Why must we meet so much as a physics team when I need time alone to prepare for my classes?

—M., Indiana

Regularly meeting as a collaborative team, department, or content area is extremely beneficial to teachers and, most importantly, essential to the outcome of student success. When science teachers collaborate, it allows for what I call the 3Ds: Design, Dig, and Discuss. Collaborating allows science teachers to design lessons together. It is much easier to create and assess assignments, projects and laboratory activities that engage and evaluate the learning of students as you ensure that your group meets the performance expectations of the curriculum. Common planning and common assignments create opportunities to dig through data together to determine which instructional strategies effectively enhance the student experience. This helps you and your team understand your students’ processing and thinking and discover patterns and trends in student learning. You can clarify misconceptions.  Coming together as a team enriches our practice as we discuss student work. Analyzing student work helps the team identify where students are in their learning. You may notice something that your colleagues do not and vice versa; the feedback can help to guide your instruction. When we take these conversations into the classroom with our students, our learners get the opportunity to see exemplars and understand what “meet performance expectations” actually does or does not look like. As our ultimate goal of teaching is student ownership of earning, we must start with the fundamentals of collaboration. The more teachers plan, the more they learn how to best serve their students.

Image by geralt from Pixabay

Written by Debbie Ericksen

Learning about the NGSS 3D Framework and what it means for the teaching and learning process within my elementary classroom has been an amazing journey that continues to this day. I confess I’ve become an NGSS geek. Some might find that surprising for a person who doesn’t have a degree in science. My transformation began seven years ago when I attended the ExxonMobil Teachers Academy. That experience taught me that Science can be fun not only for my students but for me, too! In the years that followed, I had many opportunities to learn science content and pedagogy. Many visits to the NGSS@NSTA website, lots of reading, attendance at conferences, workshops, and district PD were resources that were invaluable to my development as a science teacher. However, one resource that has provided a very unique learning opportunity for me and my colleagues is the development of the Teacher Cohort within our school. It is highly reflective and collaborative in nature and provides us with insight into our instructional practices and a better understanding of the “big” picture. My hope is that in sharing our experience, you will be inspired to participate in a cohort of your own. My school houses PreK-Grade 4 and has a student population that is culturally and economically diverse. When we first organized the cohort three years ago, we thought it was really important to have a representative from each grade level, if possible. This year, we have finally achieved full representation which includes the Special Education and ELL programs. The reason this is so important is that it establishes a network of teachers who can vertically articulate with each other and then communicate their learning and discoveries with the rest of their grade-level teams.

The next step for us was to have an organization meeting to establish norms and to think about personal goals (Ex: deepening understanding of practices and crosscutting concepts, how to develop lessons that support the framework, strategies to support student learning within the new framework, addressing challenges in instruction – to name a few).  Our norms include the process we will follow: questions about the lesson to provide clarification, what we noticed, what we wonder, time for the teacher that was observed to reflect, recommendations/suggestions for future lessons, and questions we want to follow up on in future lessons.

We also set up a tentative schedule for classroom visits. These visits are non-evaluative in nature. They are informal visits for members to observe the instructional process and student learning. We often interact with the students and always take notes on what we see. Those notes are used for discussion purposes in the post-visit reflection and discussion. After the lesson is over, we meet in a conference room to begin the reflection/discussion process. The teacher who led the lesson brings any student work that was generated so that we can all evaluate and discuss what their work tells us and how it can impact future instruction. We follow the norms and format established in the organization meeting. While we are out of the classroom, staff coverage or substitutes are provided for our students. Based on our discussion and the learning needs of the cohort participants, we establish the focus for the next class visit.

This year, we are revising the cohort process based on teacher learning needs. Some of us feel that we would benefit most from a class visit/reflection and others want to focus on student work from a prior lesson that will inform the instruction in future lessons. For the latter, the participating teacher will provide insight to the other members on what worked well and what didn’t and how it can be improved. One teacher has requested, based on last year’s lesson outcome, to focus on improving the same lesson for this year’s students. As you can see, we have refined the process to be responsive to the needs of individual teachers (just like we do for our students).

It should also be noted that teachers participate in the cohort by choice and, if they are interested, can remain for two years. Then, we change the members so that the learning can expand horizontally as well as vertically. My role in the cohort has been not only as a learner but also as a facilitator so that we are consistent with our practices from one cohort to another.

The NGSS teacher cohort has had a notable and significant impact on each of our classrooms. Participants come eager to learn and are excited to see what other grade levels are doing. That excitement is contagious and our students catch it! We have developed a deeper understanding of the learning our students engage in before they get to our grade level and, for some of us, we get to see how our instruction connects with the next grade level. This understanding helps us to identify and apply common language within our classrooms. Another benefit of participating in the cohort is that we are inspired by our colleagues. We walk away with a treasure trove of ideas and rely on each other as a professional support system as we design our science instruction. Finally, we are able to share strategies that have helped our students engage in authentic science learning and helps them to figure out the world around them. When teachers have an opportunity to reflect and learn from each other, our students are the ultimate beneficiaries.

Unlike science teachers, non-science educators have little to no training in hazard analysis, risk assessment, or safety-related issues. As a result, non-science employees, such as teachers of other subjects or special education and paraprofessionals, need to learn about the duty or standard of care before entering the science classroom or lab. Otherwise science teachers could be liable should the non-science professionals or students become injured in the science lab.

A safer working environment

There are a number of legal safety standards and better professional safety practices that apply to both students and any school employee working in a science laboratory. To begin, many OSHA safety standards are applicable to employees working in science labs or any other area where there are potentially hazardous chemicals. For example, according to OSHA, the purpose of the Hazard Communication Standard 29 CFR 1910.1200 (HCS) is “to ensure that the hazards of all chemicals produced or imported are evaluated and details regarding their hazards are transmitted to employers and employees.”

Few administrators or supervisors in school follow the basic principles of the HazCom Standard. They fail to transmit the chemical hazard details via formal staff training. In other words, non-science teachers assigned to science labs lack the awareness and understanding of chemical hazards and resulting risks present in the science lab. Hazards can arise in the classroom even if the non-science teacher does not directly work with the chemicals. For example, a non-science professional might not be prepared if a bottle of alcohol or acid inadvertently smashed and splashed a laboratory occupant. Another example is a gas leak. A science educator would know where to locate the master gas shutoff, but a math teacher might need assistance due to a lack of training.

Many OSHA standards also provide rules that protect workers in laboratories from chemical, biological, physical, and safety hazards. For example, there can be potential exposures to electrical hazards resulting from faulty electrical equipment/instrumentation or wiring, damaged receptacles and connectors, or unsafe work practices. Students off-task playing with electrical sources could potentially receive electrical shock or even worse – electrocution!

Finally, Non-science professionals should also learn about the OSHA general duty clause. Section 5(a)(1) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act requires employers to provide their employees with a workplace that is free from recognized hazards that are likely to cause death or serious physical harm. With the known potential hazards in the science lab and no other standard applies to the particular hazard, the general duty clause can apply when the employer’s own employees are exposed to the alleged hazard. All the following elements are necessary for OSHA to prove a general duty clause violation:
• The employer fails to keep the workplace free of a hazard to which its employees were exposed.
• The hazard was recognized.
• The hazard was likely to cause death or serious physical harm.
• There was a feasible and useful method to correct the hazard.

In the end

A non-science who works in a science lab is a recognized hazard that could potentially cause serious physical harm to occupants. Without appropriate safety training, there is shared liability for the science teacher responsible for the science lab, the non-science teacher instructing a non-science class in the lab and the administrators if that non-science employee or their students get hurt in science lab. Teachers need to share this information in writing with their administrators/supervisors should the situation arise.

Submit questions regarding safety to Ken Roy at safersci@gmail.com or leave him a comment below. Follow Ken Roy on Twitter: @drroysafersci.

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My third-grade class created models of plant and animal cells with various items that they found around the house. Many of the kids did a great job, and their projects were very colorful. I brought samples to my Professional Learning Community (PLC). As we discussed the students’ work, I could not understand why my colleagues thought the work was not rigorous enough.

—D., Kentucky

The essence of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) is increasing the rigor of student work, in part through performance expectations that deepen student thinking. Models are no longer considered 2-D or 3-D representations for identification, but as representations with a purpose. The performance expectation at the upper-elementary level is for students to not only identify a model’s parts or demonstrate its functions, but also to apply their content knowledge by predicting limitations or the results of manipulations. If your students created plant and animal cells missing an organelle of their choice, would they be able to predict how the missing organelle affects the entire cell? The students would demonstrate their ability to identify parts of the cell and their understanding of the organelle’s functions and importance to the cell as a whole.

Models can bring a concept to life by using analogies with them. What if your students created an analogy for each organelle to help describe its function? For example, “The cell membrane is like a sandwich bag, and cytoplasm is like gelatin.” Students could collaboratively discuss their analogies to determine how to construct a model with items that best represent the organelles’ functions.

NSTA provides many resources to help us understand the progression of thinking that students are expected to demonstrate as we facilitate their comprehension and help them understand how they are learning in a progressive manner. Developing and Using Models from the NGSS@NSTA Hub could be particularly useful here.

How can I keep my students more engaged in their science cooperative learning groups?

—A., California

Group working must be intentional. Defined roles help students keep one another accountable. They have to see and care that if they do not do their parts, the group will not reach its full potential. One way I helped increase engagement was using props for the designated roles. For example, group leaders or “principal scientists” wore lab coats, which enhanced the appeal of the role. Because group leaders need to speak in positive and encouraging ways, this helped me also teach soft skills such as positive verbal communication. We practiced sentence stems to help guide the group.

Students also liked the “observer” role. This student documented how well the group worked together. We discussed what a good functioning group looked and sounded like. Along with the checklist, this person received a pair of oversized party glasses. The “safety manager” wore a hard hat and safety vest.

These props kept safety on everyone’s mind at all times. At the end of a group activity, students rated how well each task was performed, with the focus on the role, not who held the role. This helped them understand that group work is not personal. Group accountability determines the group’s success.

NSTA Press authors offer a rich selection of fresh lessons and strategies in their newest books, and you can download samples from each of them through the online Science Store. From Patrick Brown’s Instructional Sequence Matters, Grades 3–5: Explore Before Explain, download the lesson “A Natural Storyline for Learning About Ecosystems” to help your third-grade students develop their ideas about living things and Earth’s systems.

If you’re seeking updated strategies on supporting students as they learn about natural selection and evolution, download “Science and Religion in Middle and High School Classrooms” from Joseph Shane and colleagues’ Making Sense of Science and Religion: Strategies for the Classroom and Beyond. This chapter guides teachers to open up the classroom by allowing students to examine the scientific evidence for evolution and how scientists explain that evidence through carefully constructed activities that keep the focus on understanding.

To preview all the newest NSTA Press books, visit the New Releases page and click over to each book’s page to “Read Inside.”

Last Days to Receive Free Shipping on Your Book Orders

Between now and October 31, 2019, receive free shipping on purchases of $75 or more with promo code SHIP19 when you order through the online Science Store. Browse our Fall 2019 digital catalog to see all of NSTA Press’s resources for grades K through college, including bestselling series and children’s trade books.

Become an NSTA Book Club Member

NSTA Book Club Membership offers all the outstanding benefits of an individual, regular membership with our bestselling NSTA Press books. Members can select three books from a list of 30 NSTA Press top-sellers. These high-quality, award-winning titles span different grade levels and subject areas within science education. NSTA Book Club Membership is $130, which includes one year of NSTA membership and a savings of up to 50% off the list price of three books.

Join NSTA Press Authors for Workshops at a Fall 2019 NSTA Area Conference

Registration is open for NSTA Area Conferences this fall in Salt Lake City, Cincinnati, and Seattle. Join NSTA Press authors at all three area conferences this year for workshops inspired by their books and learn more about the strategies and lessons featured in our K–12 teaching resources.

When informal science institutions (ISIs) offer professional learning opportunities to teachers to support science in schools, they create the potential for dynamic science educators and classrooms that can support high-quality science learning for students. Our field recognizes that it is critical for teachers to participate in ongoing, integrated professional learning that builds teacher knowledge, interest, confidence, and skill for science instruction. Often these professional learning opportunities address timely, relevant topics in an engaging way to educators and draw from the expertise and research of ISIs.

Our own research at the Lawrence Hall of Science (the Hall) indicates that ISI-led professional learning opportunities are unique and attractive for teachers in distinct ways. Teachers report that they seek out ISI-led professional learning as sources for inspiration, depth of expertise, and high-quality facilitation. Informal education professional learning settings promote a sense of authenticity and can promote change in teacher instructional practice, supporting increased interest and curiosity among learners in the classroom and giving teachers insight on what Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) science instruction looks like. We know high-quality professional learning for teachers is essential. We also know the system in which teachers work must also be addressed to ensure teachers have the opportunity to enact their learnings in the context of the classroom. 

Research tells us that successful NGSS implementation within school districts requires a sustained and coordinated effort, leadership at all levels, and both immediate and long-term changes over a course of multiple years. Districts and schools must have instructional leadership and infrastructure focused on science, and equitable science instruction must be an obvious and explicit priority. Rigorous standards, like the NGSS, are needed to guide a coherent system of curriculum, instruction, assessment, teacher preparation, and professional development. Instructional materials, the classroom, outdoor learning experiences, and field trips should give students opportunities to learn science by engaging in the practices of science that approximate what scientists actually do. Districts and schools must develop and align policies to support science education. External/community resources and partnerships should be strategically prioritized to achieve district science goals.

Drawing on systems-level and organizational change efforts, we created a program, BaySci, that assists districts in building system-wide capacity for supporting high-quality, equitable science education through well-designed professional learning experiences for district leaders and teachers. For more than a decade, it has remained a partnership among science education leaders, districts, schools, and teachers who are committed to improving the quantity and quality of K–12 science teaching to provide meaningful access to equitable science learning opportunities in districts and schools. BaySci is one of a handful of efforts engaging in this work through systematic district-level capacity building, working closely with district administrators/leaders, principals, and K–12 teacher leaders to implement the NGSS and progress toward achieving coherence between NGSS and the Common Core State Standards. The theory behind the BaySci effort is stated very simply:

1. Student success and engagement in K–12 NGSS-aligned science depends upon classrooms that provide a steady and daily diet of high-quality NGSS science instruction.
2. Good classroom instruction in every classroom in the district depends upon the presence of a solid district-wide, K–12 science program. Such a program includes good curriculum, readily available and well-designed materials, equitable secondary course sequences, and supportive professional learning activities.
3. To establish such a program is a complex undertaking. Few districts across the United States can boast of a high-quality K–12 NGSS-aligned science program that reaches all of its students. To introduce such a program and sustain it, the attention of leaders at many levels in the district is required. A district must develop a set of capacities—each of which is necessary, but not sufficient—to create a high-quality, standards-based district-wide K–12 science program.

What does “capacity-building” look like in the context of NGSS implementation at the district and school level?

BaySci support for district capacity-building includes increasing the prominence of and priority placed on science by district administrators, principals, and teachers through the creation and sustainability of a strong and coherent vision for science education. Another support and related capacity is increasing district leadership for science among superintendents, associate superintendents, and curriculum and instruction directors. In particular, we ask these leaders to become part of the district science leadership team that will lead the development and implementation of district-level plans for science and NGSS implementation. These leaders, with their perspectives and responsibilities, are asked to bring a mindset of systematically removing barriers to science improvement and implementation in the district. We encourage our district partners to consider the composition of the district science leadership team, and include members of or advocates for the vulnerable and marginalized groups of the communities they serve who often receive little to no science and may be disenfranchised from science. As we support and plan with the team and develop designs and solutions for the district science program, we consider the needs/perspectives of those on the margins of the district science program.

More recently, with the ongoing implementation of the NGSS, our support to our K–12 district teams has focused on course access at the high school level for various identified student groups. Currently, access to high-quality, standards-based learning opportunities in secondary science courses is often inequitable. This has serious consequences, as students without access to NGSS-aligned courses are less likely to complete high school with enough knowledge and/or credits that make them “college- and career-ready.”

Our most vulnerable populations—e.g., students of color, those receiving free or reduced-price lunch (low-income), English Learners, foster youth, homeless—are the most likely to be impacted by this lack of equity. Research tells us that only 54% of high school graduates complete the science entrance requirements for state universities and colleges (Gao and Johnson 2017). African American and Latino students disproportionately attend high schools with lower completion rates (Gao 2016). Career and Technical Education (CTE) pathways, in which underrepresented students are overrepresented (Wolzinger and O’Lawrence 2018), may not be aligned to NGSS, unlike other “core” science courses taken by most high school students (e.g., Biology + Earth/Space Science; Chemistry + Earth/Space Science; Physics + Earth/Space Science).

In addition, idiosyncratic course placement practices may occur. For example, counselors have been reported to advise students to select non-NGSS-aligned ninth-grade science courses, missing the opportunity for students to begin NGSS-aligned learning in high school early on. Uncovering historical and current practices related to science course access and analysis of student data is the first step in helping our districts identify the current reality of school and district practices for supporting secondary science learning opportunities for all student groups.

School systems require time and space for unpacking explicit and tacit practices that exist around student science learning trajectories in high school, the variability of which is well known but seldom discussed. Education leaders, school administrators, and researchers must examine and revise policies and practices in schools and districts so that existing inequities are better understood and can eventually be eliminated (NRC 2007). The work of district capacity-building for science through the Hall’s BaySci effort highlights the unique role and value-add that informal science institutions/science centers play within the professional learning and capacity-building landscape. Unique affordances of ISI-led partnerships with schools and districts exist for designing effective engagement of all players within the larger systems and contexts in which they reside. When ISIs develop genuine partnerships with educators, schools, and districts, we believe science education expertise, leadership, and capacity is increased.

References

 Gao, N. 2016. College readiness in California: A look at rigorous high school course-taking. Public Policy Institute of California. www.ppic.org/publication/college-readiness-in-california-a-look-at-rigorous-high-school-course-taking.

Gao, N., and H. Johnson. 2017.  Improving college pathways in California. San Francisco, CA: Public Policy Institute of California. www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/r_1117ngr.pdf.

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

NGSS Lead States. 2013. Appendix D: All standards, all students: Making Next Generation Science Standards accessible to all students.  In Next Generation Science Standards: For states, by states. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. www.nextgenscience.org/next-generation-science-standards.

Wolzinger, R., and H. O’Lawrence. 2018. Student characteristics and enrollment in a CTE pathway predict transfer readiness. Pedagogical Research 3 (2): 08. 

About the Lawrence Hall of Science: At the Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley, we create, disseminate, and evaluate high-quality educational materials, professional development programs, and hands-on learning experiences in math and science for educational centers, districts, schools, community-based organizations, and homes. Hall staff, programs, and materials support educators and learners across the science, technology, engineering, and math  (STEM) learning continuum. Since opening in 1968, the Hall has provided quality hands-on learning experiences to more than 137 million students, educators, and families in the Bay Area and worldwide. Visit the Hall and BaySci at www.lawrencehallofscience.org/ngss and www.baysci.org.

Dr. Vanessa Lujan is deputy director of the Learning and Teaching Group at the Lawrence Hall of Science, focused on supporting capacity-building among leaders and educators to provide high-quality science, math, and environmental learning experiences in both formal and informal learning environments, including K-12 schools, school districts, universities, science centers and other educational organizations and non-profits. Lujan is also program director of a California statewide initiative to help support district-wide capacity building for the implementation of high-quality STEM education and environmental literacy, titled BaySci. Lujan has a Ph.D. and M.A. in Science Education from the University of Texas at Austin, and a B.A. in Human Biology from Stanford University.

Note: This article is featured in the October 2019 issue of Next Gen Navigator, a monthly e-newsletter from NSTA delivering information, insights, resources, and professional learning opportunities for science educators by science educators on the Next Generation Science Standards and three-dimensional instruction.  Click here to sign up to receive the Navigator every month.

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

Out-of-School Time (OST) organizations play a vital role in our education system by providing youth with ways of discovering and exploring the world of STEM that complement the learning they experience during the school day. But OST programs often face hurdles in implementation, particularly when educators charged with facilitation may lack a strong background in the subject matter.

 We kept these educators foremost in our minds while designing DIY Universe, a new way of engaging with research findings and data from NASA’s Great Observatories and other major NASA astrophysics missions, developed by the Christa McAuliffe Center for Integrated Science Learning at Framingham State University. DIY Universe is an online program for middle and high school youth and their educators, designed for OST settings, but available to educators and parents to use in any learning environment.

The goal of DIY Universe is to give OST educators—no matter what their background in Earth and space science concepts is—a robust, yet flexible, pedagogical scaffolding that allows them to facilitate meaningful learning experiences with their youth. This approach aims to remove the barriers that often discourage OST educators from effectively implementing NASA materials and other high-quality resources, and to lower the probability of introducing misconceptions.

By using DIY Universe, youth can develop their own understanding of how our universe works, motivated by the challenge to share their own knowledge through a personalized exhibit they create. Before OST educators guide their youth through the DIY Universe program, however, they must develop some confidence with its compendium of selected NASA Universe of Learning (UoL) online reference materials. Confidence is borne of competence, and this need can be addressed with scaffolding in the form of “Road Maps” for both educators and youth.

The program is designed to offer OST educators access to NASA’s UoL materials, while providing guidance on what resources to use and how. Road Maps facilitate a structured and tailored investigation of the main themes that are the focus of NASA’s UoL: Life and Death of Stars, Origin/History of the Universe, and Other Solar Systems/Other Earths. Each Road Map follows an accessible and age-appropriate learning task sequence that leaves plenty of room for personal exploration.

DIY Universe implements aspects of all three pillars of NGSS’s three-dimensional learning model. Science and Engineering Practices, including obtaining, evaluating, and communicating data, are essential to the work that culminates with a well-designed exhibit. Crosscutting concepts such as stability and change, energy and matter, and systems and system models are explored in the context of each of the program’s main science themes, as are the Disciplinary Core Ideas, which address the content knowledge associated with physics, astronomy, and astrobiology.

“Tool Kits”—one for youth and another, more comprehensive one for educators—complement the Road Maps by providing a selection of NASA resources that introduce the specific science themes and foundational tools needed to develop the project. Once youth choose a theme, the Road Map specific to that theme guides them in the step-by-step creation of a unique and very personalized exhibit they can proudly share with family and friends.

Resources provided within DIY Universe include data and images from Chandra X-ray Observatory, Solar Dynamic Observatory, and Hubble Space Telescope, and other science resources made available through several NASA websites, including Space Place, Exoplanet Exploration, Universe Unplugged, Imagine the Universe, and ViewSpace.

OST educators gain access to other powerful STEM resources through DIY Universe as well, including the MicroObservatory Robotic Telescope Network operated by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), the extensive resource guide from Girls STEM Ahead, and video resources from PBS Learning Media/NOVA Labs Collection.

The McAuliffe Center will begin disseminating the program through national OST networks, statewide afterschool networks, and the national network of Challenger Learning Centers, of which the McAuliffe Center is a member. It is currently being introduced to several regular partners of the McAuliffe Center, including Massachusetts-based sites of Girls Inc. and Massachusetts Boys and Girls Clubs. Ultimately, the center will share the program through its membership in NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Museum Alliance, which will make the website available to both museums and traditional OST sites and at the NSTA Boston National Conference in April 2020.

DIY Universe was developed over two years by McAuliffe Center staff and Framingham State University interns, who researched the materials, provided feedback on the scaffolding of the activities, and designed the website and logo. The interns were supervised by project coordinator Dr. Julia Abbott, with support from McAuliffe Center Project Manager Evan Pagliuca. Dr. Irene Porro served as the director and subject-matter expert for this project. Work on the DIY Universe project is supported by NASA’s Universe of Learning, which is funded by NASA under award number NNX16AC65A.

Dr. Irene Porro is the director of the Christa Corrigan McAuliffe Center at Framingham State University. The center was established by McAuliffe’s alma mater to honor her commitment to future generations through teaching. Today, the center’s mission is to be a leader in developing opportunities for integrated STEM learning through the sharing of resources, building of partnerships, and advancement of best educational practices.

A native of Torino, Italy, Porro received her PhD in Space Science and Technology from the University of Padova, Italy. Before entering the field of education, she was a researcher in astrophysics at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Max Planck Institut für Astronomie in Heidelberg, Germany. She then joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she served as director of the Education and Outreach Group of the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.

Note: This article is featured in the October 2019 issue of Next Gen Navigator, a monthly e-newsletter from NSTA delivering information, insights, resources, and professional learning opportunities for science educators by science educators on the Next Generation Science Standards and three-dimensional instruction.  Click here to sign up to receive the Navigator every month.

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

The Wade Institute for Science Education has long valued the power of informal institutions to create precisely the kind of student-led inquiry-based learning and real-world problem solving envisaged by the three-dimensional learning of NGSS. Through our Professional Development Institutes and Customized Professional Learning Services, The Wade Institute delivers professional development (PD) experiences that maximize the impact of the informal institutions and other STEM stakeholders within a region. In the organization’s 33-year history, we have worked with more than 150 partners and collaborators, ranging from museums, nature centers, science and technology centers, zoos, and aquaria to institutions of higher education, engineering companies, and other cultural and educational organizations. Our work is based on the strong belief that informal learning environments, and the institutions that help create them, are an important complement to the learning happening in classrooms.

Phenomena-based learning, the gold standard of NGSS, stresses the importance of engaging kids in investigating questions and problems that are relevant to their own experience in the real world. When crafting our Summer Professional Development Institutes, we work with 3–5 partners in various regions across the state to develop programming focused on locally relevant, observable phenomena. With each partner organization hosting the course for one or two days over the course of the week, teachers may find themselves visiting labs or local industries, conversing with scientists about current research, and learning sampling techniques at field sites of local researchers, nature centers, and environmental education organizations.

While our programs are offered to teachers across the K–12 grade span, middle school teachers comprise the majority of our participants. The experiences provided by the institutes model the kind of active, real-world engagement that is critical for middle school students as their personal identities with science become more fixed and they begin exploring career interests. The Summer Institutes also explore a broad scope of content that provides an ideal lens for the NGSS Crosscutting Concepts that link the middle school frameworks. During this summer’s institute on Cape Cod, for example, teachers investigated the interplay between stability and change as they talked with local researchers about the dynamic relationship between local seal and shark populations and how these changing populations have impacted the tourist industry. In previous years, teachers north of Boston have looked for evidence of energy and matter cycles in aquatic ecosystems as they learned field-sampling techniques on the Ipswich River. In several institutes across the state, teachers have visited the production floor of an engineering facility in their community, seeing firsthand how issues of quantity and scale affect various aspects of the research and development (R&D) processes.

When the institute concludes, teachers develop investigations for their classrooms that incorporate the real-world problems and questions they encountered throughout the week. Seeing examples of how scientists and engineers work gives teachers a better context to bring the Science and Engineering Practices alive in their classrooms, engaging students in authentic investigation that mirrors the learning and thinking that happens in labs, field studies, and R&D facilities. With a broader awareness of their region’s science and engineering enterprises, teachers are also well equipped to create learning experiences that leverage natural and human-made phenomena found in their own communities. Our collaborating partners become resources for teachers throughout the academic year, providing opportunities for both on-site and classroom programs for schools, as well as additional resource support.

During the school year, we bring the collaborative learning experiences into the classroom with our Customized Professional Learning Services, designed to help teachers navigate the standards, implement the Science and Engineering Practices, and promote a higher level of student-led, hands-on, minds-on inquiry in the classroom. These services are tailored to schools’ individual needs, but they draw on the best experiences we have developed through work with our informal education collaborators.

Our collaborative partnership model has offered a powerful approach to creating professional learning experiences for teachers that maximize the impact of the diverse resources within a region. Informal educators bring a wide range of expertise in science content and a variety of perspectives on inquiry-based pedagogy. They introduce teachers to a wealth of local resources that can provide direct experience with compelling, locally relevant phenomena. They help teachers see what science and engineering look like in the real world. The Wade Institute for Science Education works with these partners and collaborators to develop programs that interweave thematic STEM content with inquiry-based pedagogy and support in navigating and connecting with the standards. Teachers leave programs with new tools to use in their classrooms and an enhanced capacity for designing hands-on, minds-on, inquiry-based investigations that integrate the Science and Engineering Practices into student learning in an authentic and meaningful way.

Angela Damery is Director of Education for the Wade Institute for Science Education in Quincy, Massachusetts. She has spent the greater part of her career working as an informal educator, most recently as the Program Manager of Exhibit Interpretation at the Museum of Science, Boston. She also taught seventh-grade math and science at Rising Tide Charter Public School in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Damery is passionate about creating learning experiences that allow kids learn to be curious thinkers and creative problem solvers, and her experiences as an educator both in and out of the classroom have led her to a strong conviction that rich informal learning experiences provide an essential foundation for effective classroom education.

Note: This article is featured in the October 2019 issue of Next Gen Navigator, a monthly e-newsletter from NSTA delivering information, insights, resources, and professional learning opportunities for science educators by science educators on the Next Generation Science Standards and three-dimensional instruction.  Click here to sign up to receive the Navigator every month.

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.