I’m working with a beginning teacher, and I’d like to share some ideas on the challenges of the end of the year, such as how to keep students engaged and ideas for the summer break.
—Alyssa, Corpus Christi, Texas
There are many resources on what beginning teachers can do during the first days of school, but the end of the year (EOY) has its own challenges. Several archived Ms. Mentor posts addressed questions related to end-of-the-year and summer break activities:

• Extra credit? My students are asking for “extra credit” work. I’m having second thoughts about doing this, especially since it seems that students wait until the end of the marking period to ask. Is there a good rationale for giving (or not giving) extra credit work?

• EOY activities for students. What can I do on the last few days of school? This year (my first as a teacher), my exams were over, projects were completed, and my grades were turned in. But after that it was hard to keep the students focused.

• At the end of the school year… My mentee just finished his first year as an elementary teacher. I’d like to give him some suggestions for how to reflect on his experiences and plan for next year.

• Vacation activities for students. How do you get families and students to participate in science in the summer? I’m looking for ideas to engage upper elementary students.

• Family science: Ideas and resources for activities. NSTA’s Early Years Blog has ideas for parents of younger students.

• Va-cation, stay-cation, and edu-cation. But you only work 9 months a year! How many times do teachers hear that? Those who make that comment obviously have never been a teacher or a family member or friend of a teacher.

 
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/therefore/18636595/

“In our experience, good science—by which we mean activity-based STEM instruction—promotes the unexpected and delightful development of adolescent middle school students.”

–From the preface

In Doing Good Science in Middle School, Expanded 2^nd Edition, authors Olaf Jorgenson, Rick Vanosdall, Vicki Massey, and Jackie Cleveland state that “good science” consists of “active, learner-centered, hands-on and minds-on investigations.” The authors add that “good science and middle school learners are very compatible.” And, if anyone should know about middle school students, it is these four educators. They have more than 130 years of combined experience in middle school education.
The authors have taken their experience and created a book filled with active-learning science and engineering investigations. According to the authors, middle schoolers are curious and have a natural interest in learning, but also have short attention spans and a need to be acknowledged as adults. These students do better when the classroom shifts from textbook- and teacher-centered instruction to learner-centered investigations that engage students and foster their independence and curiosity.
When the authors wrote the first edition of this book, published 10 years ago, digital technology and social media did not play a role in everyday life like it does now. So much has changed in 10 years, including the implementation of the Common Core Initiative and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Therefore, the authors decided to update the book and add 10 new activities that are aligned with the standards and are “more useful in the context of 21^st-century skills that teachers today are expected to cultivate in their students.”
Beginning chapters of the book delve into the nature of science, what good science looks like in the classroom, and classroom management. Subsequent chapters focus on the 10 activities, with each chapter addressing a single lesson. In addition to tying the lessons to the Common Core standards and NGSS, the authors provide common misconceptions about each topic, focus questions, and teacher preparation tips. The activities follow the 5E instructional model—engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate—as a template. The activities cover a number of science and engineering disciplines, including: physical science (magnetism and energy transfer); engineering (structural design); biology (population dynamics/natural selection); Earth science (weather and climate; water conservation); and science and engineering processes (testing and communication).
So, if you are looking for teacher-friendly, ready-to-use STEM activities for middle school students, definitely check out Doing Good Science in Middle School, Expanded 2^nd Edition. What you will find is that the featured activities are an excellent fit for “the blossoming intellects, often comical behaviors, and insatiable curiosity of middle schoolers.”
This book is also available an e-book.

Middle schoolers enjoy a challenge. The featured articles in this issue show that incorporating physical science concepts with engineering practices and crosscutting concepts can lead to challenging projects for students (and their teachers as they choose and develop activities aligned with the NGSS).
As budgets for equipment and supplies shrink, it’s interesting to read articles such as Straws and Air Pressure: Using an Everyday Object to Explain Air Pressure that show how simple materials can be used to demonstrate and investigate complex phenomena. The author used a learning cycle model that included opportunities for students to investigate air pressure and the discoveries of Bernoulli, Charles, and Boyle through exploration, invention, and application. She suggests strategies that students can use in these investigations with straws, plastic cups, and pins. [SciLinks: Bernoulli’s Principle, Gas Laws]
Are you trying to simulate real-world experiences for your students? Collaboration is a lifetime skill, and much collaboration today occurs electronically. Ring the Bell: An Asynchronous Learning Experience discusses a capstone project in which students designed a Rube Goldberg machine, working with team members who were not in their class period. They worked with each other electronically and through a group notebook until the day they met to build their machine. The authors include several resources for adapting this idea to your classes, including the logistics and a description of the design task. If more than one science teacher is involved, teacher collaboration is critical to the success of the project. [SciLinks: Simple Machines]

Some family night or open house events wow the parents and students with flashy gee-whiz demonstrations. I often wondered what the participants learned from them. But Polymer Science Night: The Science Behind the Fun used a study of polymers in the context of local manufacturing and design companies. The authors include a brief primer on polymers, describe the activities the students and parents did, and provide many good suggestions for Family Night events related to any topic. [SciLinks: Polymers]
The Great Viscosity Race: Using the 5E Model to Make Connections Between Properties of Matter and Viscosity has ideas for students to investigate why liquids flow at different rates. What they learn can be applied to studying the flow rates of lava, for example. The author suggests how to structure the activity so that students design the procedure and make the connections to lava flows. [SciLinks: Density, Magma/Lava]
The Great Iced Tea Debate takes on the question “What is the best way to sweeten tea?” and challenges students to apply their learning about density, solubility, and properties of matter and let “data do the talking.” The authors include a planning template that could be adapted for any student-designed investigation. As I read the article, written in a conversational style, I could picture my own students’ questions. [SciLinks: Solubility, Properties of Liquids]
Rather than getting in trouble for flying paper planes, students can learn much about the principles of flight: If You Build It, Will It Fly? The students built a model to experiment with, collected data and then designed their own to test. [SciLinks: Forces of Flight, Newton’s Laws]
 
 

Here are the descriptions of a few more sessions I attended at the 2014 NSTA national conference in Boston. These summaries are from my notes and may not accurately reflect the presentations or the presenters’ views. Don’t delay, go to the Boston session schedule and download any files from the presentations you attended, or wish you did.
I didn’t take photos of these sessions because we mostly talked. Instead I’m posting some photos of beauty in wild places, large and small.
David Sobel’s work and that of others who ask us to think deeply about environmental education, guide me to refrain from providing a lot of information about nature to young children, and instead try to get them out in it, immersed as much as is possible in a school day. In the Paul F-Brandwein Lecture, “Global Climate Change Meets Ecophobia,” at the conference, Sobel urged us to educate for the purposes of sustaining a healthful environment. He asked us to consider, “How do we engender children who are going to be responsible environmentally focused adults?” and  “How do we achieve raising children to care about being environmental stewards? What are the means?”
He cautions that we don’t want to evoke anxiety and have children develop a phobic response to environmental destruction. No tragedies should be taught before fourth grade. For young children, the focus should be on “What can you do” messages, not “Doom and Gloom” scenarios. We can provide open-ended, deep experiences with nature for young children, such as many hours of play in natural areas, time with parents or other adults fishing and hunting, wading in streams, berry picking and mushroom collecting, riding horses, and reading books about nature.
Sobel suggested taking all the environmentally necessary tasks within a school and distributing them to the classes, each grade level doing whatever they are capable of. Kindergartners could be involved in seasonal school beautification, 1^st grade–flower garden maintenance, 2^nd  grade–veggie garden, 3^rd grade–keep natural areas clean, 4^th grade–run recycling , 5^th grade run the composting program, and 6^th grade– climate change team to restore a local watershed or other degraded natural area (not a distant forest). When we teach children (in grade 4 and above) about an environmental problem, we need to provide opportunities for action to teach children to become stewards rather than feeling hopeless.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/77792707[/vimeo]Take a look at one of the films he suggested, Nature Works—Global Gardens by the Nature Conservancy, about urban nature education in Washington, DC. For more from David Sobel about environmental education, read his books or an article, “Look, Don’t Touch: The problem with environmental education” in the July/August 2012 issue of Orion magazine. A forum discussion in the NSTA Learning Center focuses on Sobel’s talk–share your thoughts on the talk or the topic. Go to the Early Childhood forum and look for the topic “Brandwein Lecture “Global Climate Change Meets Ecophobia,” NSTA Boston Conference 2014.”
An hour isn’t long enough to fully explore a science education curriculum but the presenters from the ECHOS Early Childhood Hands-On Science, from the Museum of Science in Miami gave us a look at several lessons. They use scripted science lessons to help teachers who are first beginning to teach science concepts. I could have used another hour to become more familiar with the ECHOS curriculum. It always helps me consider how my students might approach and learn from an activity by doing them myself beforehand. I see possibilities for connecting to an on-going inquiry that hadn’t occurred to me when just reading about it. Learn more at http://miamisci.org/echos/

Beth Clark-Thomas and Nancy Varian from Malone University, Canton, Ohio talked about the value of the NSTA Early Childhood Science Education Position Statement in their presentation, “Nature”-ally Good Science Teaching in Early Childhood Education.” One strategy they use to connect with families is to make backpacks with materials for children to take home to investigate their own backyards—a book, digging and sifting materials, and a way to record observations. They suggested using the typical School Open House as a Science Night to involve parents while instructing them on all the academics that happen while investigating science concepts.
Participant input and interaction during sessions contributes to the learning! One participant told how she recreated a temporary pond in the classroom using a baby pool to acclimate children so they would be comfortable investigating in the actual pond. Another participant asked a question about children’s questioning, “How do we find the balance between staying on topic/task and being open to follow children’s questions?” Beth Clark-Thomas suggests using guided inquiry, and telling the children, “Asking questions shows you are smart.” Another participant told how he used The Right Question Institute to help him get his students to ask questions. He uses those questions to deliver content when the students are ready for it and has found that he has time to teach all the required content. Another participant noted that teachers are more likely to do a science activity if the materials are provided in a kit.
Presenters of “Developing a Partnership for STEM in Early Childhood”–Marcia Edson of the Boston University: Boston, MA, Jeffrey Mehigan of the Museum of Science: Boston, MA, and Nancy Sableski of the The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University: Jamaica Plain, MA–shared how their collaboration introduced preservice teachers in Edson’s full semester science methods course to STEM education. They use the 3 Dimensions of the Next Generation Science Standards with preservice teachers, including teaching the Science and Engineering Practices. The preservice teachers also learn about Science Talk—Scientists ask questions, make claims to respond to questions, use evidence to support claims, and use reasoning to explain ideas.
Edson said, “I have learned an enormous amount from my partners—our collegiality has allowed us to learn from each other.” Her students remember sink & float, planting, and hatching chicks from their own early science education. But they may be terrified of the natural world, and uncomfortable with sitting on grass or connecting with mud and worms. The museums in Boston are free to students and previously her students rarely took advantage of this. They use the internet mostly, not the other rich resources. Her challenge is to get students to branch out and this is why she reached out to the partners, the Museum of Science and Arnold Arboretum. Edson asked the partners, “How can we make these visits more than a fieldtrip?”
Jeff Mehigan designed experiences that allow students to engage in inquiry based science and have access to the museum,  including the Educator Resource Center in the Lyman Library. He encourages them to use trade books, to focus on the active learning in science, not solely content, and to find the patterns, such as, sorting skulls into predator-prey groups by teeth shape or eye sockets (“eyes in front likes to hunt, eyes on sides likes to hide”).

 
Nancy Sableski spoke about the Arnold Arboretum in Boston—it is free, open 365 days a year, and is maintained and administered by the City of Boston and Harvard University. Some areas are “minimally curated”. She runs the Field Studies program with area public schools–2 hour field study in small groups with trained volunteers who love the natural world and love to share it. The volunteers are good models for preservice teachers who also go through the Field Studies program! I’m going to use this multi-sensory experience Sableski shared—students lie down on a tarp in a garden, blindfolded. They experience with their senses of hearing, smell, and touch (including feeling of the ground under them). Then they reflect on their observations by pairing with another and sharing their observations, and report back to the larger group. I wonder if young children will be comfortable lying on the ground and grass?
Edson noted the results of this partnership: develops confidence in students, students are more comfortable with the natural world because they participated as a student while watching and listening to the highly skilled volunteers modeling how to guide and teach (calm voices, curiosity, encouragement to look deeper, supportive). Students see the three leaders reaching out to each other for information and ask questions, working together, and being okay with asking a question and collaborating. The students now have direct connections to mentors and places for future support as they move into teaching positions in the area. They come back to the museum with friends to use the resources and take students to do research.
“Using Formative Assessment to Support Science Teaching and Learning in Pre-K” had the advantage of being one of the last sessions of the conference so participants were full of ideas and now comfortable discussing what they heard and what they thought. Cindy Hoisington, of Education Development Center, Inc. in Waltham, MA presented about a professional development program in science that uses formative assessment to build teachers’ science knowledge and skills and support young children’s science learning. She stated, and participants agreed, that language and science are so mutually supportive. Very simple prompts and questions can provoke a lot of responses from children to make their ideas and thoughts explicit. The underpinning of the work is George Forman’s quote, “Experience is not the best teacher…reflection on experience that makes it educational.” The teacher is central to promoting children’s reflection on their science experiences as well as his/her own reflection on teaching and learning.
The program, “Cultivating Young Scientists” is a collaboration with Connecticut Science Center in Hartford, CT. Teachers self-select and apply to be accepted. They have administrative support because their administrators were recruited first! The program includes guides (books) and professional development, building pedagogical content knowledge over 42 hours of instruction with group and individual mentoring. The pedagogical content knowledge was an overlapping of science content knowledge, knowledge of teaching frameworks and strategies, and knowledge of child development and learning. They use (and practice) an Inquiry Learning Cycle diagram that shows the dynamic spiraling structure of inquiry, Engage–Explore–Reflect—spiraling and continuing. Hoisington cautioned that children should have an opportunity to do these actions but teachers should not check each off action as children do it because they should be encouraged to return to it as inquiry progresses. Research from 2009-2013 saw huge gains in teaching capacity and and some gains in students’ science learning as well.
A paper based tool, a form for teachers to fill out as they work with small group of up to 4 students, was designed to promote teacher reflection on their children’s emerging theories and understanding, with space for recording children’s behavior and conversation in response to prompts, and attach photos and other writing. It asked what next steps they want to take.This reflection helps teachers make sense of the documentation, and determine what other indicators they see that reflect learning and children’s conceptual understanding. Hoisington talked about how teachers can find out children’s early understandings, or emergent conceptions, through science talk and reflection on their work. Once teachers know what children think, they can plan what to teach or experiences to provide.
A stimulating discussion took place throughout the session—thanks to Cindy for encouraging our questions! Read more about Cultivating Young Scientists at http://www.edc.org/projects/cultivating_young_scientists_expanding_foundations_science_literacy_cys
I could not possibly relate everything about my experience at the NSTA national conference in Boston that made me glad to be an early childhood science educator, but the highlights were learning from the presenters, discussion with other participants and getting a peek at the beautiful city of Boston. Thank you to all who contributed to this great professional development.

How can we decide if materials align with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)? How can we revise existing materials to better match the shifts in teaching and learning called for by A Framework for K-12 Science Education – Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (National Research Council) and the NGSS? The Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products (EQuIP) Rubric, developed jointly by NSTA and Achieve, is designed as a tool to give you support in this effort. It will also serve as a guide for you, should you wish to revise your materials to more closely align with the NGSS.

Many developers and publishers of science materials claim that their materials align with the NGSS and feature the NGSS performance expectations. And while some publishers will make legitimate attempts at modifying their materials to do an appropriate alignment, you will need to have the appropriate tool to judge which materials better represent the intent of the NGSS and which materials just really don’t match up. From the positive side, there are many groups and individuals who are designing and building materials to align with the NGSS, but even with the best of intentions many of these materials don’t match up. Why? Because it is just really hard to design materials that have disciplinary core ideas (DCIs), scientific and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts (CCCS) blended and working together for learners to make sense of phenomena and design solutions. It is even harder yet to use DCIs, practices, and CCCs blended together over time to help students attain the level of understanding needed to meet the proficiency in a targeted set of performance expectations (also commonly known as a bundle of performance expectations).

The EQuIP rubric provides us with a set of criteria to help us judge whether materials align with the NGSS. The EQuIP Rubric is still evolving. The criteria have been identified, and we are working to associate values with the criteria to indicate the extent to which they are met. Over time we will continue to enrich the EQuIP rubric with levels and examples.

Getting Started

To use the EQuIP rubric, you first need a solid understanding of the disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts, each of which is described in detail in the Framework. Understanding each of these dimensions is essential, but real transformation comes with understanding how these dimensions blend and work together; this is the critical and perhaps most important shift in the NGSS. The EQuIP rubric refers to this blending of DCIs, practices and CCCS as three-dimensional learning.

As you assess the three-dimensional aspect of a resource, you’ll notice that the EQuIP rubric is divided into three columns. The first column focuses on alignment with the NGSS. The first criteria in the alignment category points to the blending of the three dimensions mentioned earlier:

Elements of the science and engineering practice(s), disciplinary core idea(s), and crosscutting concept(s), blend and work together to support students in three-dimensional learning to make sense of phenomena or to design solutions.

If the lesson or unit you are judging don’t meet this criteria, there is no need to go on with an evaluation to discern if the materials align with NGSS or not. As such, you really need to understand the concept of three-dimensional learning. It represents an entirely new way of thinking about and enacting science teaching. It’s not as simple as using the practices and crosscutting concepts to help students understand the disciplinary core ideas. Rather, the three work together to help students make sense of phenomena or design solutions. Making sense of phenomena and designing solutions drives the teaching and learning process.

I like to apply the analogy of preparing a really great meal to three-dimensional learning. I originally got this idea from Ted Willard from NSTA. I love to cook, so I’ve tried to expand on this analogy. Think of knowing how to do various techniques in the kitchen like kneading bread, cutting tomatoes, beating an egg, frying or roasting, and so forth as the practices. You could know how to do all of these things and still not be able to prepare a really good meal. Now think of picking out really good ingredients for the meal. You want to pick out a high-quality piece of fish or poultry or excellent pasta for the meal. These are your core ideas. A disciplinary core idea is essential to explaining a number of phenomena. Your main ingredient is essential to the meal. But just as the DCI works with practices to make sense of phenomena and design solutions, you need to know how to cook that main ingredient. But something is still missing. The meal tastes bland. What is missing? To make a really good meal, we need to use spices and herbs to enhance the flavor of the main ingredients. Similarly, to really make sense of phenomena and to design solutions all three dimensions are necessary. To make a really wonderful meal, good main ingredients are necessary, but you need to know how to use various techniques to prepare them, and you must have the species and herbs to enhance the flavors. All three work and blend together to make a great meal. Similarly, to foster three-dimensional learning where all learners can make sense of phenomena and design solutions, all three dimensions need to work and blend together.

I hope this analogy helps you see how all three dimensions work together because it is the essential aspect of the EQuIP rubric. If this first major criterion isn’t met, there just isn’t any reason to proceed further. If the cooking analogy doesn’t make much sense to you, I would love to hear your analogy for three-dimensional learning. If you want to read more about three-dimensional learning, read or reread the Framework, the NGSS, and the Developing Assessments for the Next Generations of Science Standards (NRC, 2014) and focus on the idea of three-dimensional learning. One caveat that I will mention regarding three-dimensional learning is that crosscutting concepts might be more implicit than explicit in current materials that have really tried to align with NGSS. Why? Because it is difficult to include this dimension, and we still don’t have many really good examples of materials that blend all three dimensions together.

Instructional Supports

Of course, with respect to NGSS, what is also critical is that lessons are designed for three-dimensional learning and fit together coherently to help students build proficiency of a target set of performance expectations (more commonly known as a bundle of performance expectations). This is the second major criterion in column one. Developing a coherent storyline in which lessons fit together to support students in building proficiency of a targeted set of performance expectations is indeed a challenge. Remember that one lesson will never reach the level of proficiency necessary in a performance expectation. Building a coherent storyline in which you build toward meeting proficiency of a bundle of PEs that will support students in making sense of phenomena and design solutions is a critical aspect of aligning with NGSS. In so doing you will blend various practices with elements of core ideas and various crosscutting concepts.

If you think a resource is thus far aligned with the NGSS, you can use the other criteria in column 1 and the other two columns to further inspect the materials. Notice how the second column, Instructional Supports, focuses on instructional supports for all students. The writers of the NGSS designed the standards for all students in our country. Reaching all learners was an important focal point in developing the NGSS. All learners need to develop the conceptual tools to use knowledge to solve problems, innovate, make decisions, and learn and apply new information. All students need to develop proficiencies expressed in the performance expectations. To achieve this, we need to make sure that instructional materials and learning environments contain the instructional supports that will allow all children to grasp three-dimensional learning and build proficiency of the performance expectations.

All of the criteria listed in the EQuIP rubric are important, but I would like to elaborate on the criterion in column 2. Highlighting these criteria does not diminish the importance of the others. When the team of writers developed the rubric, we wrestled with each of the listed criteria. The ones that stand out for me are the following:

• Engages students in authentic and meaningful scenarios that reflect the practice of science and engineering as experienced in the real world and that provide students with a purpose.

This criterion encourages students to see purpose in learning and using science. The meaningful scenarios often involve students in experiencing a phenomenon they need to explain or defining a problem that needs to be solved.

• Develops deeper understanding of the practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts by identifying and building on students’ prior knowledge.

Linking new ideas to prior knowledge is critical in building understanding that students can use, and building a coherent storyline will not only develop understanding but will also foster engagement. Materials need to provide suggestions on how to support linking to and building on students’ prior ideas, experiences, and world views.

• Provides opportunities for students to express, clarify, justify, interpret, and represent their ideas and respond to peer and teacher feedback orally and/or in written form as appropriate to support student’s three-dimensional learning.

Literature on student learning presents strong evidence that when individuals express their ideas, they build their understanding (National Research Council 2007). Think back to the first year of your teaching and how much you learned as you struggled to clearly explain your ideas to students. By expressing your ideas, you were making links in your understanding. Materials need to provide suggestions on how to support learners in communicating their ideas.

• Provides guidance for teachers to support differentiated instruction in the classroom so that every student’s needs are addressed.

Knowing how to support the learning of a wide range of learners is essential if we hope to prepare students who can use and apply science ideas. Students come to our classrooms with different backgrounds and cultural experiences. Making science meaningful for this wide range of learners is a difficult charge. Instructional materials need to contain educative supports that provide a variety of approaches about how to work with learners from various backgrounds.

Monitoring Student Progress

I want to mention one criterion in the third column: Monitoring Student Progress. As you read column 3, notice the focus on assessing three-dimensional learning. The first and third bullets make specific reference to three-dimensional learning. In particular, the third bullet focuses on how formative assessments of three-dimensional learning should be embedded throughout instruction. This is a critically important shift in teaching. As teachers, we will be expected to assess three-dimensional learning as a routine part of classroom practice. These formative assessments will provide us with feedback about whether students are developing proficiency in the performance expectations we are building toward.

As the EQuIP rubric evolves, further elaboration and examples of the criteria will be added. But the criteria listed provide the best starting point we have to decide if curricular materials align or do not align with the intention of the NGSS. All publishers will say their materials align with NGSS. Don’t believe them, but rather use the EQuIP Rubric and your understanding of three-dimensional learning, disciplinary core ideas, scientific and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts to make your own informed decisions. Don’t be fooled by resources that have been superficially tagged as addressing performance expectations and being aligned with the NGSS. Rather ask yourself, “Do the lessons engage students using crosscutting concepts, core ideas, and scientific and engineering practices to make sense of phenomena or design solutions, building toward proficiency in a targeted set of performance expectations?” Make sure you can explicitly show others these clear examples of three-dimensional learning. If the materials do this one thing, then even if they are deficient in other areas, there is still the potential to modify or supplement those deficient areas of the materials to make them better aligned with NGSS.

Three-dimensional learning should look and feel different to you. I don’t want to say your current teaching does not resemble three-dimensional learning, but I know from walking into numerous classrooms that I seldom see it. I also know from various national surveys that U.S. students perform poorly in science. My understanding of three-dimensional learning has grown tremendously since I first started working on the Framework and then on the NGSS. The NGSS and three-dimensional learning should not only seem different, but in many respects it should seem revolutionary. The NGSS was informed by new research on how students learn best, so it was written to be different from how we taught in the past and it should shake up what is happening in science classrooms; otherwise there would be no reason to create something new, and the NGSS would not seem so challenging to implement.

This is my first professional blog. I would love to hear from you about this blog, your ideas, questions, and feedback. I would also love to hear from you about the EQuIP Rubric. The work on the EQuIP rubric has just started and there is much more work to be done, but the EQuIP Rubric does provide us with a tool to use to evaluate and design materials. To use it, we need to make sure we understand three-dimensional learning.

References

National Research Council. 2007. Taking science to school: Learning and teaching science in grades K–8. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

National Research Council. 2007. Ready, Set, SCIENCE!: Putting Research to Work in K–8 Science Classrooms. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Today’s guest blogger is Joe Krajcik, Professor of Science Education and Director for the CREATE for STEM Institute at Michigan State University. Joe was a physical science writing team leader for the NGSS; he is one of several educators who helped develop the EQuIP Rubric for Science. View and download the rubric and other resources from the NGSS@NSTA Hub, or view it on the official NGSS site.

I had a great conversation with an early-career teacher a few weeks ago. She was a “digital native”—armed with smart phone and ready to tweet. I admit, I’m a “digital immigrant” who re-examines every new device in order to evaluate whether it’s worth the price to buy and the time to use. We talked about polling in class. She uses an APP; students respond to questions during her classes from their seats with their phones. I use post-its—admittedly a bit Luddite, but as I argued, the students have to actually stand up and walk to the front whiteboard, and while they do they usually engage in conversation. Neither of us were sure we had the final answer, but the questions we raised remained with me for a long time.
Thirty years ago NSTA participated in the first major grant initiative to explore how computers could be used in science classrooms. The site was a family-friendly environmental camp; the tools were Apple IIes. Teachers spent long days trying to develop Basic and Logo programs that could help with review, experimentation, data analysis and simulation. The project leaders moved from station to station, with suggestions for problem-solving. So did my 8 year old son. When we encountered problems we couldn’t solve, one of the teachers would say: “My money’s on the kid.”
Using computers as instructional tools was a new idea then. Teachers proved very reluctant to accept their help. One of the underlying factors was the realization that there was a significant difference between the ability of young learners and the ability of their teachers to adapt.
Most of today’s science teachers are “digital immigrants” like me. (This term was introduced by author Mark Prensky, whose works on the topic are easy to find and valuable reading.) We may be enthusiastic and capable of learning new tech, but it doesn’t come naturally. And for most of us, it’s awkward to plan a lesson and simply “put our money on the kids.” By contrast, digital natives have never experienced a world with limits on where they could go or what they could explore on the Internet so they are not intimidated by perceived barriers.
For several decades there was very little research to back up the use of technology in classrooms. Now there is a body of empirical evidence that can guide even the most reluctant immigrant to create better learning environments with tech tools. That’s why I’d like to propose a series of blogs here to share both the possibilities and the evidence we have to guide our own work. Questions like the one at the top deserve thoughtful consideration. Hopefully, you’ll join in the discussion.
Teaching the Y’s and I’s
Each generation is influenced by both society and technology. We look back to the “Silent Generation” of the Great Depression, the “Boomers” who were born after WWII, and their children dubbed “Gen X” who benefitted from the economic growth post-war and the technologies that wartime research provided. There are differences within each group, of course, but they share many attitudes because of their common experiences.
Beginning with the “Gen Y” and “Millennial” generations (born since the computer invasion of the 1980s) we’ve seen not only a change in social and economic factors, but significant and measurable changes in how people learn. Here’s just one example: When I began teaching, there was a lot of emphasis on eye tracking and fine motor skills in language arts. We drilled reluctant readers in left-right tracking, spent hours on penmanship. Today’s GenY readers have significantly different skills and preferences. They like big graphics, less text, clickable hyperlinks. I first noticed this difference when I began to teach online coursework. The over-40 grad student was likely to expect a reading that could be printed on paper (so they could see how far they had read). The younger students wanted the reading online. (There are other differences in how they see that go beyond the space I could devote in the blog, but are embedded in the development of devices like the Kindle™.)
There’s even a new term for our elementary students today—the I Gen. (Some call them “screenagers.”) They were never alive before Facebook™ or YouTube™. You see them playing with smart phones in their high chairs in restaurants. They have never had to use a stand-alone calculator, a rotary dial phone, or a paper map. They are never out of touch with one another or the world at large. They spend more than 5 hours a day before screens, and consume enormous amounts of information in the process. Many of the “dogmas” we learned in our education courses, like the idea that virtual experiences are not real to young children (Piaget), are simply not true any longer. In Educational Leadership, Larry Rosen talks about Teaching the IGeneration. “Researchers also are studying how preschoolers and infants deal with media exposure, both made for them and the exposure they get when parents or siblings are in the same room, using video games, TV or other content.” He reminds readers that children who used to begin with books now are exposed to electronic media first.
Earning Our Citizenship
For veteran teachers, the challenge of the Ys and Is isn’t just learning new software. It’s learning to see the world through their eyes. We need to not only add 21^st Century Skills to their curriculum, but cut the lessons they no longer need—and that’s the hardest part! But Rosen and other researchers are optimistic: “…once teachers relegate much of the content dissemination to technology, they can spend class time more productively—helping students analyze, synthesize and assimilate material.”
In the blogs that follow, I’d like to raise questions like these:

• Living through an Avatar: Can children learn real-world skills in virtual environments?
• Navigating the Jungle: How do we teach children to evaluate and discriminate sources on the web?
• Dumbing and Dumping: Why do we now talk about “Death by Power Point?”
• Social media: Can we use them for instruction?
• Platforms: Online, hybrid, and supported face-to-face models
• Sense and Safety: How to select what you need and ignore what you don’t.

If you have other topics that you’d like to explore, please write me at Juliana.texley@nsta.org

Attendees of NSTA’s 2014 STEM Forum and Expo will be challenged to cook up a recipe for STEM success next month. No aprons will be required, though; this challenge focuses on a different mix of materials—the kind you’ll be able to use in class to whet your students’ appetites for science. NSTA’s STEM Iron Chef Competition starts on the evening of Wednesday May 14 in the Morial Convention Center. Come alone or bring friends, and be ready to collaborate! You’ll pick a challenge, and we’ll give you a set of secret ingredients to include in your solution. You can prepare your  feast on the spot, or you can meet with your group later—but be ready to turn in your final product by midnight on Thursday. On Friday, May 16, we’ll gather together and feature the top recipes for success in a fast-paced, engaging presentation. Teams will be challenged with creating one of the following meals in our “kitchen”:

I didn’t see the swan boats in the Public Garden or tea in the Harbor, but I did see many things—skylines, modern art, sunrises and fabulous sessions at the conference.


I got to use a Smart Pen, talk with other early childhood educators, draw a cricket, and hear inspiring talks.
It has taken me a few weeks to report on the conference as I adapted to only having an iPad and camera at the conference, and a busy family visit soon after. These summaries are from my notes and may not accurately reflect the presentations or the presenters’ views. Don’t delay, go to the Boston conference session schedule while it is still online and download the files from the presentations you attended, or wish you did.
Beginning on Thursday at 8am with “STEM Integration—Don’t Leave a Letter Out!” presented by Shannon K. McManus (Museum of Science: Boston, MA) the conference offered up many sessions addressing the full STEM. We handled and discussed various materials to use in making a wind sail before choosing materials to build a model to test. The activity is suggested for grades 1-5 but we adults enjoyed it as we tested it for its value for our classrooms.
The “ASTC Session: Teaching with Collections: Bringing the Next Generation Science Standards to Life” presented by Wendy Derjue-Holzer and Amy Gunzelmann (Harvard Museum of Natural History: Cambridge, MA), Wendy Hanlon (Atlantic Middle School: Quincy, MA) and Fran Ludwig (Retired Educator: Lexington, MA) had us practice learning through observations and discuss how to apply this to our classrooms. There was a selection of tree twigs to sort, match and identify, and a series of decomposition jars to view—part of an on-going investigation!
The keynote presentation by Mayim Bialik from the hit TV series The Big Bang Theory, “The Power of One Teacher,” was affirming. She was upstaged (in advance) by the student who introduced her, Nick Lombardo. He won the honor in an essay-writing contest sponsored by Texas Instruments but he won the audience with his perceptive and very funny comments about science teachers. Although science did not come naturally to Bialik, she was inspired by her biology teacher-tutor on the set of the Blossom TV series who taught her the skill set and gave her the confidence that she could become a scientist. See her speech on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2E5brNOzg8
The Exhibit Hall offered many diversions and I came away with free pens, a few purchases, and admiration for the many organizations supporting science education. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) was an exhibitor this year, supporting all the early childhood teachers who teach science along with all other areas.
After lunch, it was easy to stay wide awake as Christina Ryan, a former kindergarten teacher and current independent consultant in Round Rock, TX, presented a Wheelock Pathway Session, “No Hands! Facilitating Meaningful Science Discussions with Elementary Science.” The wonderful video examples of meaningful science discussions in a kindergarten classroom reinforced the ideas she presented about a collaborative scientific classroom community. Christina noted that such discussions were both planned and spontaneous—”When there was an opportunity, we allowed this [discussion ] to happen.” Using Jos Elestgeest’s* ideas in “The right question at the right time,” she found that in her practice too, “A good question is the first step toward an answer; is a problem to which there is a solution.” I wish I could share her video of the moments her students discovered and observed as their iguana laid an egg. Within their excitement they expressed many questions, wonderings and possible answers. Christina noted that there are often way more questions than you can discuss with the entire class and that’s okay. Some you will discuss with just one or a few children, and some “just hang there,” literally, on a Question Wall. They used classroom rules for discussion, including an assigned “inviter” to invite quiet people to speak. This role can be given to children who usually say a lot, allowing others to speak and the child to develop an awareness of sharing the speaking time. The teacher’s task was to be quiet and take notes.
*Elsteeg, Jos. (1985). The right question at the right time. In Wynne Harlen. Primary Science: Taking the Plunge. Oxford, England: Heinemann Educational, 36-46.

Friday morning was too short. By staffing a table at the Elementary Extravaganza session in a ballroom, I did not take time to wander among all the others, learning from the 100+ presenters who provided hands-on experiences along with time to answer questions and share strategies for teaching science concepts. One of the presenters, Carol Ann Brennan of the University of Hawaii: Honolulu, taught us about Wonder and Discover Books. This tool is a way to record children’s unanswered questions that are worthy of later attention. The tool can be formatted in a way that fits your classroom: a student science notebook, computer file, a binder or using a big book format. Each question has its own page for students and teachers to record on, both drawing and writing and photographys, with more questions, clarifications, observations and discoveries. She recommends learning more about how to move from observations to searchable and investigable questions by reading Weiss, Tarin Harrar Weiss’s 2013 article, “Any Questions?” in Science and Children 50 (9): 36-41. Learn more about Elementary Extravaganza presentations by downloading the handouts from the session scheduler—find it quickly by searching for “extravaganza.”
I presented with Beth Van Meeteren of the University of Northern Iowa on “Ramps and pathways,” a physical science and engineering activity that can become an exploration and investigation when children are given time to explore, supportive adults to promote questioning and problem-solving, and time to reflect on what they learned. I loved being able to hear how other early childhood educators use the materials or others in similar inquiries. Experiencing the possibilities ourselves is key to understanding what children can learn from using the materials so I was delighted to have so many participants build, roll, and re-build ramp structures as we talked. We heard from proud sons of mothers who are preschool teachers, engaged children and district science coordinators, and were supported by the adjoining NAEYC table! See the session schedule to download our handouts!
Moving materials from my EE table I missed the Council for Elementary Science International (CESI) session, “Family Science Events—Logistics, Engaging Science, and Parent Involvement” presented by Jim, Jackie Swanson, Kali Remelts, and Jenna Orr, all fromCentral Michigan University: Mount Pleasant, MI. But they generously uploaded files to the conference session schedule for our use. For more resources from CESI, visit http://www.cesiscience.org/
“Preschool STEM Family Night: A University, Preschool, and Community Partnership” involved all but the kitchen sink! Or maybe that was part of it too… The first group of preservice early childhood teachers sharing their plans for a preschool STEM family night used the theme “Kitchen Science” with activities using materials that are found in most kitchens, as a way to connect with families and encourage them to continue investigations at home. Thanks to Nicole Glen, Emma Lee Hunt, Allison Mooney and Emily Tuminelli, all from Bridgewater State University: Bridgewater, MA for your presentation.
The second group of presenters created a prezi to present about two community STEM events they organized, one more successful than the other. They outlined the steps and paths they took to create their “Building Family STEM Literacy” events. I appreciate hearing about the pitfalls and problems as well as the wildly successful events. Thanks to Ellen M. Streng and Madison B. Gearhart from Wright State University: Dayton, OH for this fabulous presentation! Their uploaded files include a checklist and activities.
Gail Laubenthal and Diana McMillain’s presentation, “Connecting Science Content Using Trade Books!”went deep into and well beyond the title content and introduced us to useful technology. We learned about a game that hones observational skills, “Is this your object?” Beginning with a group of objects, the students are led through a series of clues about attributes to guide them to eliminate objects until they can identify the intended object. The students are encouraged to discuss and defend their choices. For example, in one sort, the teacher provides 5 wooden objects: tree cookie/slice, small rectangular block, large rectangular block, acorn top, and a red wooden cube. The clues are: “It is not rectangular”, followed by “It is not rough.” Then we ask, “What is it? Why do you think that?” An answer: “Red cube, because it is smooth and not rectangular.”
Two apps they suggested are iLapse for recording a series of photos over hours, and ShowMe, a way to show children’s work as they create, using video. They also use the “Big Huge Labs” program online to create inspirational posters using their photos. The Smartpen from LiveScribe helps families connect with their children’s school work during visits to the classroom by recording conversations and dictation that relate to artwork or books. See handouts on session scheduler!
Kristen Wendell and Brandon Lee’s presentation, “Creating Digital Interactive Engineering Notebooks in a First Grade Classroom” related how they and their first grade students communicated their Bridge Design Project engineering work using the Storykit app. This app allows students to upload photos, drawings, text boxes and use multiple 1 minute audio recordings to record their work, their thoughts and later reflections and additional student work. The teachers were able to record guiding open-ended questions or comments, allowing them to go beyond the limitations of paper and pencil. They feel that writing in first grade doesn’t allow expression of deep ideas, and invented spelling may further obscure children’s thinking. (Note that to download the StoryKit app, search in the App store for “iPhone only” apps. StoryKit appears as an iPhone-only app, but it does download onto iPads.) But before they launched into their presentation, we got to play, using spaghetti, marshmallows and tape in the tower building activity. Wendell and Lee generously shared the hurdles they faced in trying out this tool in the weekly 40-min “specials” class, the successes and the “oops”. Very inspiring presentation, showing how engineering can fit into a standard first grade curriculum and it is available to download from the session schedule!
I got more engineering practice in the “Design it, Explore it!” session presented by Charles Hutchison from EDC, Inc. and Michael Koski of the Fitchburg Public Schools. They reviewed the NGSS engineering design standards for grades 1-5. They described engineering as “magic” because children get involved, get to fail, teachers may learn about the capacities of children who aren’t typically high level learners. We were cautioned that for some children, fear of failure is a huge threshold to cross. Hutchison suggested that when doing engineering design work, give set of constraints up front, ask questions of observation rather than cause, use what and how questions rather than why questions–What do you see? What materials will you use? How will this piece work? What are you trying to make happen?

 
 
 
 
We got to invent bridges to cross a 8.5″ wide “river” using 4 sheets of 8.5×11″ paper and just a little tape because it is “hugely expensive”, then test its strength with metal washers, pennies, a baggie and a paper cup (only to hold the load). Each group was assigned three jobs: materials person, scout/spy to look at other designs and find other ideas, and reporter. The scout job is important so students will feel comfortable using ideas they get from observing others, something that engineers do but is not promoted in schools.
We discussed what worked and what is a fair way to test the different designs. And the presenters discussed these important parts of the activity: teamwork, an activity that is open-ended with some constraints, including re-design as part of the process, building in failure, not giving answers, giving permission to scout which made it all about making our own design better over time not being the best, and using materials are relatively inexpensive.
Hutchinson and Koski modeled the teacher’s role—they visited each group three to five times for just a few minutes, asked open-ended questions, asked us to stay away from materials while we gave them attention, and avoided judgements. They suggest that if you can interrupt the students before they get finished or bored, they stay involved. One way to have students leave the materials alone during discussions, is to invite all students up to the board to discuss (away from materials). We were urged to prepare, pace, create interest, engage, promote and lead discussions, find conclusions and support sharing. What we did in less than an hour is designed to do over four or more sessions.
I’d love to hear about sessions you found inspiring and worthy of review. Post a comment to spread the word about your own session or that of others. I’ll report on more sessions in my next post.