Learning science in informal environments

Sukh Makhnoon

National Research Council. (2009). Theoretical perspectives, Conclusions and recommendations. In Bell, P., Lewenstein, B., Shouse, A.W. & Feder, M.A. (Eds.), Learning science in informal environments: People, places, and pursuits (pp. 27-53, 291-314). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 

Recently, my public health students were assigned to take a stance on: whether we should spend more money on HIV vaccine research or spend it on educating people about HIV prevention methods instead? Unsurprisingly, most of them favored education. As someone in public health, teaching in informal environments has always been one of our sharpest tools. We teach people to wash hands, to cover their coughs, to vaccinate, and the list goes on. Most of this education is meant to benefit the people around you rather than yourself. And as a result, people continue to not listen to us and we continue to train more public health professionals!

As a public health geneticist, I can safely say that, when a genetic counselor talks to people about the anomalies in their genes, people tend to listen. This depicts the importance of “learner’s prior knowledge, interest, and identity in learning in informal environments” as identified in conclusion 5 of the ‘Learning Science in Informal Environments: people, places and pursuits’ (NRC, 2009).

This high-stake learning environment demands that you understand complex science, and make important personal decisions based on your learning. This learning may be in complicated by your cultural lack of understanding about genetics (NRC Conclusion 4, pg 296) or you may need to unlearn things you read on Facebook (NRC Conclusion 7, pg 299).

“Emotions associated with interest are a major factor in thinking and learning” (pg 58). When stakes are high (such as in medical decision making), what can teachers or learners do to maximize proper learning, what information is retained, how long it is remembered, and how can learners use the information for wise decision making?

   

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

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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?

Can the Next Generation Science Standards "permeate" the education system?

Michelle Salgado

“Standards provide a vision for teaching and learning, but the vision cannot be realized unless the standards permeate the education system and guide curriculum, instruction, teacher preparation, and professional development (p. 241).”

The Next Generation Science Standards do not provide the practices & pedagogy behind this vision and this may be problematic for initial implementation purposes. Districts and Educational Service Districts need to seriously consider the implications for teaching and learning within the science discipline if teachers and students are not supported through the process of enacting the standards. Traditional  “spray and pray” professional development classes will not support teachers as they navigate a shift in their practice.  Districts and professional development providers need to rethink how to create professional development models that will support sustainability over time as well as depth changes in pedagogy and a shift in reform ownership from external (reformers) to internal (teachers) owners (Coburn, 2003).

Teacher autonomy will be an interesting tension that may emerge within schools and districts as a result of implementing NGSS because of the increased need for student sense-making discourse to demonstrate a proficiency of the performance expectations. In my experience, sense-making discourse relies heavily on responsive teaching which in turn relies on the teacher’s ability to plan instruction and questioning techniques specific to the elicited student ideas that emerge lesson after lesson.

Teachers will need the autonomy to move away from scripted lesson plans and science “investigations” that do not allow students to pose their own questions and instead the sequencing of curriculum should be focused on student partial understandings and progressive growth of the complexity of evidence backed explanations. The “educational system” including district coaches and science personnel as well as administration needs to understand that for many educators this is a new kind of teaching and learning and it should be a PROCESS THAT TAKES TIME!  Districts and ESDs will need to carefully choose the professional development models that will support teachers throughout the school year, not just occurring in September and June.

State and district policies will need to be mindful of the involved variables of responsive science teaching and look for ways to view and support this shift in practice as both a financial and economic investment into the future.  I argue that curriculum development work and assessments should occur on a local scale in partnership with teachers and districts. If curriculum is responsive and assessments are created with the local student population in mind then this may reduce bias related to language, gender, status, and ethnic diversities.

If curriculum developers, professional development instructors, and/or university partnerships work alongside teachers and district science personnel to create local and responsive curriculum then the transfer of ownership within schools will grow and increase the quality of implementation of the NGSS framework dimensions (Disciplinary Core Ideas, Science and Engineering Practices, and Crosscutting Concepts) and this knowledge will move to be self-generating throughout the system and renewed at the beginning of each school year.

If teachers are not given the opportunity to create curriculum or assessments and districts care about NGSS implementation, then teachers should be given sufficient planning time during the course of their work day and paid for out of work planning time in order to revise the curriculum to meet the diverse needs of their students.

 This planning time should not, in my view, occur in isolation. Given the complexity of the new standards and intricacies of the framework dimensions, teachers will need to work both on grade level planning teams and meet in cross-grade level planning periods with support from coaches and job embedded professional development personnel. In working with collaborative teams, new educational norms will begin to take hold, as all parties involved will engage in continued opportunities to learn within these supportive learning communities. Thinking even further, supportive administrators will need to consider their role as instructional leaders and create building-wide policies that support teacher and student learning. This includes the creation of the daily schedule, providing quality opportunities for teacher collaboration and professional development, and transforming staff meetings into places for learning not announcements.

It is my belief that students begin their first days of kindergarten knowing how to ask scientific questions, draw pictures (models) of events and phenomena they encounter, and know how to engage in dialogue about their ideas. Our job is to continue to support those skills and pre-existing knowledge and experiences by providing their teachers with the necessary partnerships and materials in the form of skill building, job embedded professional development that is ongoing and responsive, appropriate curriculum, and the autonomy to make sound instructional decisions. Implementation of these standards will be a collective effort by all parties involved with everyone holding a share of the responsibility.

Should teachers be involved in partnerships to create science curriculum that supports their implementation of NGSS? Why or why not?

 How do you create a curriculum that balances the learning of both the science and engineering practices? Can you have a unit with a focus on both science and engineering? Or would it be better to focus on these pieces separately?

How do you support teachers in their learning of specific discourse moves that supports students’ changes in thinking over time?

“The Tailored Practice of Hobbies and its Implication for the Design of Interest-Driven Learning Environments.”

Kristen Bergsman

“The Tailored Practice of Hobbies and its Implication for the Design of Interest-Driven Learning Environments.” F.S. Azevedo. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 22 (3), 462-510.

My house is a museum featuring artifacts from my husband’s hobbies, past and present. I have never met someone who follows an interest with such passion that it flares hot and burns itself out. Then he’s off again, pursuing his next interest with that same energy and enthusiasm. The trumpet was like that. He immersed himself in the world of “trumpet.” He took lessons. He bought multiple instruments and an entire lot of mutes on eBay. He listened exclusively to CDs of famous trumpet performers. He played trumpet, listened trumpet, read trumpet, talked trumpet. And then, he was off to the next pursuit. Azevedo would call these bursts of intense focus “short-term pursuits.” But my husband certainly has some hobbies that are long lasting investments, “long-term pursuits” that span years or decades, like his sustained study of poker and motorcycle maintenance.

I’ve wondered how a teacher could best capture and capitalize on students’ varied interests and hobbies. The knitter. The tinkerer. The dog trainer. The Lego collector. As a science curriculum designer, I’ve tried integrating various strategies in lesson plans aimed at helping teacher elicit and connect to students’ interests.

The NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education calls for science and engineering for all students; its equity and diversity approaches include a specific focus on “building on prior interest and identity” (NRCFramework, p.286). Science and engineering instruction that connects to students’ personal interests—including hobbies—is authentic and inclusive. But how do instructional designers create interest-driven curricula? How do teachers design interest-driven classroom environments?

In his four year ethnographic study of the hobbyists pursuing amateur astronomy, Azevedo’s goal was to “sharpen current conceptulatizations of interests and engaged participation” (Azevedo, p.X). Through his ethnographic studies—embedded in the world of amateur astronomy societies—and his survey and synthesis of potentially relevant theories, Azevedo presents his own Lines of Practice Theory (p. 27). He presents a series of “lessons and issues for instructional design” developed from this theoretical perspective. These are arranged around the following themes: 

1. Topic/Domain-Centered Activities
2. Flailing Interests: Issues of Dynamics in Interest-Based Participation
3. Boundaries and Ends of Interest-Driven Practice
4. Material Infrastructures
5. Practicing Across Several Sites and Communities
6. Structuring Resources
7. Collective Supports for Participation in Preference Aligned Ways

Summary

1.     Critical Reflection or Important Point

In Azevedo’s Lines of Practice Theory, a line of practice is defined as “a specific subset of a person’s preferences (in and beyond the hobby practice) attuned to a subset of conditions of practice in his or her life” (p. 27). They are “long-term structures with short- and long-term consequences for how one participates in a practice of interest” (p. 27).

2.     One Substantive Discussion Question Brought Up by the Reading

Think of a time that you’ve been witness to (or personally experienced) interest-driven teaching or learning. What made this learning experience successful? What could have been done differently to better support learning? In your conversations, link back to Azevedo’s Lines of Practice Theory and his in-depth study of hobbyists pursuing amateur astronomy.

Learning Across Settings

Luis Briseno

Penuel, W. R., Lee, T. R., & Bevan, B. (2014). Designing and building infrastructures to supportequitable STEM learning across settings. Research+Practice Collaboratory Research Synthesis.

PURPOSE

The objective of the paper is to present a conceptual framework to support learning across settings in the domain of STEM.

TOPIC

The authors discuss design principles to consider when organizing learning opportunities to connect people to practice multiple settings. Attending to equity and diversity as the central driver to transform STEM education and broadening participation in STEM.

MAIN IDEA/ARGUMENT

The Importance of Supporting STEM learning Across Settings

The authors discuss the importance of “mentors, who can help a person navigate different institutional settings and structures, and developing a strong identification with disciplinary practices or fields, which entail positioning oneself and being positioned as a future scientist or engineering” (p.2). The paper argues that all designed research aims for some kind of transfer – the process of transfer is not one-way,and a key aim is to foster connections among people, settings, and practices. This is essential to foster connections – “these connections may also help expand learner’s agency to imagine and co-create new possible futures for themselves and for society.” How can agency be expanded when students’ don’t have trusting relationships with role models (there aren’t role models like them?) 

“Learners play an active role in making these connections, though they also can benefit from guidance and structured opportunities to make sense of how different activities relate to one another, and how particular activities in one setting prepare them for participation in another (p.2) To me this closely ties with Bahktin’s work which states “genres of speech” – that each area attends to its own structure and purpose. Meaning that our “funds of knowledge” can be talked about as “genres of speech” and moving across contexts speaks to Bahktin’s framework stating that individuals cannot be expected to participate in another’s speech genre without guidance, or mentors.

STEM Learning as Life-Long, Life-Wide, and Life-Deep 

Attends to formal and informal infrastructures… Life-long - “Learning refers to the ways in which the settings and opportunities that people experience in their life change over their lifespan. ”Life-wide “ highlights the ways that learning is a cross-setting phenomenon at every point in a person’s life.” Life-deep –“values influence the ways in which learning resources in one setting may be recruited in another.” 

“Any given setting sits at an intersection of different value systems defined in part by the values that participants bring from other settings.” (p. 3). I find this point to be essential to the point that designing learning across settings – especially when if the underpinning is made that transfer is no only one way. The authors talk about how “one person’s interest in a given subject matter may manifest itself quite differently than another”. To me this seems to suggest that there are multiple zpd’s that need to be attended to in learning environment. Hence funds of knowledge and prior knowledge and repertoires of practice as useful frameworks to keep in mind when design a learning environment. Particularly, when attempting to design for learning across contexts because one mediating goal may not be sufficient to reach learners.

The authors move on to discuss about the affordance and constraints of informal learning settings, digital badges - online networks provide teachers with the opportunity to gauge a learner’s development. Allowing teachers to check in on their process, comment, and give encouragement. The author’s also attend to policy barriers and talk about the affordances and constraints of evaluation and assessment systems.

What I find particularly interesting is from whose infrastructure knowledge base of “value” are design experience working from. To what extent do they consider equity and diversity in their design? If individuals’ cultural pathway provides them with a matrix of possibilities to work from and influence where they place their value, how will the nature of the design impact or create or recreate boundaries? I ask this because addressing equity and diversity in a learning setting is talked about, but action to broaden the breath of its reach is bordered. At times a subgroup of the community benefits from research and others are left aside. More tools or resources are created, but whom do they serve and for what purpose?

FRAMEWORK

To build infrastructures to support leaning across settings.. .  p 2 

DISCUSSION

For whom and for what purpose is our work directed towards? How do we attend to equity and diversity in our own practices? 

Connected Learning: An Agenda for Research and Design

Christie Barchenger

Ito, Mizuko, Kris Gutiérrez, Sonia Livingstone, Bill Penuel, Jean Rhodes, Katie Salen, Juliet Schor, Julian Sefton-Green, S. Craig Watkins. 2013. Irving, CA: Digital Media and Learning Research Hub.

"For today's youth, life without the Internet or cell phones is already unimaginable" (p. 41).

     Modern technology, with its potential for connecting people and bringing information to our fingertips, is omnipresent in nearly every sector of U.S. society.  Some have hailed the Internet and other 'recent' technology as a great equalizer of sorts, as advancements that will inherently narrow the gaps in access to information and opportunity that exist in our stratified society. Connected Learning argues otherwise, explaining that many conventiona, individual outcome-focused teaching methods, whether they use technology or not, reinforce systems of power, and that without an explicit focus on equity, leveraging modern technology in educational settings even further strengthens existing privilege and oppression. They put forward 'connected learning' an approach that can help leverage modern technology and that isspecifically focused on community building and equity.

    In the authors' words:

 " [Connected learning] advocates for broadened access to learning that is socially embedded, interest-driven, and oriented toward educational, economic, or political opportunity. Connected learning is realized when a young person is able to pursue a personal interest or passion with the support of friends and caring adults, and is in turn able to link this learning and interest to academic achievement, career success or civic engagement. This model is based on evidence that the most resilient, adaptive, and effective learning involves individual interest as well as social support to overcome adversity and provide recognition." (p.1)

    Connected learning is about building communities and "collective capacities" rather than on individual outcomes. This is an important distinction, the authors argue, because a lack of focus on collective outcomes tends to lead to educational approaches which "reinforce the advantage that  privileged already have" rather than disrupting systems of power and privilege by building capacity and capital within communities that include students from non-dominant culture backgrounds (p.8).

    By linking students' interests with in-person or virtual peer communities which have a shared purpose and can relate to academic, civic, and/or career goals, educators can support students in leveraging their current interests in a way that broadens and deepens the engagement a student has with an increasingly diverse set of topics and skills.

    For example, a middle school student, Clarissa, who is an aspiring writer, became involved in her cousin's Minecraft community and, through the support of a teacher, started a Minecraft club, began writing and staging virtual plays within the Minecraft world, shared her writing in academic classes, and pursued further support in a summer writing camp. In another case study, the Harry Potter Alliance is a worldwide community with local chapters which provide young people, such as self-described "super shy" Anna, a path into leadership and reasons for both collective learning about and taking collective civic action on issues such as fair trade, voter registration, disaster relief, and local community initiatives. In both of these examples, both virtual and in-person communities play an important role in the collective learning and growth of its members.

      These two examples share common contexts, properties and design principles. They also both leverage technology, though it is important to note that connected learning does not have to include the use of technology such as the Internet. It does, however, provides helpful design principles to leverage such technology in a deeper and more equitable way.

      The authors propose several different sets of design 'must-haves' for connected learning. In short, connected learning is situated in the 'overlap' between academic settings, interests, and peer culture. Communities should be centered on a shared purpose which includes producing and openly sharing work and ideas. These communities are set up along design principles which emphasis learning by doing (which includes opportunities to observe and 'borrow' from more experienced members) and constant challenge that creates a 'need to know' and 'need to share' in multiple different connected contexts.  Below is information that is further articulated in Table 1 (p.12)

  3 crucial contexts for learning

• Peer-supported
•  Interest-powered
• Academically-oriented, including civic engagement and career opportunity

 Core properties

• Production-centered
• Shared purpose
• Openly networked

 Design principles

• Everyone can participate
• Learning happens by doing
• Challenge is constant
• Everything is interconnected

 Summary

 Critical Reflection or Important Point

   This resonated with me as an educator and as a person who is sometimes more of a consumer than a 'producer' in the world of new media.

 "Although in principle, one might expect young people to do anything online, as fits their interests, in practice it appears that they climb a fairly predictable ‘ladder of opportunities’ as they become more skilled users (Livingstone and Helsper, 2007). This ‘ladder’, which parallels that conceived in the domain of civic engagement as a ‘ladder of participation’ (Hill and Tisdall, 1997), captures the finding that while many young people take the fairly basic steps (such as checking Wikipedia for schoolwork, watching clips on YouTube, or playing single-person games), fewer undertake the more complex, social, or creative activities that techno-optimists have hoped for them. The EU Kids Online project shows that most youth do not progress very far up this ladder of opportunities (Livingstone, Haddon, Görzig and Ólafsson, 2011), with only a minority creating, uploading or posting content or joining participatory communities (Livingstone et al., 2012; see also Lenhart and Madden, 2005). The emerging hypothesis that undergirds our approach is that the majority of young people need more supports to translate and connect their new media engagements toward more academic, civic, and production oriented activities."  (p.25) emphasis added

 Substantive Discussion Question

 In what ways might the communities developed in connected learning work in conjunction with or have tension with the already existing communities in students' lives (i.e. family, religious communities). What are the positive and negative implications for these different 'established' in-person communities in having students spend an extended amount of time/energy in developing relationships within virtual communities?

  

Thinking about the role of literacy in science education

Michelle Salgado

National Research Council. (2014). Literacy for science in English language arts and science standards (Chapter 2). In Literacy for science: Exploring the intersection of the Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core for ELA Standards: A workshop summary (Links to an external site.). (pp. 7-18). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

The Board on Science Education (BOSE) held a workshop in December of 2013 in response to questions surrounding the “confusion that still exists among teachers and administrators about how to and who should implement the literacy in science standards of CCSS for ELA and how these standards work with the NGSS” (p. 2). Some of the goals of this two-day workshop were to address the nature of literacy in science within both the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts (ELA) and in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) as well as examine the underlying principles within literacy for science and the nature of text and discourse in science (p. 3).  In addition to stated goals there were discussions around curriculum design and the role that district and administration have in guiding a successful implementation of the intersections of science and ELA. The workshop had fifty-three participants in attendance and at least seventy-one online viewers who watched for at least thirty minutes (p. 3).

In order to focus our attention and orient the reader, below are the eight science and engineering practices. These practices will now guide science instruction and need to be demonstrated by K-12 students. In thinking about these eight practices one might begin to ask how literacy in science can support the reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language standards found in the CCSS for ELA. Turning to implementation, how will school district personnel and administration work collaboratively and in true partnership with teachers to ensure that teaching and learning is supported during this shift in standards and practice?

NGSS Science and Engineering Practices

1. Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (engineering)
2. Developing and using models
3. Planning and carrying out investigations
4. Analyzing and interpreting data
5. Using mathematics and computational thinking
6. Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering)
7. Engaging in argument from evidence
8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

What I appreciate about this workshop was that it was responsive to the questions and concerns that teachers and districts posed about the overlap between NGSS and CCSS.  Through this workshop it was stated that teachers in grades K-5 would integrate CCSS ELA into science as they do in other subjects such as social studies. But ELA teachers in grades 6-12 would not be responsible for meeting literacy in the science standards (p. 7).

One important piece that emerged from the workshop was the creation of a table (Figure 2-1) for grades 6-12 outlining how CCSS for ELA in science standards interact with the eight NGSS practices. Thinkabout one of the overlapping standards for math, ELA, and science “construct and engage in viable arguments from evidence and critique the reasoning of others” (p. 17).  These types of scientific “arguments” will take time to master for both students and teachers as learning is a process and sometimes a slow process as challenges and obstacles arise for both educators and their pupils. If students only begin to largely receive the type of instruction necessary to engage in these “arguments” after elementary school then what kind of students does that privilege?

One of the presenters of this workshop, Brian Reiser of Northwest University, spoke about the role of literacy in science practices,

"These practices…. emphasize developing and using science, rather than learning about science. In his view, this constitutes a major “evolutionary and revolutionary” shift in science education. The goal is to help students understand why a core idea in science makes sense and how it helps explain phenomena in the world. Reading textbooks about science ideas is insufficient, in Reiser’s view, for helping students understand why scientists know what they know and how core ideas in science help to explain about the world. The typical practices of reading definitions and explanations, summarizing readings, communicating these readings, and occasionally using this knowledge in investigation do not generally support the sense-making process. Rather, he suggested, using the science practices engages students in using cognitive, social, and language skills in doing the work of science. The use of these practices to build understanding is also in service of building a depth of knowledge about core ideas in science. Ideally, coherence should exist within and across the scientific disciplines to help students build a storyline of explanation that builds on their prior knowledge…literacy practices play a critical role in helping students “figure things out.” Scientific discourse and social interaction are critical to this process of making meaning and developing explanations, he said (p. 8)."

In thinking about Reiser’s comments I am reflecting on the shift in practice that teachers will face such as a movement away from memorizing vocabulary or formulas to facilitating sense-making talk so that students understand how to tell a science story and where the meaning-making vocabulary or equations come into play during that explanation. In addition the purposeful integration of literacy in science will allow teachers, especially in the early grades to access science content both to improve their own background content knowledge, plan discussion questions, and respond to student questions about the topic or phenomena they are exploring.

It has been my experience both as an elementary school teacher and a science instructional coach that teaching science and learning science is similar in challenge to learning a new language. In accordance with these new principles of practice for science and engineering I have seen teachers face uphill battles to learn instructional techniques for guiding a science rich discussion and conducting an interactive science read aloud lesson with five and six year old students. I myself struggled to learn how to incorporate the speaking and listening components within a science lesson so that my students would be able to learn through sense-making talk about phenomena such as how a tree can grow out of another tree (nurse log) or the science behind playground slide collisions. When I began to use read aloud books that related to the science topic or phenomenon we were studying, students began to use text examples and observations to create evidenced based explanations.  Incorporating literacy in science not only increased engagement for my class of five and six year olds but it provided a resource for students to go back to and utilize during discussions and independent work time for science modeling.

I was genuinely eager to read these dozen or so pages related to literacy in science but I was discouraged to find that that the focus of pages (7-18) was largely geared towards grades 6-12. If we think about learning a new language or skill set, do we want to begin when students are in middle or high school or should we start earlier such as pre-school or K-3 grades?

 I feel that by not consistently focusing our efforts and resources in the earlier grades, including pre-school, many students may struggle to demonstrate learning surrounding these eight science and engineering practices because the skills involved in these practices have not been built up and refined over time.

Discussion Points

1. What systemic changes must schools, districts, administration, and teachers undertake in order to support teaching and learning in alignment with these NGSS in support of the eight science and engineering practices? How can we support teachers in this shift in practice? What specific tools do teachers need in order to implement these practices?

2. Why are only  “50 percent of students adequately prepared to handle science and other texts as freshmen in college according to recent data (ACT, 2006)” (p. 7), is this result of a weak science foundation in the early grades such as K-5? What other factors may contribute to this data?