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One District’s Path to Improving Student Discourse
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If you’ve spent any time exploring the shifts in NGSS instructional practices you will understand the call for “less sage on the stage and more guide on the side.” While such a metaphor can be applied to a variety of…
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Three Strategies for Building Classroom Community
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As I reflect on the end of this school year, I think about how successful I was in building a classroom community. A key aspect of transitioning my classroom to three-dimensional teaching and learning was…
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Digging Deeper: Peeling Back the Practices: What Did High School Students Think?
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One of the big shifts in the NGSS is the integration of Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs) with Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs) and Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs). In other words, content is not taught in isolation:…
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Engineering: From Trial-and-Error to NGSS-Aligned
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Four years ago, when the other seventh-grade science teacher and I started redesigning our curriculum for the NGSS, we knew we would have to include engineering. At that time, my understanding of engineering was pretty…
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How Teachers Are Retooling Lessons Using the EQuIP Rubric
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Sometimes finding the right book or article can be the key to opening our minds to new ideas. A few years back, NSTA published a special journal series on the NGSS, and I recently re-read a few of them. Three in…
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Focusing on Instruction to Improve My School
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How do you envision science education in your classroom? Your school? Your district? In hectic life of a modern educator, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the initiatives, expectations, and pressures of our…
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Kindergarten Citizen Scientists: Taking Action to Save the Earth
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My kindergarten students recently became citizen scientists as they investigated their big questions about the natural world around them. The snow finally melted, the critters have made their appearance, and the plants…
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A Learning Trajectory for Sensemaking in Science
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The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) offer teachers the opportunity to consider teaching science in a new way. We help students engage with, wonder about, and make sense of natural phenomena, which closely…
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Exploring Structure and Function in Insects
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As an entomologist, one of my greatest challenges is trying to overcome my students’ feelings of fear and disgust regarding insects. Insects often have negative images in society. Walk through any toy store, and you…
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Using Collaborative Educational Technology Tools in Science
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Science literacy is critical for our students. We need them to understand why it is important for them to do activities, such as composting. In fifth grade, one of the goals for students is to obtain information about,…
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I had eagerly anticipated a session at the NSTA National Conference in Atlanta called How Do We Make NGSS Storylines Work by Pushing Students to Go Deeper?—presented by Michael Novak and Brian Reiser—and I was not alone…
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Cultivating Every Child’s Curiosity in the Natural World
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At the NSTA National Conference in Atlanta, I was honored to give the Mary C. McCurdy lecture on young children and their natural curiosity about how the world works. Anyone who has ever spent time with them knows they…
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As our first-grade class was returning to our classroom after recess, a learner directed our attention to our school’s newest retaining wall. He asked, “Why is the wall always falling apart on that side?”A rich…
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Modeling in Science Instruction
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With the shift toward three-dimensional teaching and learning that the Next Generation Science Standards requires, the Crosscutting Concept of Modeling has become a major focus of my instruction. I use a process…
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Choosing Instructional Materials: Lessons Learned
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Throughout my career as an educator, I’ve had many opportunities to select instructional materials. One experience is particularly memorable because I learned then that how you select instructional materials can be as…
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