The challenges of alignment for the Next Generation Science Standards

Science standards have a long history in the United States and currently form the backbone of efforts to improve primary and secondary education in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Although there has been much political controversy over the influence of standards on teacher autonomy and student performance, little light has been shed on how well standards cover science content. We assessed the coverage of genetics content in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) using a consensus list of American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) core concepts. We also compared the NGSS against state science standards. Our goals were to assess the potential of the new standards to support genetic literacy and to determine if they improve the coverage of genetics concepts relative to state standards. We found that expert reviewers cannot identify ASHG core concepts within the new standards with high reliability, suggesting that the scope of content addressed by the standards may be inconsistently interpreted. Given results that indicate that the disciplinary core ideas (DCIs) included in the NGSS documents produced by Achieve, Inc. clarify the content covered by the standards statements themselves, we recommend that the NGSS standards statements always be viewed alongside their supporting disciplinary core ideas. In addition, gaps exist in the coverage of essential genetics concepts, most worryingly concepts dealing with patterns of inheritance, both Mendelian and complex. Finally, state standards vary widely in their coverage of genetics concepts when compared with the NGSS. On average, however, the NGSS support genetic literacy better than extant state standards.

Research Article| September 01 2013 Add Your Voice to the Discussion about NGSS Mark D. Little Mark D. Little 1NABT President – 2013 Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar The American Biology Teacher (2013) 75 (7): 436–437. https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2013.75.7.1 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Mark D. Little; Add Your Voice to the Discussion about NGSS. The American Biology Teacher 1 September 2013; 75 (7): 436–437. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2013.75.7.1 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentThe American Biology Teacher Search Recently, there has been a call to improve science and engineering education and to strengthen the associated practices and skills to help ensure that the United States stays internationally competitive. There is another, equally important, reason to improve science and engineering education: to increase citizens’ fundamental understanding of science and engineering so that they are better able to understand public policies related to science, including medical and environmental issues. These pressures have led to the evaluation of how we teach and learn science. Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are the result of these discussions. A “standard” is what a student should know (content) and be able to do (skills). When many people hear the word “standards,” they think about Common Core. The usual focus in Common Core is on Language Arts and Mathematics, but there is a science component to both of those. Scientific literacy is important... You do not currently have access to this content.

ABSTRACTAcross the country, states are adopting and implementing either Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) or new state standards inspired by NGSS. Educators and researchers play a key role in the reform process as we design professional development (PD) and curriculum to support teachers in transitioning to NGSS. In this time of transition, close analysis of NGSS classroom enactments in elementary school can help us design better supports. Our study uses the framework of teacher adaptive expertise (TAE) to conduct a qualitative content analysis of five different fourth-grade teachers enacting the same NGSS lesson, Producing Electricity. To accomplish our analysis, we first synthesized existing literature and refine a working model of TAE in the field of elementary science education. In applying the lens of TAE to our data, we also develop a model of teacher routine expertise (TRE). We empirically illustrate three characteristics of TAE in our study: allowing student agency, adapting to student emergent understanding, and facilitating student-centered science discourse. Our study shows how different teachers use TAE and TRE moves in varying degrees when enacting the same lesson. Our results indicate that TAE moves align with NGSS shifts in the elementary science classroom while TRE moves reflect a more traditional science classroom. Our results have implications for the design of in-service teacher supports during this time of reform.

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) describe what all students should know about science and engineering, and be able to do by the time they leave high school. The NGSS are based on learning progressions of core ideas in the discipline, crosscutting concepts across disciplines, and the practices that will allow students to use their disciplinary knowledge in meaningful ways. As states adopt the NGSS, significant changes will be required in all areas of science education, including the development of new curricula and assessments. Support for both pre- and inservice teachers will be crucial, and perhaps less obviously, so will changes in the way chemistry is taught at the college level. The Next Generation Science Standards logo is ©Copyright 2013 and reprinted here with permission of Achieve, Inc., with all rights reserved.

The ocean is vital to the health of the planet and plays a critical role in understanding climate change. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and Ocean Literacy Principles (OLP) establish a baseline to help incorporate ocean science into K-12 curriculum. And with the recent adoption of NGSS in many states, there is an increased need for updated material, aligned with standards, that address ocean and environmental concepts. It is also essential for students to understand ocean concepts in order to build their overall scientific literacy. The Sea Earth Atmosphere (SEA) curriculum is framed around both the NGSS and the OLP to aid teachers in including hands-on, aquatic-based content in their classrooms. The SEA website is an online platform for grades 3–5, with activities designed for both student and teacher use, including background content and instructional guides. This article describes our process in structuring the curriculum around the NGSS framework; aligning selected ocean and environmental concepts to NGSS performance expectations; and developing a user-friendly online platform with activities that facilitate educator feedback and interaction in addition to employing readily available and earth-conscious materials.

Innovation and discovery are important for driving the advancement of human society. As a result, there has been a large growth in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) employment opportunities. Science and technology have become a strong prerequisite for successful integration into higher academics and the labor force of the United States. The increase in demand for STEM positions necessitates motivating future workers from schools in kindergarten through 12th grade. A metaphor of a pipeline has been used to describe the retention of students through the completion of an academic program in STEM fields. Several science organizations have created the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) to improve Science learning in K-12. However, it is of interest to see how the NGSS are being taught in the field and what impact this may have on students' performance. This study investigated academic achievement differences among fourth and eighth-grade students between schools that are affiliated with a University in New England compared to matched schools that are not. Schools were matched by using ratios of students that receive free and reduced lunch. Testing results from the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) for physical science, earth/space science, life science, and inquiry were specifically investigated. A comparison of t-tests examining differences between the schools yielded one significant difference for Inquiry scores on an academic achievement test t(35) = -0.01, p = 0.98, Hedge’s g = 0.003. Specifically, the university-affiliated students performed higher (M=47.2, SD=10.4) in 2015 compared to the students not affiliated (M=42.3, SD=10.2). The other investigated content areas were not significantly different between the university-affiliated schools and the non-affiliated schools. Interestingly, the adoption of NGSS by the university program may explain the differences observed, as the NGSS supports student inquiry skills. Teachers from school sites used in the quantitative analyzed were interviewed for potential differences in areas of support, style of teaching, STEM integration, knowledge of NGSS standards, and attitudes towards creativity. Common practices by other schools not within the network may not be supporting student inquiry skills to the same level. A qualitative review of teachers' familiarity with NGSS through transcribed interviews supported this finding. Future research may follow-up on how these differences affect students' retention further down the pipeline at the high school and college level. It may also be of interest to investigate whether science knowledge or inquiry skills are better predictors of retention for students.

Currently, 19 states have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) while 16 states have revised their standards to mirror the NGSS. Transitioning from the previous standards to the NGSS requires in-depth teacher professional development (PD) that delves into the three-dimensional (3D) performance expectations (PE) of the NGSS. Each PE constitutes: science and engineering practices (SEPs), disciplinary core ideas (DCIs), and crosscutting concepts (CCCs). Teaching in the 3D model shifts the focus of science classrooms to environments where students use DCIs and CCCs with scientific practices to explore, examine, and explain scientific phenomena and to design solutions to problems. Recent literature argues that PD plays a key role in providing teachers with knowledge and skills to familiarize themselves with NGSS and assist them in successfully implementing new curricula and changing teaching practices. During 2015-2017, each summer, we led a three-week robot-integrated PD program for middle school science and math teachers. To address the shift in 3D science teaching and learning, six teachers (three math and three science), who had previously participated in the PD program, were recruited for a new PD workshop in 2018. The goal of the PD was to support teachers in selecting the PE’s relevant to their middle school curriculum, in addition to using Bybee’s 5E instructional model, thus creating robotics-based NGSS-plus-5E lessons. The 5E’s include: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. In the classroom, the teacher selects a science phenomenon for their first “E” and then takes students through a journey making the phenomenon clearer with each subsequent “E”. As part of the framework for this study, teachers became learners and went through four NGSS-plus-5E lessons created by PD facilitators to then create their own lessons. The workshop was planned and conducted based on Desimone’s conceptual framework for effective PD, which suggests five key features: content focus, active learning, coherence, sustained duration, and collective participation. The paper addresses the following research questions: (1) To what extent are the lesson plans developed by science and math teachers aligned with the three-dimensional learning of the NGSS and 5E model? (2) How can the lessons be improved for three-dimensional learning? The methodology for the analysis is a qualitative case study of two groups of middle school science and math teachers. During the PD, the two teams of three middle school teachers each collaboratively developed lesson plans which focused on ways to implement the 5E inquiry-based and the NGSS-aligned science instruction. The science lesson plans developed by the participants were the main data sources in this study. We focused on two exemplary lesson units, which were analyzed using two vetted rubrics: the Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products (EQuIP) rubric for Science v3 and the 5E Inquiry Lesson Plan (ILP) rubric v2. The EQuIP rubric provides criteria by which to examine the alignment and overall quality of NGSS lessons. The 5E ILPv2 was developed for use in evaluating teachers’ inquiry-based 5E lesson plans and it comprises of a total of 21 items, each item being Likert-type with a range of 0-4 points. In this study, analyzing lesson plans using the rubrics provided opportunities for suggestions and feedback for improvement to developers and it informs the development of new lessons by the project team. All data were triangulated by the PD facilitators with the same perspectives to establish validity and reliability.

The level of understanding scientific and engineering practices in light of the next generation science standards among preservice student teachers

To create and implement meaningful tasks that go beyond the cognitive processes of understanding and that integrate all three dimensions of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) is challenging for both educators and curriculum makers. This issue is compounded when considering a content-rich biology course such as anatomy and physiology that requires first familiarity and understanding before engagement in higher-order thinking. The use of crime scene investigations that encourages students to examine evidence even as they learn specific biology concepts can encourage meaning making about scientific practices and science content. This paper deconstructs the implementation of a crime scene investigation titled the “Jewel Heist,” created by the New York Hall of Science and implemented in twelfth-grade anatomy and physiology classes in a diverse urban high school in the northeastern United States. The NGSS, the Framework for K-12 Science Education, along with Bloom's taxonomy and Krathwohl's revisions, are implicated in this process.

This paper connects the technological practice of activity monitor gaming to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) science and engineering practice of “analyzing and interpreting data,” and to the foundational constructionist idea of personal meaning. In our larger study, eighth-grade students, ages 12–14, wore physical activity monitor devices for approximately four months, encountered their own and peers’ data on device displays and dashboards, and played a game designed by the project team that converted their device data into game bonuses and player actions. The analysis for this article examined focus groups and individual interviews with students from the project to determine alignment between students’ thinking and the NGSS “analyzing and interpreting data” practices for grades 6–8: considering limitations related to measurement accuracy and error, measurement tools, and appropriateness of the data collection model. The analysis also identified what types of student experiences and reflections could be characterized as constructionist components of knowledge generation and knowledge reformulation, both of which are key to NGSS recommendations around finding “relevance” in data. Findings revealed that while students engaged in all three types of consideration, as well as creating meaningful interpretations of pattern identification and reasoning from evidence, their reflections and insights did not, for the most part, lead to actionable understandings. Our results have implications for implementing activity monitor technologies and practices in science education, particularly in regard to student meaning and motivation.

Student enrollment statistics indicate an increase in linguistically and culturally diverse students in the United States. Along with the increase in the diversity of the preK–12 student population, one would also expect to see a parallel increase in equitable learning opportunities for all students. Equity and inquiry are the key principles of the Framework for K–12 Science Education (the Framework) as well as the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Due to the growth of minority populations and the increase in the enrollment of minority students, there is an increasing need to address the underrepresentation of linguistically and culturally diverse students. In this article, we intend to bring to the forefront issues related to the education of a diverse student population, including students from different racial and ethnic groups as well as English language learners, in the Western cultural views in science classrooms. We also intend to shed light on the responsiveness of Western science education, the Framework, and the NGSS to linguistically and culturally diverse students. In addition, we introduce some of the challenges that face diverse students. Finally, we provide some recommendations to meet the needs of diverse students.

The present research paper aimed to identify the effectiveness of exploratory activities based on engineering and science practices of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in developing exploratory thinking among elementary students in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The author utilized the quasi-experimental method based on the control and experimental groups. Moreover, the sample consisted of (64) 4th grade elementary female students. The "Unit of Energy" was restructured based on engineering and science practices of NGSS among the 4th grade elementary students. A teacher guide and a student notebook concerning the activities of the "Unit of Energy" were prepared. Moreover, an exploratory thinking test was developed and applied to the participants over 6 weeks. The results showed statically significant differences at the level of ≤0.01 between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups at exploratory thinking post-test and in each domain. The study recommends the need for teacher preparation programs at Colleges of Education on preparing the pre-service teachers according to NGSS that should be involved in teaching practices to evaluate pre-service teachers’ performance in practicum.

Waves and their applications are one of the disciplinary core ideas in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), but the performance expectations include concepts that have not historically been an important part of teaching waves in high school science classrooms, with a particular focus on technologies that utilize waves and on students making connections between different types of waves including sound, seismic waves, and electromagnetic waves. In this talk, I will share resources and strategies that I use to teach some of these concepts, including both hands-on activities and digital resources. Many of these resources are also appropriate to other physics courses, including AP Physics and introductory college physics courses.

The changing natures of technology, competition in the global job market, and college and career readiness have impacted the skills and knowledge that young people need to be successful in today’s global economy (Trilling B, Fadel C, Royal society for the encouragement of arts, manufactures and commerce journal. A game of skills. What talents do young people need to thrive in the 21st century?, 2012). In the United States, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) provide an opportunity to transform education standards to be more aligned with the needs of today’s world. By the end of 12th grade, all students should possess sufficient knowledge of science to engage in public discussion of related issues, be careful consumers of scientific and technological information related to their everyday lives, and have the skills to enter a career of their choice, including but not limited to careers in STEM (NRC, A framework for K-12 science education: practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. The National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2012b). The National Research Council’s (NRC) Science Framework for K-12 Science Education (2012b) lays out an agenda that can begin to reshape what students need to know and be able to cultivate as twenty-first century leaders in science and citizenship. Furthermore, it has become evident that strong linkages between twenty-first century skills and scientific and engineering practices will provide insight into deeper learning of STEM content and to certain clusters of twenty-first century skills (NRC, Education for life and work: developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st century. The National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2012a).

With the publication of the Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012) and adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), emphasis is now placed on the integration of engineering principles and practices into formal science education. Engineering design allows teachers to effectively blend disciplines and integrate math and science as a means of building student understanding of and skills for engaging in both content areas and appreciation for both content areas (Lehman & Capobianco, 2012). Integration of engineering design into school curricula, however, requires teachers to have content knowledge, pedagogical skills, and resources necessary to promote student learning in math and science through design (Lehman & Capobianco, 2012). Content-focused PD has been found key to improving teacher knowledge of STEM (Wilson, 2013). Pre-college engineering education providers, such as Project Lead The Way (PLTW) and Engineering Is Elementary (EiE), offer comprehensive curricula and professional development opportunities in engineering education. These programs are high quality and provide an entry point into engineering education for K12 teachers; however, the engineering design exercises are prescriptive and vary in the degree to which they explicitly address the science standards inherent to the design problem. In addition, most K12 educators often struggle to adapt or to create from scratch design experiences for their classrooms. Therefore, there is a need for professional development that provides K12 educators with grade-band appropriate content knowledge in engineering design and makes explicit the process creating or adapting classroom-based engineering design experiences. This study data presents a from a three-year effort to develop and implement a weeklong professional development institutes for K12 teachers focused on engineering design. The effort, funded through a state grant, was executed as a partnership between the colleges of education and engineering at a mid-sized state university. In Year 1 (Summer 2015), course learning objectives were finalized as: (1) developing a working knowledge of the engineering design process (EDP); (2) differentiating between engineering design and “making”; (3) understand how the EDP aligns with NGSS; (4) apply different modeling and prototyping techniques; (5) independently creating engineering problem statements applicable to particular grades in K-12; and (6) developing pedagogical techniques for successfully implementing classroom-based design challenges. Year 2 (Summer 2016) included refinement of teacher deliverables to include: (1) self-generated database of engineering design lesson plans, stratified by grade band and NAE Engineering Grand Challenge areas; (2) functional first-generation prototype from established design challenges; (3) lesson scaffolding and exemplar student work for design challenges; and (4) participation in peer-evaluated design critiques. Summative program evaluation was performed in Year 3 with only minor changes in the course content from prior years. A total of 36 teachers participated in the five-day workshop and were clustered in working groups by grade band (K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12). Summative evaluation included pre- and post-workshop surveys, observation and interviews, and in-classroom follow up during in Fall 2017. Short-term outcome measures include pre-post changes in teacher self-efficacy related to core content, hands-on prototyping, and the engineering design process. Longer term measures include teachers’ implementation of a novel or adapted engineering design lessons in their classrooms and evaluation of the alignment and quality of these exercises through student deliverables. Short-term measures showed gains in most measures of self-efficacy; in-classroom follow-up is presently underway and will be presented in this study. Adoption of NGSS presents an opportunity for the engineering profession to expand and diversify its talent pipeline; however, this opportunity will only be realized if K12 teachers are well-prepared to deliver high quality, grade-band appropriate engineering experiences in their own classrooms. The professional development curriculum created in this study may be used as a model to empower teachers to develop and adapt NGSS-aligned curriculum.