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- 1. AFACCT 2016, College of Southern Maryland Session 5.2 on 8 Jan 2016, 9-10AM Kerri Younkin, TU & Harford Community College, kyounkin@towson.edu Mary Stapleton, TU, mkstapleton@towson.edu
- 2. SciTech: Student act like real scientists to complete a lab in our dedicated student lab $10/student Maryland Loaner Lab: 11 lab kits FREE for borrowing to Maryland’s 6-12 science teachers Professional Development: PD and outreach programs for teachers, community members, and partner groups.
- 4. • Developed by scientists, educators, and 26 Lead States • Complements Common Core Writing standards base logical arguments on claim, reasoning, evidence • Math standards connection with modeling • Reading standards increased emphasis on informational text instruction Stage et al. 2013
- 5. College, Career, Citizenship Readiness Integration of content including engineering, practices, crosscutting themes Real World Connectivity Focus on deeper understanding & application Cohesive, progressive K-12 progression NGSS p XIX
- 6. Current Standards NGSS Emphasize discreet facts Emphasize depth of fewer topics, novel applications Instructional and assessment disconnect between practices of science and science content Performance Expectations (PEs) integrate practices of science and science content Primary content: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Earth or Environmental Science Primary content: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Earth & Space Sciences, Engineering Technology Engineering, Nature of Science not explicitly included Integration of Science, Engineering, Nature of Science Pruitt 2014
- 7. Performance expectations (PEs) written to cohesively combine practices and content Focus on making sense of phenomena Engineering and Nature of Science integrated throughout four disciplines and from K-12
- 9. • Patterns • Cause and effect • Scale, proportion, and quantity • Systems and system models • Energy and matter • Structure and function • Stability and change
- 11. Crosscutting Concepts DCIs Practices 3D Instruction Why 3D? • make sense of phenomena • build deeper understanding • solve problems
- 12. Krajcik 2015 Students answer, “What are you doing?” with “Trying to figure out how this works” and “Trying to solve this specific problem”. NOT “I’m learning about climate change, water cycles, etc.” Students wrestle with application, understanding NOT memorize facts.
- 13. • Feasible – Can students design and perform investigations around this phenomenon? • Worthwhile –Does the phenomenon support learning objectives? • Contextualized - Is the phenomena or problem a real-world issue? • Meaningful – Is the phenomena relevant and important to students? • Ethical – Is the student exploration going to harm organisms, ecosystems, or cause other ethical concerns? • Sustainable – Can this issue be explored over time?
- 14. • In groups, consider a topic taught and how you teach it now. OR I have a traditional high school lab you can use. • Does it align with 3D instruction? • How can you change the approach to align with 3D learning?
- 15. • Inquiry-based instruction • Student-centered instruction • Longer, more in-depth study of fewer topics • Real-world connections for career, college, citizenship • Case studies & problem solving • Do, try, redesign for engineering • Increase in investigative, student-written science lab experiences
- 16. • Need new NGSS-based assessments • Implementation funding • PD for teachers to learn different approach to instruction • Need NGSS aligned curriculum and teaching materials (in development in each county)
- 17. • How will the post NGSS-student differ from the current student? • How could NGSS impact your classroom? Your future students? Your instruction? • Does the college classroom need to change to reflect the post NGSS-student? • Your questions/thoughts?
- 18. • All students should have greater understanding and practice in Engineering, Nature of Science, Earth & Space Sciences. • Students should be better at using science to solve problems and understand phenomena: DO science. • BUT, may be some challenge in itegrating a classroom with post-NGSS and non-NGSS students
- 19. • Challenges exist in content heavy courses (aren’t they all?) • Trying new things moving away from lecture: • Case studies • Students design own laboratory investigations (try scaffolding and driving questions) • Application and open-ended discussion questions • Project-based assessment with peer evaluation (zoology systems final) • Others?
Editor's Notes
- Dr. Stapleton is the director of Towson University’s Center for STEM Excellence and an adjunct professor in TU’s UTeach program. Kerri Younkin is an Education Outreach Specialist in TU’s Center for STEM Excellence and an adjunct professor in biology and theater at Harford Community College.
- Participants answered these questions on Post-Its and categorized their comments into “Questions” or “Know these Facts” categories. Most commenters noted they knew little or nothing about NGSS.
- NGSS is a new set of science standards developed to emphasize students doing and thinking like scientists. NGSS complements Common Core where natural connections occur, but Common Core’s content areas are reading, writing, and math whereas NGSS content area is K-12 science.
- NGSS represents a paradigm shift in science education. While not novel concepts, the approach, application, and emphasis are new. The bottom row describes what K-12 science educators will use, the middle row shows how science education will be organized in order to achieving the ultimate goal of student readiness in college, career and citizenship (top row).
- Comparing existing and NGSS standards highlights major shifts in K-12 science education. Line 1: NGSS represents a shift away from discreet fact memorization towards greater understanding and application of fewer concepts. Line 2: While current standards intended to blend lab skills and practices with content, discreet objectives which separated the two led to assessments that reinforced the disconnection between practices and content. NGSS blended practices and content together within learning objectives renamed Performance Expectations. Line 3: NGSS combined Chemistry and Physics into the broad content area of Physical Science while naming Earth & Space Science and introducing Engineering as broad content areas. Line 4: Nature of Science and Engineering are intentionally integrated throughout the standards.
- NGSS is organized into three dimensions. Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs) covers content and is organized into four broad areas. The learning objectives, called Performance Expectations, cohesively combine practices and content. Crosscutting Concepts (CCs) are seven overarching themes found throughout science and engineering fields. These help students to make sense of phenomena and increase connectivity across disciplines. Science and Engineering Practices (practices) are traditionally lab-based learning objectives. These eight are consistent throughout the K-12 program. The standards emphasize organizing instruction around student exploration of authentic phenomena and problems.
- Students practice doing science just like real scientists. These are similar to the old skills and practices – “lab stuff”, but now PEs integrate the practices with the content.
- Teachers will need to deliberately and intentionally make connections to these crosscutting concepts in science lessons throughout all grades. Teachers will deliberately use language to connect students to these CCs and show connectivity across the science curriculum.
- NGSS includes four broad content areas called DCIs. There four are Life Sciences (biology, ecology, etc.), Physical Sciences (chemistry, physics), Earth and Space Sciences, and Engineering Technology.
- With the emphasis on learning to think and act like scientists, i.e., make sense of phenomena and solve problems, teachers need to combine the three dimensions in instruction. This 3D instructional approach blends the three NGSS dimensions within lessons and shifts away from the more traditional instructional strategies which often separately addressed aspects of these dimensions.
- 3D instruction generally works through investigating driving questions and broad-based exploration of issues, local events/issues, your interests, your students interests. Students who are learning through 3-D instruction generally do not memorize facts and instead say they are “solving this problem” or “figuring out how this works”.
- Careful selection of a problem or phenomena to study for lessons and units becomes critical to 3D instruction and NGSS implementation. These are a recommended set of characteristics for appropriate phenomena, and you’ll see they’re closely aligned with the same things higher education considers in selecting case studies, projects for students, and other in-depth exploration of content.
- NGSS does not use the term “inquiry-based instruction” because the term has been applied and used in different ways for many years now. However, the idea of inquiry-based instruction and student-centered instruction is very much at the heart of NGSS lessons. Participants analyzed and compared sample lessons prepared at different levels of student-centeredness and inquiry. As student-centeredness and inquiry increased, students wrote their own protocols and data tables, and the lesson became more open-ended with student discovery of concepts. A discussion about transitioning students between levels considered scaffolding throughout the K-12 program, in high school, or within the college semester to increase student confidence and decrease frustration as students learn this different way of exploring science.
- This is an incomplete list of techniques or strategies to increase student-centered learning and implement 3D instruction. While higher education will not be following NGSS, students who are used to 3D instruction may benefit from strategies such as these integrated into college classes.
- The discussion which stemmed from the lesson analysis turned to these questions. Very little literature has been written to specifically address impacts of NGSS on higher education. However, students studying under NGSS will likely have greater problem solving and research skills, and may be adept at discovering and applying concepts. They may also lack knowledge in some content areas. Integrating student-centered and inquiry-based instruction in college classes can be achieved, but there is the challenge of quantity of content required for many undergraduate courses. Due to safety and/or reagent costs or other factors, it may not be appropriate for students to always develop their own lab protocols, but prescribed lab protocols can become tools students use to explore and test phenomena rather than confirmatory activities. Lecture time, too, can be used to set up the lab as an exploration activity, then later lectures can help students explain what they learned or experienced in lab. This weaves the lecture (content) and the lab (practices) together to support the end objectives in the course and increase depth of student understanding. A concern about student ability to memorize was noted, because NGSS downplays rote memorization. Other comments indicated that natural term learning would occur with repeated use as students studied under student-centered learning, and that an emphasis on problem-solving is a crucial aspect of all science fields.
- We all have students at different levels and with different experiences now, but NGSS might exaggerate the differences in scientific thinking, for example.