Landscapes of Innovative Learning

Teachers are moving toward assessments that include skills, concepts, knowledge, and reflection. An important tool in this pursuit is the Landscape of Learning.

The first grade team at De Diego Elementary shared their use of the Landscape of Learning to create a common assessment to determine the strengths and needs of their students during the Double Decker Bus investigation. In preparation for the investigation, teachers compiled the definitions of the big ideas and strategies as well as examples of each. As teachers conferred with students, they found they had a much stronger sense of what they were looking for in student responses and models. Since the resource had been developed collectively, teachers developed a deeper understanding of the components for the Landscape of Learning. In a subsequent grade-level meeting, teachers compared pre- and post-assessments. A team goal was to create a resource about big ideas and strategies to keep on their clipboards for use during student conferences.

Jeraldine White and Katie Dill from Jordan Elementary reflect that using the Landscape of Learning to guide their number sense routines allowed them to see evidence of different big ideas and strategies in their pre-k classroom, such as subitizing, counting, synchrony, and one-to-one tagging.

Teachers are using student strategies and methods for solving problems as a guide to understand student thinking and to reflect on next steps. “The Landscape of Learning has helped me to identify where students are mathematically,” said Nancy Evans from De Diego. “I have been able to identify specific strategies that I am looking for when conducting conferences with students during our math investigations and then I am able to question them or guide them to the next step along the Landscape to develop their mathematical thinking. The Landscape has helped me to identify students with efficient strategies and to strategically pick those students to share during math congress. Although I am still learning and grappling with the Landscape and my students’ thinking, it has proven to be a resource that has been helpful in getting to know my students as mathematicians and guide my questions during math congress.