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Coherent and Student Centered Science Assessment Systems
When someone tells you to think about assessment, what pops into your head? After spending the last year talking about NGSS assessment with thoughtful science educators from across California, I think of this depiction of a Coherent Assessment System…
Transforming the Classroom with OpenSciEd
How often have you heard the following questions from your students: Why do I need to know this? Is this going to be on the test? Why does this matter? I, like you, have heard these questions repeated like a broken record over the years of being a…
Making Choices and Making Messes: What student agency looks like in science classrooms
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) encourage students to not just “know about science,” but to actively engage in “doing science.” Rather than carrying out pre-designed investigations, students should have “epistemic agency,” or ownership…
Science Adoption is Here!
Curriculum adoption is upon us! It is an exciting time to finally be getting a curriculum for science, but also a daunting task. Teachers know that curriculum comes and goes, but for the several years we have one, we have to make sure it's a good…
Tosa Talk
I have been the Elementary Science Teacher On Special Assignment (TOSA) for the last three years at Palm Springs Unified School District and sometimes get asked, “What exactly do you do?”
Environmental Literacy May Be the Answer
Across the state at science education events, environmental literacy is increasingly in the spotlight. At the opening of the CSTA conference, after the Climate Summit, high school teachers were so eager to get more resources that some sessions were…
Applying NGSS Practices and Crosscutting Concepts to Student-Developed Health Education Projects in High School
As a Health science teacher at Eagle Rock High School in Los Angeles Unified School District, I saw that as my students learned Health content there was an opportunity for them to simultaneously make sense of and apply some NGSS Practices and…
Getting Good at Getting Better
As schools attempt to improve their practice in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), Vista Unified School District has engaged in NGSS site walkthroughs using a classroom observation tool developed with the K-12 Alliance as a part of the CA…
Grading NGSS in the K-2 Classroom
Grading can be an indecisive process, to begin with. Add in new standards, new curriculum and science notebooks, and it becomes a whole new ballgame.
Reviewing NGSS Instructional Materials with a Lens for Equity
There’s a lot of discussion around instructional materials and what materials adoption you should be going through right now. In my opinion, the best part of an adoption process is the professional learning around the standards as seen with the CA…