In April 2013, Achieve, in partnership with The Lead States, released the Next Generation Science Standards. These standards and The Framework, from which they were constructed, provided a new vision for science education across the country. Back in my day (when the NGSS was first adopted in Kentucky in 2013), we weren't used to seeing performance expectations (PE). I remember debates around what constituted a standard. Was it just the PE or the entire page. Were the foundation boxes included? What about the appendices? Which parts of the NGSS had been codified into law in Kentucky? I'm not sure why we were concerned about this other than the potential impact on assessment (which was and is a big deal in education). MS-LS1-1 Develop a model to describe how food is rearranged through chemical reactions forming new molecules that support growth and/or release energy as this matter moves through an organism.
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In April 2013, Achieve, in partnership with The Lead States, released the Next Generation Science Standards. These standards and The Framework, from which they were constructed, provided a new vision for science education across the country. In the spring of 2013, I made the decision to leave the school library and return to the middle school science classroom. An unexpected consequence of this move was my being positioned on the front lines of the rollout of the standards in Kentucky (one of the lead states and early adopters of the NGSS). I've been doing this work at the middle and high school level for 10 years. This summer is, then, a great time to reflect on how far we've come since those first days of the NGSS.
Going into my 3rd year of NGSS implementation in my classroom, I am starting to feel pretty confident. I know the vision of the NGSS: 3-dimensional instruction aimed at students' figuring out a phenomenon. I have a pretty good understanding of the DCIs at my grade level. I'm using the science and engineering practices, and I'm starting to be deliberate in talking about the crosscutting concepts during class discussions. This week, I was asked to submit some student work for a PLC reflection. Since the practice used in the student work wasn't the practice used in the performance expectation, I decided to go to Appendix F to select specific elements (the bullet points listed for each practice at specific grade bands) of the pracitces that students were demonstrating in the modeling activity. The students had spent time creating analogies (which can be considered models) and identifiying strengths and limitations of their classmates' models. I knew that I was embracing the shifts in the idea of modeling that the NGSS required. We certainly weren't duplicating existing models, and no one was creating anything edible. Plus, we were talking about strengths and limitations. Those are key words for NGSS modeling. When I went to Appendix F, I found these elements of the modeling practice **Develop a model using an analogy, example, or abstract representation to describe a scientific principle or design solution (from the 3-5 grade band). **Identify limitations of models (also from 3-5 grade band). So far, so good, right? If you know much about me, you may remember that I teach middle school (7th grade). In one glance at Appendix F, I went from being an NGSS rockstar (in my own mind) to a teacher working at least 2 grade levels below where I should actually be teaching. After I picked my self-esteem up off the floor, I made a few important relfelctions. The first was that the students I was working with had probably not been exposed this type of modeling in grades 3-5, and had not experienced it at this depth in 6th grade either. So I wasn't totally unfounded in working with elements from the 3-5 grade band, however unintentionally it has happened. The second reflection was even more important: If I never look at the elements of the science and engineering practices in Appendix F, I may never be reaching the grade-band expectations for the practices. The same holds true for the crosscutting concepts. Achieve, Inc, emphasized this idea this week as well when they published their NGSS Screening Tool that teachers can use to evaluate their lessons to see if they align to the vision of the NGSS. That tool suggests that science instruction should look more like this: Specific grade-appropriate elements of SEPs and CCCs (from NGSS Appendices F & G) are acquired, improved, or used by students to help explain phenomena or solve problems during the lesson. Instead of looking like this: The lesson focuses on colloquial definitions of the practice or crosscutting concept names (e.g., “asking questions”, “cause and effect”) rather than on grade-appropriate learning goals (e.g., elements in NGSS Appendices F &G). [emphasis mine] Let's take time over the holiday break to really dive into Appendices F and G to make sure we're working at the appropriate level of complexity for each of the science and engineering pracices and the crosscutting concepts. We've come a long way, but there's still room for growth and improvement.
At the science teacher network meeting this month, I was presented with a little idea that can (I think) make a big difference in my teaching. This little idea comes in the form of 3 words: gather, reason, communicate.
Gathering is what scientists (and students) do when they are getting new information about a phenomenon. They could be gathering information from their own investigations, from data from others' investigations, from research, or from models. Once scientists (and students) have gathered some new information, their next step is reasoning. This involves analyzing data, thinking through what they have gathered, making a claim, or making predictions based on data. Finally, scientists (and students) have to communicate their findings. This could come in the form of a written or oral argument, a model, or any other presentation mode that fits the nature of what they are trying to communicate. Brett Moudling, one of the authors of the NGSS, has placed each of the science and engineering practices in one (or more) of these three categories. Gathering includes
Reasoning includes
Communicating includes
As you plan lessons that are aligned to the NGSS, think about what the students are doing. Are you purposefully having them gather, reason, and communicate? If the answer is yes, (and it's not because you are having students read a textbook, think about the information, and answer some comprehension questions), then you are on your way to successfully implementing the science and engineering practices. Just make sure that you are utilizing various methods for gathering, reasoning, and communicating. If the answer is no, then you just need to be deliberate as you plan. Make sure that students are going to be gathering, reasoning, and communicating daily. This one little step can offer big payoffs as we move forward in our implementation of the NGSS. One of the biggest shifts with the advent of NGSS is the move to 3-Dimensional Learning. This means that students should be using all 3 dimensions as they seek to understand the world. Recently someone posted this explanation of the 3 dimensions on Twitter:
We want our students to know stuff just like real scientists, but real scientists don't gather knowledge for future Jeopardy events. They use what they know to help explain the world. Our students, then, should use disciplinary core ideas and the practices of science to explain their world, or to answer questions about it. What about those crosscutting concepts? If we consider them to be ways of thinking, we can help our students start looking at the world through these lenses. When we are investigating thermal energy to explain why a thermos works, we can look at the world through the lens (crosscutting concept) of "flow of energy and matter." As with the other two dimensions, scientists don't just think about the flow of energy to think about it. They are using the energy lens combined with what they know and the practices to investigate and explain unknown natural phenomena. Let me leave you with two questions you can ask to help align your instruction to the NGSS.
The NGSS asks us to redefine much about the way we teach science. One of the ideas that it turns on its head is the idea of making models. When people think of models, many think of erupting volcanoes filled with vinegar and baking soda, or maybe they think of a model of the solar system, or maybe a 3-d model of an animal cell. According to the practices of science, they are NOT considered models.
"What!?" In the NGSS, models serve a purpose. Below are some of the key things that models should be doing in some of the grade bands. In K-2
In 3-5
In 6-8
In 9-12
In all cases, the students actually has to do mental work around the model. If students copy a teacher's model of a water molecule, they have done no work (therefore, it's not a NGSS model). However, if they use that model to explain the surface tension of water, then they have done the thinking work, and we can consider it a NGSS model. As you look at modeling in your classroom, ask yourself these questions: 1. Do all of the student models look alike? (If so, then it's probably not a true model.) 2. Are the students using the model for something beyond just creating it? (If not, you're probably just doing a craft activity.) 3. Are the students revising their models based on new information? (this comes in at the 6-8 grade band, but it is an excellent way to formatively assess students' knowledge of a concept or phenomenon.) |
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