By Rodney Olson

Along with CSTA, the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) is helping science educators implement the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). One way they are doing this is by vetting resources that are aligned to the NGSS. In the fall of 2013, NSTA selected 55 science educators from across the nation to serve as NGSS@NSTA Curators.  California has four curators: Mary Koga, Melanie Brown-Davis, Erica Motamed, and Rodney Olson (all CSTA members). Curators have have been hard at work selecting, vetting, and curating valuable resources that teachers can use in their classrooms to fully engage their students in NGSS-rich lessons. NSTA plans to post the curated resources on the NSTA website (http://ngss.nsta.org/)—called the NGSS@NSTA Hub—sometime this spring. Resources will continue to be added to the Hub over the coming months and years.

http://www.classroomscience.org/eccs09012010/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/ngss_NSTA-300x283.png
View of the NGSS as presented on the NGSS@NSTA Hub.[/caption] 

The NGSS@NSTA Hub contains resources to help teachers implement the NGSS. The Curriculum Planning section is designed to help teachers select materials that address the NGSS and assess students in light of the NGSS.  It also discusses how the Common Core standards integrate with the Science and Engineering Practices of the NGSS.

A central feature of the NGSS@NSTA Hub is a section titled “The Standards.” In this section, a user can choose to view the standards by topic view or by disciplinary core idea view, then click on any NGSS standard for any grade level. The user will be taken to a page showing the Performance Expectations, Science and Engineering Practices, the Disciplinary Core Ideas, the Cross Cutting Concepts, and the connections to the Common Core as they relate to that standard. The curated resources will be posted here in the Resources & Lesson Plans section at the bottom of the page. The page also features a useful discussion feature that connects you to the NSTA Learning Center. If you are an NSTA member, you can interact with other members in the Learning Center to discuss curriculum and share ideas. It is a very active community with a lot of useful content and helpful colleagues.

In short the NGSS@NSTA site offers user-friendly access to the standards, useful background information, helpful hints for thinking about implementation, and supporting resources from NSTA, National Academies, Achieve, and others.

Rodney Olson is a physics and astronomy teacher at Crespi Carmelite High School in southern California. He is a member of CSTA and serves on CSTA's NGSS Committee.

Tags