Planning Instruction to Meet the Intent of the Next Generation Science Standards

Abstract

move teaching away from covering many isolated facts to a focus on a smaller number of disciplinary core ideas (DCIs) and crosscutting concepts that can be used to explain phenomena and solve problems by engaging in science and engineering practices. The NGSS present standards as knowledge-inuse by expressing them as performance expectations (PEs) that integrate all three dimensions from the Framework for K-12 Science Education. This integration of core ideas, practices, and crosscutting concepts is referred to as three-dimensional learning (NRC in Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. The National Academies Press, Washington, 2014). PEs state what students can be assessed on at the end of grade level for K-5 and at the end of grade band for 6-8 and 9-12. PEs do not specify how instruction should be developed nor do they serve as objectives for individual lessons. To support students in developing proficiency in the PEs, the elements of the DCIs will need to be blended with various practices and crosscutting concepts. In this paper, we examine how to design instruction to support students in meeting a cluster or ''bundle'' of PEs and how to blend the three dimensions to develop lesson level PEs that can be used for guiding instruction. We

The Benefits and Limitations of Educative Curriculum Materials

“…Conversely, learning the scientific and engineering practices requires the use of DCIs and CCs. The three dimensions work together to support students in making sense of phenomena or designing solutions to problems; as students make sense of phenomena they develop a deeper, more useable understanding of the dimensions (Krajcik, Codere, Dahsah, Bayer, & Mun, 2014).…”

Conclusion

“…Computer-based scaffolding is a highly effective intervention that leads to strong effect sizes that are statistically significantly greater than zero across contexts of use, intended learning outcomes, and scaffolding characteristics (Belland et al, the problem-centered instructional approaches encouraged by the Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core Standards (Achieve, 2013;Krajcik, Codere, Dahsah, Bayer, & Mun, 2014;McLaughlin & Overturf, 2012; National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010;National Research Council, 2012). It can do this by extending students' abilities in the following areas: argumentation (Belland, 2010;Cho & Jonassen, 2002), modeling (Buckland & Chinn, 2010;Fretz et al, 2002), problem-solving (Ge & Land, 2003;Raes, Schellens, De Wever, & Vanderhoven, 2012), and forming coherent mental models to describe natural phenomena (Clark & Linn, 2013;Linn, 2000).…”

A Systematic Review: The Next Generation Science Standards and the Increased Cultural Diversity

“…In particular, the students can comprehend scientific material better due to the excessive use of advanced visuals (LaDue, Libarkin, & Thomas, 2015). Utilizing technological platforms assists in maintaining knowledge-in-use principle that is revealed in NGSS (Krajcik et al, 2014). For example, one can use these means to contract scientific schemata and models to ensure thorough understanding of the learnt concepts (Campbell, Neilson & Oh, 2013).…”