |
PerneetSood | Russell Swinburne Romine, Ph.D. |
Kristin Joannou | Suzanne Peterson |
Bryan CandeaKromm |
These teams worked in consultation with Sue Bechard, Ph.D. and Karen Erickson, Ph.D., who offered guidance based on their experience in alternate assessments of students with significant cognitive disabilities.
The Alignment Process
The process of aligning the learning map and the DLM EEs began by identifying nodes in the maps that represented the essential elements in mathematics and English language arts. This process revealed areas in the maps where additional nodes were needed to account for incremental growth reflected from an essential element in one grade to the next. Also identified were areas in which an essential element was out of place developmentally, according to research, with other essential elements. For example, adjustments were made when an essential element related to a higher-grade map node appeared earlier on the map than an essential element related to a map node from a lower grade (e.g., a fifth-grade skill preceded a third-grade skill). Finally, the alignment process revealed DLM EEs that were actually written as instructional tasks rather than learning outcomes.
This initial review step provided the roadmap for subsequent revision of both the learning maps and the DLM EEs. The next step in the DLM project was to develop the claims document, which served as the basis for the evidence-centered design of the DLM project and helped to further refine both the modeling of academic learning in the maps and the final revisions to the DLM EEs.
Claims and Conceptual Areas
The DLM system uses a variant of evidence-centered design (ECD) as the framework for developing the DLM Alternate Assessment System. While ECD is multifaceted, it starts with a set of claims regarding important knowledge in the domains of interest (mathematics and English language arts), as well as an understanding of how that knowledge is acquired. Two sets of claims have been developed for DLM that identify the major domains of interest within mathematics and English language arts for students with significant cognitive disabilities. These claims are broad statements about expected student learning that serve to focus the scope of the assessment. Because the learning map identifies particular paths to the acquisition of academic skills, the claims also help to organize the structures in the learning map for this population of students. Specifically, conceptual areas within the map further define the knowledge and skills required to meet the broad claims identified by DLM.
The claims are also significant because they provide another means through which to evaluate alignment between the DLM EEs and the learning map nodes, and serve as the foundation for evaluating the validity of inferences made from test scores. DLM EEs related to a particular claim and conceptual area must clearly link to one another, and the learning map must reflect how that knowledge is acquired. Developing the claims and conceptual areas for DLM provided a critical framework for organizing nodes on the learning maps and, accordingly, the DLM EEs that align with each node.
The table below reveals the relationships among the claims, conceptual areas, and DLM EEs in English language arts. The DLM EEs are represented with codes that reflect the strands in English language arts with the strand listed first, followed by the standard. For example, EE.RL.1 is the DLM EE that aligns with Reading Literature standard 1. The grade is not identified for the English language artsstandards in the table below, as strands remain consistent from kindergarten through high school. Keys to the codes can be found under the table.
Clearly articulated claims and conceptual areas for DLM served as an important evidence-centered framework within which this version of the DLM EEs was developed. With the claims and conceptual areas in place, the relationship between DLM EEs within a claim and conceptual area or across grade levels is easier to track and strengthen. The learning maps, as well as the claims and conceptual areas, had not yet been developed when the original versions of the DLM EEs were created. As such, the relationship of DLM EEs within and across grade levels was more difficult to evaluate at that time.
Table 1. Dynamic Learning Maps Claims and Conceptual Areas for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities in English Language Arts
Claim 1 | Students can comprehend text in increasingly complex ways. Conceptual Areas in the Dynamic Learning Map: C1.1 Determining Critical Elements of Text Essential Elements Included:RL*1, RL*3, RL*5, RI*1, RI*2, RI*5 C1.2 Constructing Understandings of Text Essential Elements Included:RL*2, RL*4, RI*4, RI*8, L*5 C1.3 Integrating Ideas and Information from Text Essential Elements Included: RL*6, RL*7, RL*9, RI*3, RI*6, RI*7, RI*9, W*9a, W*9b |
Claim 2 | Students can produce writing for a range of purposes and audiences. Conceptual Areas in the Dynamic Learning Map: C2.1 Using Writing to Communicate Essential Elements Included: W*2a, W*2b, W*2c, W*2d, W*2f, W*3a, W*3e, W*4, W*5, L*1a (grades K-2) L*2a, L*2b C2.2 Integrating Ideas and Information in Writing Essential Elements Included: W*1a, W*1b, W*3b, W*3c, W*3d, W*8 (grades K-4) |
Claim 3 | Students can communicate for a range of purposes and audiences. Conceptual Areas in the Dynamic Learning Map: C3.1 Using Language to Communicate with Others Essential Elements Included: SL*6, L*1a (grades 3-6), L*1b, L*1c, L*1d, L*1e, L*1f, L*1g, L*1i, L*1j, L*3, L*4a, L*4b, L*6 C3.2 Clarifying and Contributing in Discussion Essential Elements Included: SL*1a, SL*1b, SL*1c, SL*1d, SL*2, SL*3, SL*4 |
Claim 4 | Students can engage in research/inquiry to investigate topics and present information. Conceptual Areas in the Dynamic Learning Map: C4.1 Using Sources and Information Essential Elements Included: W*7, W*8 (grades 5-12) C4.2 Collaborating and Presenting Ideas Essential Elements Included: W*6, SL*5 |
L = language; RL = reading literature; RI = reading information text; SL = speaking and listening; W = writing
Resulting Changes to the DLM Essential Elements
The development of the entire DLM Alternate Assessment System guided a final round of revisions to the DLM EEs, which can be organized into four broad categories: alignment across grade levels, language specificity, common core alignment, and defining learning expectations (rather than instructional tasks). The first type of revision was required to align the DLM EEs across grade levels, both vertically and horizontally. The maps, and the research supporting them, were critical in determining the appropriate progression of skills and understandings from grade to grade. This alignment across grade levels was important within and across standards, strands, and domains. For example, in determining when it was appropriate to introduce concepts in mathematics regarding the relative position of objects, we had to consider the grade level at which prepositions that describe relative position were introduced in English language arts. Examining the research-based skill development outlined in the learning map aided in these kinds of determinations.
The articulation of the claims and conceptual areas reinforced the need for specific language in the DLM EEs to describe learning within an area. Because teams assigned to grade bands developed the first round of DLM EEs, the language choices from one grade to the next were not consistent. Even when closely related skills, concepts, or understandings were targeted, the same terms were not always selected to describe the intended learning outcome. The teams of content experts who worked on this revised version of the DLM EEs were very intentional in selecting a common set of terms to reflect the claims and conceptual areas and applied them consistently across the entire set of DLM EEs.
Another important change in this version of the DLM EEs involved alignment to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Given that the DLM EEs are intended to clarify the bridge to the CCSS expectations for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities, it is critical that alignment be as close as possible without compromising learning and development over time. While there was never a one-to-one correspondence between the CCSS and the DLM EEs, the revisions have made the alignment between the two more precise than it was in the first version.
Finally, revisions to the DLM EEs involved shifting the focus of a small number of DLM EEs that were written in the form of instructional tasks rather than learning expectations, and adding "With guidance and support" to the beginning of a few of the DLM EEs in the primary grades in English language arts to reflect the expectations articulated in the CCSS.
Members of the DLM consortium reviewed each of the changes to the original version of the DLM EEs. Four states provided substantive feedback on the revisions, and this document incorporates the changes those teams suggested.
Access to Instruction and Assessment
The DLM EEs specify learning targets for students with significant cognitive disabilities; however, they do not describe all of the ways that students can engage in instruction or demonstrate understanding through an assessment. Appropriate modes of communication, both for presentation or response, are not stated in the DLM EEs unless a specific mode is an expectation. Where no limitation has been stated, no limitation should be inferred. Students' opportunities to learn and to demonstrate learning during assessment should be maximized by providing whatever communication, assistive technologies, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices, or other access tools that are necessary and routinely used by the student during instruction.
Students with significant cognitive disabilities include a broad range of students with diverse disabilities and communication needs. For some students with significant cognitive disabilities, a range of assistive technologies is required to access content and demonstrate achievement. For other students, AAC devices or accommodations for hearing and visual impairments will be needed. During instruction, teams should meet individual student needs using whatever technologies and accommodations are required. Examples of some of the ways that students may use technology while learning and demonstrating learning are topics for professional development, and include:
* communication devices that compensate for a student's physical inability to produce independent speech.
* alternate access devices that compensate for a student's physical inability to point to responses, turn pages in a book, or use a pencil or keyboard to answer questions or produce writing.
Guidance and Support
The authors of the CCSS use the words "prompting and support" at the earliest grade levels to indicate when students are not expected to achieve standards completely independently. Generally, "prompting" refers to "the action of saying something to persuade, encourage, or remind someone to do or say something" (McKean, 2005). However, in special education, prompting is often used to mean a system of structured cues to elicit desired behaviors that otherwise would not occur. In order to clearly communicate that teacher assistance is permitted during instruction of the DLM EEs and is not limited to structured prompting procedures, the decision was made by the stakeholder group to use the more general term guidance throughout the DLM EEs.
Guidance and support during instruction should be interpreted as teacher encouragement, general assistance, and informative feedback to support the student in learning. Some examples of the kinds of teacher behaviors that would be considered guidance and support include verbal supports, such as
* getting the student started (e.g., "Tell me what to do first."),
* providing a hint in the right direction without revealing the answer (e.g., Student wants to write dog but is unsure how, so the teacher might say, "See if you can write the first letter in the word, /d/og [phonetically pronounced]."),
* using structured technologies such as task-specific word banks, or
* providing structured cues such as those found in prompting procedures (e.g., least-to-most prompts, simultaneous prompting, and graduated guidance).
Guidance and support as described above applies to instruction and is also linked to demonstrating learning relative to DLM EEs, where guidance and support is specifically called out within the standards.
Conclusion
Developing the research-based model of knowledge and skill development represented in the DLM Learning Maps supported the articulation of assessment claims for mathematics and English language arts. This articulation subsequently allowed for a careful revision of the DLM EEs to reflect both horizontal alignment with the CCSS and vertical alignment across the grades, with the goal of moving students toward more sophisticated understandings in both domains. Though the contributions made by Edvantia and our state partners in developing the initial set of DLM EEs were a critical first step, additional revisions to the DLM EEs were required to ensure consistency across all elements of the Dynamic Learning Maps Alternate Assessment System.
W. Va. Code R. § 126-44V-4