How Will NGSS Be Held Accountable?
Posted: Friday, March 1st, 2013
by Peter A’Hearn
No fellow teacher, I’m not asking how you will be held accountable for the NGSS. I’m wondering how the NGSS will be held accountable for achieving its goals of improving science education.
Will more students be prepared to work in science and engineering related careers and pass college courses in science and engineering? Will more kids be excited about science and engineering and choose careers or continuing education in the sciences?
We have been through some big reform movements and we know all about unintended consequences. It wasn’t a goal of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) that science, history, and the arts virtually disappear from the curriculum in high-poverty elementary schools (or was it?). It certainly wasn’t intended that students use school time for “Let’s Do Our Best on the Test” pep rallies. NCLB was built with noble intentions but had no built-in feedback mechanism. Changing it will require an act of Congress and good luck with that.
What I would like to see is for NGSS to provide us with some benchmarks on the path to achieving the vision in the Framework for K-12 Science Education. What should we see and when and how will we know its working? Will NGSS include a process for self-reflection and revision or will it require a totally new set of standards to replace it if goes off the rails?
Proposing a timeline strengthens the NGSS by providing realistic benchmarks for the changes that it anticipates. The Framework acknowledges that developing curriculum and changing classroom practice will take time and will be frustrating. Providing realistic expectations now, will have the benefit of preventing critics from saying, “You’ve had three years now and no more kids are going into engineering than before! The NGSS have failed and need to be dumped.”
Here are some specific questions that I’d like to see addressed:
- One of the goals of the Framework is to limit the number of core ideas (i.e. facts) so there is time for students to learn concepts in more depth and engage in science and engineering practice and application. Some, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, have questioned if this has been achieved in the draft versions of the NGSS has that have been released thus far, especially at the high school level. Is there a way to measure if students are more engaged in practices, and if not, is there a way to review and potentially reduce the number of core ideas? When should we start to see the shift in classroom practice?
- The Framework says that the development of aligned curricula will take time. When can we anticipate well-designed instructional materials that guide teachers in teaching the NGSS? Using the Common Core standards implementation as a guide, we can estimate that for California it will be three or four years (assuming legislative action is taken to allow for that process to take place).
- When can we expect to see more students pursuing science and engineering degrees in college?
- Will businesses see that more students are prepared to do work in science and engineering fields? How will this be measured?
- Are we going to measure how interested kids are in engineering and science? Studies have shown that the more science classes that students take, the less interested they are in science- will NGSS help to reverse that?
- NGSS is supposed to be accompanied with new kinds of computer-based tests that will measure student’s ability to engage in science practices. What if we find out that instead of actually doing science, kids are just sitting in front of computers practicing taking the tests?
Science teachers have high hopes for the NGSS, but experience tells us to be wary of unintended consequences. What would you like to hold NGSS accountable for?
Posted: Wednesday, October 12th, 2016
by Jessica Sawko
In June 2016 California submitted a waiver application to discontinue using the old CST (based on 1998 standards) and conduct two years of pilot and field tests (in spring 2017 and 2018, respectively) of the new science assessment designed to support our state’s current science standards (California Next Generation Science Standards (CA-NGSS) adopted in 2013). The waiver was requested because no student scores will be provided as a part of the pilot and field tests. The CDE received a response from the U.S. Department of Education (ED) on September 30, 2016, which provides the CDE the opportunity to resubmit a revised waiver request within 60 days. The CDE will be revising the waiver request and resubmitting as ED suggested.
At its October 2016 North/South Assessment meetings CDE confirmed that there will be no administration of the old CST in the spring of 2017. (An archive of the meeting is available at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/ai/infomeeting.asp.) Learn More…
Posted: Thursday, September 22nd, 2016
by Carol Peterson
1) To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, Google has put together a collection of virtual tours combining 360-degree video, panoramic photos and expert narration. It’s called “The Hidden Worlds of the National Parks” and is accessible right from the browser. You can choose from one of five different locales, including the Kenai Fjords in Alaska and Bryce Canyon in Utah, and get a guided “tour” from a local park ranger. Each one has a few virtual vistas to explore, with documentary-style voiceovers and extra media hidden behind clickable thumbnails. Ideas are included for use in classrooms. https://www.engadget.com/2016/08/25/google-offers-360-degree-tours-of-us-national-parks/. Learn More…
Posted: Thursday, September 22nd, 2016
CSTA is pleased to announce the winners of the 2016 CSTA Awards for Distinguished Contributions, Margaret Nicholson Distinguished Service Award, 2014 and 2015 PAEMST-Science recipients from California, and the 2016 California PAEMST Finalists. The following individuals and organizations will be honored during the 2016 California Science Education Conference on October 21- 23 in Palm Springs. This year’s group of awardees are truly outstanding. Please join us in congratulating them!
Margaret Nicholson Distinguished Service Award
The Margaret Nicholson Distinguished Service Award honors an individual who has made a significant contribution to science education in the state and who, through years of leadership and service, has truly made a positive impact on the quality of science teaching. This year’s recipient is John Keller, Ph.D. Dr. Keller is Associate Professor, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Co-Director, Center for Engineering, Science, and Mathematics Education, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. In her letter of recommendation, SDSU science education faculty and former CSTA board member Donna Ross wrote: “He brings people together who share the desire to make a difference in the development and implementation of programs for science teaching. Examples of these projects include the Math and Science Teaching Initiative (MSTI), Noyce Scholars Program, Western Regional Noyce Initiative, and the Science Teacher and Researcher (STAR) program.” Through his work, he has had a dramatic impact on science teacher education, both preservice and in-service, in California, the region, and the country. He developed and implemented the STEM Teacher and Researcher Program which aims to produce excellent K-12 STEM teachers by providing aspiring teachers with opportunities to do authentic research while helping them translate their research experience into classroom practice. SFSU faculty member Larry Horvath said it best in his letter:“John Keller exemplifies the best aspects of a scientist, science educator, and mentor. His contributions to science education in the state of California are varied, significant, and I am sure will continue well into the future.” Learn More…
Posted: Tuesday, September 20th, 2016
by Peter A’hearn
NGSS is a big shift. Teachers need to learn new content, figure out how this whole engineering thing relates to science, and develop new unit and lesson plans. How could NGSS possibly make life easier?
The idea that NGSS could make our lives easier came to me during the California State NGSS Rollout #1 Classroom Example lesson on chromatography. I have since done this lesson with high school chemistry students and it made me think back to having my own students do chromatography. I spent lots of time preparing to make sure the experiment went well and achieved the “correct” result. I pre-prepared the solutions and organized and prepped the materials. I re-wrote and re-wrote again the procedure so there was no way a kid could get it wrong. I spent 20 minutes before the lab modeling all of the steps in class, so there was no way to do it wrong. Except that it turns out there were many. Learn More…
Posted: Tuesday, September 20th, 2016
by Robert C. Victor. Twilight sky maps by Robert D. Miller. Graph of evening planet setting times by Dr. Jeffrey L. Hunt
Our evening twilight chart for September, depicting the sky about 40 minutes after sunset from SoCal, shows brilliant Venus remaining low, creeping from W to WSW and gaining a little altitude as the month progresses. Its close encounter within 2.5° N of Spica on Sept. 18 is best seen with binoculars to catch the star low in bright twilight. The brightest stars in the evening sky are golden Arcturus descending in the west, and blue-white Vega passing just north of overhead. Look for Altair and Deneb completing the Summer Triangle with Vega. The triangle of Mars-Saturn-Antares expands as Mars seems to hold nearly stationary in SSW as the month progresses, while Saturn and Antares slink off to the SW. Learn More…