What professional development strategies are needed for successful implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards?

Reiser, B. (2013). What professional development strategies are needed for successful implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards? Education Testing Service.

Kirsten Rooks

No unread replies.No replies.

Though there are many similarities between the NGSS and previous science standards and/or benchmarks, the differences between them indicate a significant and fundamental change in the way that students are going to learn science, which will require a significant shift in the science teaching practices, which will, in turn, require a a significant “change in (teachers’) beliefs, attitudes, and understanding that underlie these practices.” (Reiser, 2)  

A Framework for K-12 Science Education sums up the “to do” list required of teachers to properly implement NGSS. “Teachers at all levels must understand the scientific and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas; how students learn them; and the range of instructional strategies that can support their learning. Furthermore, teachers need to learn how to use student-developed models, classroom discourse, and other formative assessment approaches to gauge student thinking and design further instruction based on it.” (Framework, 256)

Reiser breaks these tasks down into three significant shifts in the ways teachers teach science. After reviewing some of the key research-based findings about what constitutes effective professional development, he offers three general recommendations to guide the professional development changes that will be required to effectively implement the NGSS-based reforms. 

• Teaching shift 1: The goal of instruction needs to shift from facts to explaining phenomena.The goal of science education is changing from students building a body of fact-based knowledge to students building knowledge from evidence to figure out “scientific ideas that explain how and why phenomena occur.” (p 3) This type of knowledge building involves an cyclic process of focusing on a broad phenomenon that requires explanation. To answer these broad questions, students must carry out investigations, the results of which guide them to create explanatory models, which will ultimately offer an explanation for the original phenomenon. 
• Teaching shift 2: Inquiry is not a separate activity - all science learning should involve engaging in practices to build and use knowledge. With the NGSS, scientific practices are the means by which students make sense of phenomena rather than a mere opportunity to do “hands-on-science.” These practices drive the cyclic process above. They are also wedded to students working collaboratively and engaging in scientific discourse. These two elements are not merely classroom management techniques designed to help engage all students, but they are necessary for students to engage in evidence-backed argumentation and explanatory modeling that ultimately guide students’ knowledge building. 
• Teaching shift 3: Teaching involves building a coherent storyline across time. To effectively guide students as they build knowledge through these NGSS practices, teachers will be required to know how to “introduce phenomena that can raise questions, uncover problems with existing explanations students may have, and help tease apart competing explanations through argument.” (p 9)

Reiser then highlights four research-based findings about what makes effective professional development. 

• PD should be embedded in subject matter. PD that focuses on generic pedagogical topics such as classroom management or employing higher order thinking skills will not be nearly as effective as PD that is built around actual NGSS practices. 
• PD needs to involve active learning. Rather than passively take in information, teachers need to actively analyze scenarios and apply the strategies to their own teaching situations. The initial PD must be extensive and intensive with follow-up PD spread out over a year. 
• PD needs to be connected to teachers’ own practices. Teachers need to be able to apply and reflect on what they learn to their own classrooms. This is more effective is done collaboratively.
• PD needs to be part of a coherent system of support. In order to implement the reform completely, the PD needs to focus on creating coherence between the teacher’s beliefs and the goal of learning of NGSS as well as alignment of the changed standards to assessments and curricular materials. 

From the warp of required teaching shifts and the weft of effective professional development practices, Reiser weaves three general recommendations for Professional Development for NGSS. 

• Structure teacher sensemaking around rich images of classroom enactment. Teachers need to analyze and deconstruct real or re-enacted examples of NGSS teaching practices and then discuss and plan how to carry out these practices in their own classes. He suggests the use of video cases.
• Structure teachers’ work to be collaborative efforts to apply NGSS to their own classrooms.  In the same way the student collaboration is necessary to fully engage in active sensemaking, teacher collaboration is necessary to fully analyze and make sense of pedagogical practices required for NGSS reforms. The teachers are not trying to copy the examples that they see, they are trying to make sense of the processes in order to incorporate them into their own teaching.
• Capitalize on cyber-enabled environments. Technology, such as video enactments ofor analysis, videoed classes for reflection and discussion, digital communication, and on-line courses, if created carefully, can be very effective to carry out PD at scale.

Key Points: Despite having spent many years and thousands of person-hours researching for and writing the Framework and the NGSS, those first steps were only the proverbial tip of the iceberg compared to the task of properly training the teachers who are now poised to implement this reform. The NGSS-based reform requires a significant and fundamental change in the way teachers understand and implement science teaching. We will need new and substantial professional development in order to help train current and pre-service science teacher to effectively implement NGSS.

Question: Which aspects of NGSS pedagogical practices do you think is the most difficult to convey through PD? Which aspect(s) do you think are the most important?