Admitting weaknesses is difficult, but I'm about to do it.  I struggle with differentiation of lab activities.  I don't struggle with the need to differentiate; I know that some students don't need what this particular lab offers.  What I struggle with is the ability to successfully provide an alternative to those students.  

I know that I don't want to use a differentiation method that I've seen before where the students who already know the content are asked to research something else that is either tangentially related or something to deepen their understanding of the content.  Research instead of a hands-on lab is a recipe for developing students who hate my class and who hate science.  

I also don't feel like I can effectively plan, gather materials for, and monitor multiple lab activities in my classroom at one time.  

Recently, I have placated myself with the reminder that NGSS is new and that all of my students need exposure to the science and engineering skills that the labs provide, even if they already have a firm grasp of the DCI that is tied to the investigation.  Most of my students enter my class with a limited number of laboratory experiences, so they can learn a lot during our lab activities about the practices that scientists use. 

As I seek to continually deepen my understanding of the NGSS and to improve my implementation of them, I have come to a point where it is time to tackle this idea of differentiation in lab activities.  Below is a list of some ways I think I can differentiate a lab activity so that my top students are continuing to grow while working through the same lab as (or one very similar to) the one the rest of the class is doing.

I can already hear some of you saying, "all students should be doing these things." I completely agree.  However, I struggle to get this much out of one lab.  All students do need to know how to construct explanations, and we work on that together.  Maybe during this particular lab, writing an explanation is not a focus. If there are some advanced students who are expected to finish early, they can use that extra time to construct a written explanation.  Maybe for this particular lab, it would be great to compile data from multiple classes and analyze it, but time constraints won't allow it.  If so, that is something that could be differentiated for some students.  Obviously, at some point (actually several points) during the year, all students will have opportunities to compile and analyze data sets.  

Are there other ideas that you use as go-tos for differentiating a lab experience?  If so, please share.  

After 2 1/2 years of working with the NGSS, I was starting to feel a bit confident about understanding it's vision--not making the vision a reality, but at least understanding the vision.  I understand 3-dimensional learning and phenomena based teaching. I understood that the Disciplinary Core Ideas reduced the amount of "content" so that students could develop a depth of knowledge not possible when teachers have to cover a "mile" of content.  

Then, while I was enjoying the snow days this week, I downloaded and began to read the National Academies newest resources for NGSS implementation, Science Teachers' Learning: Enhancing Opportunities, Creating Supportive Contexts. (You can download the entire book as a pdf here.)  In this book, the authors make several recommendations that will be needed to support science teachers as they transition from older models of science teaching toward the vision of the NGSS.  Before getting to the recommendations, the authors take a quick look at the vision of The Framework and the NGSS followed by a look at current practices in science education.  It was in the "quick look" at the vision that I had an epiphany.

Until then, I had made some basic assumptions about the DCIs.  1. That they shuffled the order in which content was taught in schools.  (For example, a lot of the life science I used to teach in 7th grade has moved to 6th or 8th grade in the Kentucky middle school NGSS model.)  2. That the DCIs were trimmed down to allow for more depth and exploration. 3. That they help teachers decide what to eliminate from their previously over-crowded curriculum. 4. That they added waves and engineering as essential components of science instruction.

What I failed to realize is that the DCIs are the essential understandings that allow our students to be science literate. They are the big ideas that underpin science, and if our students understand these big ideas, they'll have little trouble going deeper later. If, indeed, these DCIs are the essential big ideas, then everything in my curriculum should reflect back to them.  Every activity I do should be grounded in at least one of these ideas. Every time my students use one of the science and engineering practices, they must be using them in conjunction with at least one of these big ideas.  

This means I'm going to have to do a little more work in my classroom.  I need to learn the DCIs as well as I know the practices and the crosscutting concepts.  I could list either of those from memory, but I don't have a good handle on the DCIs.  Ted Willard (@Ted_NSTA) has been doggedly reminding us that it's not really NGSS if it's not connected to a DCI.  I finally get it, Ted; I finally get it.  Will you join me this week in asking, "What DCI does this activity/lab/discussion/etc. connect to?" ( See below for a list of the DCIs.) Use this link to go to the chapters focused on DCIs in The Framework.

This week I started teaching the law of conservation of energy and energy transfer to my middle school students.  I knew that they were well on their way to understanding the different types of energy (especially gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy), but I suspected that they would have trouble with the transfer of energy because it is such an abstract concept.  

To check for misconceptions, I had students answer a couple of questions in an in-class simulation.  After picking a students in class, I asked, "How could (specific student) increase his/her gravitational potential energy?"  Since my students are middle school students, it didn't take long for someone to suggest: "Stand on the table."  This first step told me that students did indeed have a grasp of gravitational potential energy.  I know from other assessments that there are some students who still have not internalized this, but they are getting there.  

For the second step, I asked students to apply the law of conservation of energy: "Where did that extra gravitational potential energy come from?  We can't create energy so it must have come from somewhere."  This is where I heard crickets, then tentative guesses such as: "His potential energy was added to the potential energy of the table."  My initial thoughts were confirmed.  Students would need practice working with transfer of energy to deepen their understanding of it.  After some missteps, the class finally arrived at an acceptable path that the energy could have traveled to become gravitational potential energy.  

What are the lessons here?  How does this connect to NGSS?  The biggest lesson is one that Paige Keeley has been teaching us for years: misconceptions need to be identified and addressed.  This can only happen by eliciting the misconceptions through conversation or some other kind of formative assessment.  Had I not taken the time to question my students, I could have quickly explained the law of conservation of energy and moved on.  Students would have been exposed to it and could have memorized it, but their actual thoughts/beliefs would not have changed.  

The second lesson is that change takes time.  This one-time event is not enough to cause students to change their thoughts about how energy is transferred.  It will take multiple exposures and multiple opportunities to think deeply about how the law of conservation of energy applies to situations that are relevant to my students.  Luckily, we are about the begin building paper roller coasters which will allow my students to analyze many transfers of energy (provided that I ask the right questions).  

The NGSS connection?  Even as I'm typing this up, I'm realizing that students have seen the crosscutting concept, flow of energy and matter before.  When we worked with photosynthesis and cellular respiration, students saw the flow of energy and matter.  We even took the opportunity to trace the energy in a human back to its ultimate source, the sun.  This past experience can be combined with our current study to reinforce the flow of energy and to help students realize relationships across the science disciplines.  

**For more information about how students develop conceptual understanding, see this video from Smithsonian.  It's animated, but it is intended for science teachers.  And it's based on the latest research in learning.  

As I look at the advances we've made in NGSS implementation in the last year and a half, I am pleased.  The "content" has been shifted so that each grade level in the district is now teaching the correct DCIs. An increased emphasis on the science and engineering practices has lead to more hands-on and minds-on my science classroom and classrooms across the district.  

At this point in implementation, it is tempting to pat myself  on the back and coast on those successes.  My students are getting better science education than any students in my classes every have.  Their education is hands-on and minds-on.  Compared to those teachers still focusing on memorizing content, I'm doing pretty well.  However, if I stop and focus on the vision of the NGSS instead of the hypothetical teachers down the hall, I realize that I have a long way to go to reach the vision.  

But, back to the subject at hand--NGSS implementation.  I think this is a good time to reflect on the vision of the NGSS and the Framework for K-12 Science Education.  It's time to see how well the changes I've made align with that vision.  I think the vision of the NGSS is best encapsulated by the following statement from the EQuIP Rubric for Lessons and Units: Science.   

When I look at that vision, I see that the changes I've made are good, but they aren't good enough to realize the vision, and they aren't good enough for my students.  Changes in who teaches what topics and how those topics are taught will always fall short of the vision if instruction doesn't originate with phenomena and include the integration of the 3 dimensions of the NGSS (disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts). 

So, at this point, I will pat myself on the back for doing good work, but I won't stop there.  I will internalize the idea that good isn't really good enough.  I've got to continue to be intentional in designing instruction around phenomena and focusing on making that instruction inclusive of the three dimensions.  

I hope that you will also pat yourself on the back for the hard work you've done in NGSS implementation thus far, and then take a look at the vision and realize that all of us have more work to do.  Will you join me in committing to ensuring that our kids get a world-class science education--not just a "good" science education?