It has been two years since my last post and so much has happened in our world and in science education. Since the release of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in April of 2013, science educators and leaders have been running around trying to figure out how to roll this out. From what I have seen, this process has been messy, inconsistent among districts, and taken a toll on the best of teachers. There is clear inequity in the professional learning opportunities provided across districts. Some have made this transition more accessible to teachers through joining early implementer programs, sending teams to conferences, and paying for professional learning opportunities. While others remain unsure or do not trust the path they are being asked to follow. However, when our efforts continue to place what is best for students and teachers in the forefront of our decision making, good things will happen. It just takes time. In 2016, I joined the Achieve Science Peer Review Panel to help with the efforts of transitioning to the NGSS.. After three years of intense professional learning, collaboration with others, and learning all that I could about the instructional shifts necessary to meet the rigorous demands and vision of the NGSS, I came to the realization that these new instructional shifts are complicated. Since my time with the Science PRP, many doors have opened including working with the National Science Teaching Association, Carolina Biological Science Company, Cal State Fullerton University, and most recently with OpenSciEd. It has been a struggle to keep up with this work and my K-12 public school service, as I have still been working full time as a Teacher on Special Assignment. However, after 21 years of service, I will be leaving the K-12 Public School world to continue my work of supporting and growing teachers on their NGSS journey. Once I am able to breathe again in June 2022, I am going to return to blogging, podcasting, and creating resources for teachers to use. Until then, I did provide a few new resources at the end of this blog post if you are interested. High-Quality Curricula Matters!For three years, I have been teaching secondary science pre-service teachers as an adjunct professor at Cal State University, Fullerton. This experience has been eye-opening in a lot of ways, including the parts of the NGSS that are hard to understand and implement. My deep understanding of the expectations found within the EQuIP rubric has helped me grow NGSS-proficient teacher candidates. I tell them they are influencers and to go out and spread their knowledge as they work with their mentor teachers and new colleagues once they get hired. But what has stood out to me the most, is that high-quality curriculum matters. Many of these pre-service teachers are pulling together resources from the Internet to create lessons and units or using NGSSified lessons from their mentor teachers. They struggle with connecting to anchoring phenomena and driving the lessons with student questions. It takes weeks of practice until everyone in a cohort is able to write 3D learning objectives and even longer to provide evidence that they are meeting those 3D learning objectives (those darn CCCs keep getting left out!!). But, with feedback and reflection, everyone grows towards the same goal throughout the semester. However, when a student teacher is allowed and/or encouraged to use high quality curricula that has passed the EQuIP rubric, there is a much different learning path that we take together. Since the requirements of the NGSS are designed within "NGSS badged" curriculum, I get to instead work with these teachers on things such as pacing, supporting productive class discussions, building a class culture of figuring out instead of learning about, and how students are engaging in SEPs. High-quality NGSS curriculum provides an instructional model for teachers to follow that automatically provides the instructional shifts we are looking for instead of trying to grow teachers into understanding the NGSS instructional shifts and crossing our fingers that this actually appears in their lessons. High-quality curriculum makes the instructional shifts of the NGSS more accessible. The Neverending Pilot SeasonThis was probably the longest curriculum pilot season in the history of educational pilots. School districts across the country began piloting instructional materials about three years ago and many teachers did not find what they were looking for. Some teachers needed more support, some needed professional learning, some needed more time with the materials, but the pattern emerged that teachers were not satisfied with what the publishing companies were offering. Part of the problem was that publishing companies pushed quickly to adapt their resources to the NGSS, hoping to secure contracts with school districts and the money set aside for new adoptions. But it did not look much different from the worksheets, videos that provide all the information, cookbook investigations, multiple choice assessments, and teacher-driven instruction of pre-NGSS. Then, we were hit by the closing of schools due to the Covid-19 pandemic and had to re-make everything to work virtually… and then hybrid…. for year two of the pilot season. That was rough!! And now in year 3, we are back in person and districts are pushing teachers to pilot, provide feedback, and make a decision. Pilot fatigue has set in and many teachers are checking out. However, there is a large movement in education towards non-profit, open-source instructional materials. Although these materials are taking longer to develop, organizations such as OpenSciEd are developing high-quality curricula free of charge with the ability for teachers to copy, remix, and revise to meet the needs of their own classroom and teaching style. The process takes longer because they are committed to using educators as the developers, piloting in real science classrooms, passing the EQuIP rubric to be considered NGSS designed, and making revisions as necessary before publishing for public use. To learn more about this movement and WHY we need Open Source Materials, check out this Edutopia article https://www.edutopia.org/open-educational-resources-guide or watch the video below. OpenSciEdAbout one year ago, I joined the OpenSciEd Facilitator team. I first learned of this work while serving as a Science Peer Review Panelist and it is such an honor to work with this team who believes that ALL students deserve access to high-quality science instruction for free! Equity is at the forefront of this instructional model and although the model is described in the OpenSciEd Teacher Handbook, many educators feel lost when they open up the Google Drive for a Unit for the first time. With the current issue of substitute teacher shortages and limited professional learning opportunities being provided, I decided it may be useful to provide some supporting resources for those of you who may like to learn more about OpenSciEd or try out a unit in your classroom. Even if you are not teaching OpenSciEd, many of the resources below will be of help if you are trying to shift your instruction to a more storyline based approach. When doing this, you will try and anchor units with phenomenon or design problems, shift the culture from learning about to figuring out, and drive the lessons using student questions. I hope you find the resources useful and I look forward to creating more in the near future. Best wishes for the New Year and good luck finishing up your pilots and 2021-2022 school year! VideosIntro to OpenSciEd Downloading and Navigating an OpenSciEd Unit Folder Using a Driving Question Board Facilitating Productive Discourse (Classroom Discussion) Building Classroom Norms Links to Resources Mentioned in VideosOpen Sci Ed Teacher Handbook
Image OpenSciEd Instructional Model / Routines Three Discussion Types Supporting Classroom Discussions TERC, Talk Science in the Inquiry Project Talk Moves- For Teachers Discussion Planning and Reflection Tool- For Teachers Communicating in Scientific Ways- For Students Self Assessment for Discussions- For Students Classroom Norms Classroom Norms to Support a Culture of Figuring Out
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December 2021
AuthorCari Williams has been developing her understanding of The Framework for K-12 Science Teaching and the NGSS through the development of curriculum, collaborative learning experiences with NSTA 3D Learning Cadre Members and as a Science Peer Review Panelist for Achieve. To learn more, please go to |