Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
https://repository.isls.org//handle/1/6517
Title: | Alignment and Convergence for What? And How? Tensions of Writing Instruction Within a Test-Based Accountability System |
Authors: | Howe, Emily |
Keywords: | Teaching and Teacher Learning |
Issue Date: | Jun-2020 |
Publisher: | International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS) |
Citation: | Howe, E. (2020). Alignment and Convergence for What? And How? Tensions of Writing Instruction Within a Test-Based Accountability System. In Gresalfi, M. and Horn, I. S. (Eds.), The Interdisciplinarity of the Learning Sciences, 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) 2020, Volume 4 (pp. 2225-2228). Nashville, Tennessee: International Society of the Learning Sciences. |
Abstract: | Alignment between standards, instruction, and assessments is typically portrayed as an ideal system of education that is often thwarted by political and logistical obstacles. I present a case where a State system was well-aligned around text-based writing instruction. Teachers also had common understandings of the policies and aligned their goals for instruction. However, whether this was a successful system depends on the learning theory used to evaluate it. The coherent and tightly aligned system is a “success” within a behaviorist or cognitivist frame, but in tension with sociocultural theories: both in what was emphasized and lost and how alignment and convergence occurred. High-stakes tests were the lynchpin of alignment, which created institutional pressures for teachers to acculturate their writing instruction to test-based goals. As a result, educational discourse narrowed and converged, but at the expense of engaging with the sociopolitical, epistemic, ethical, and cultural aspects of literacy. |
URI: | https://doi.dx.org/10.22318/icls2020.2225 https://repository.isls.org//handle/1/6517 |
Appears in Collections: | ICLS 2020 |
Files in This Item:
File | Size | Format | |
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2225-2228.pdf | 191.93 kB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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