What's the Deal with NGSS?

Thirty nine states in the US have either adopted the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) or have used them as a guide for developing their own newly adopted standards. I am very pleased to see this movement as it represents a paradigm shift of what learning should look like in the classroom. As I look to align my classroom to the adopted Wisconsin State Standards (which have a great fidelity with NGSS which is why I’ll be referring to NGSS in this post), I’d like to use this post to give a brief overview of how these standards are unique and the difficulty in implementing them with true fidelity.  

Three Different Dimensions

Unlike a traditional list of science standards, the NGSS have been divided into 3 different categories or dimensions. These three dimensions are Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs), Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs), and Crosscutting Concepts (CCs). I hope I haven’t just lost you. Let me walk through what each of these three dimensions entails.

The Disciplinary Core Ideas cover more traditional science knowledge. They are divided into 5 different categories: Life Science, Earth Science, Physical Science, and Engineering Design. Here’s and example of a DCI that I will be addressing in my physics courses:

Newton’s second law accurately predicts changes in the motion of macroscopic objects.

The breadth of the DCIs is more narrow than more traditional science standards. By reducing the volume of different ideas, the goal is for students to be able to go into more depth and gain a deeper understanding of the ideas that they are studying. So, NGSS favor depth over breadth. But if this traditional knowledge is only one of the dimensions, what are the others?

The Science and Engineering Practices emphasize one of the biggest goals of the NGSS. That goal is that we not simply place importance on science knowledge. NGSS places equal importance on how that knowledge is acquired and applied. That is where the science and engineering practices come in. There are 8 different practices through which learners will discover and apply science ideas. An example is Analyzing and Interpreting Data. Once facet of it that would be used in my physics classroom would be:

Analyze data using tools, technologies, and/or models (e.g., computational, mathematical) in order to make valid and reliable scientific claims or determine an optimal design solution.

In the past, the scientific process was “how” we did science. But, science is not a linear process. We don’t always start at the same entry point, and we don’t end at the same point. There is no one way to science. In different cases, different practices may need to be utilized.

Another goal of the NGSS is for learners to understand that science ideas don’t exist in a vacuum. Science knowledge builds upon itself and connects to other ideas and disciplines to create greater understand of the observable workings of nature. In all, the NGSS highlight 7 Crosscutting Concepts. One of the crosscutting concepts is cause and effect. Each CC has several facets. Here’s an example of a cause and effect facet that we would touch on in my physics classroom:

Empirical evidence is required to differentiate between cause and correlation and make claims about specific causes and effects.

The NGSS present a progression of all of these different dimensions over the course of a child’s schooling K-12. So while the categories of 5 Core Ideas, 8 Practices, and 7 Crosscutting Concepts remain constant, the complexity and depth required for mastery increases from elementary school through high school. The NGSS aims to create a coherent science progression from kindergarten to 12th grade. That is one of the reasons it is so ambitious. It relies on the coursework before in order to build upon grade level expectations and prepare for future learning. This clearly creates a problem when students don’t meet grade level expectations and are allowed to advance. For this reason, building strong systems of checking/activating prior knowledge and remediation are essential. Science instruction can no longer live in isolation. Teachers in a system need to communicate not just in their own building but across districts!

When attempting to assess they standards, it is important that they don’t live in isolation. To ensure that each dimension is not addressed as a fragment, standards are combined to create a Performance Expectation that addresses 3 different dimensions. An example of one for my physics class would be:

Analyze data to support the claim that Newton’s second law of motion describes the mathematical relationship among the net force on a macroscopic object, its mass, and its acceleration.

This Performance Expectation (PE) weaves together the previous examples stated above

• Core Idea: Newton’s second law accurately predicts changes in the motion of macroscopic objects.
• Practice: Analyze data using tools, technologies, and/or models (e.g., computational, mathematical) in order to make valid and reliable scientific claims or determine an optimal design solution.
• Connection: Empirical evidence is required to differentiate between cause and correlation and make claims about specific causes and effects.

It’s the 3 dimensional performance expectations that we need to look to as the endpoint, not mastery of a single dimension. It’s not simply knowledge acquisition, but uncovering and connecting science ideas.

Standards into Practice

These 3 dimensional performance expectations are complex. Just looking at the one stated above it has many different elements that need to be addressed. The process of building coherent instruction to tackle these performance expectations is called a storyline. Think of it as a series of lessons that create a journey in which students collect and put together the piece to being able to demonstrate a performance expectation(s).

The process of building a storyline is mapped out beautifully on the Next Generation Science Storyline website and the following graphic from their site. But I’ll give the broad strokes here.

The first step is choosing the performance expectations that will be assessed in the storyline. To emphasize the connected nature of science if multiple expectations can be bundled, that can make the storyline even more meaningful. The next step would be to look at at unpack your performance expectations. Again, this will be a performance expectation in my physics class.

Analyze data to support the claim that Newton’s second law of motion describes the mathematical relationship among the net force on a macroscopic object, its mass, and its acceleration.

When I break it down, I’ll need to look at what content pieces are essential and what students will need to know how to do. There is more knowledge here then I could even hope to address in a single lesson: Newton’s Laws of Motion, types of forces, net force, acceleration, and mass, just for a start. In addition, students will need to practice analyzing data, creating arguments to support a claim, and work with mathematical models. Uncovering each of these ideas, getting familiar with these practices, and making connections between these ideas will take a variety of different lessons. These lessons will create the storyline.

Like any good lesson, a storyline begins by building engagement. This tool used to serve as that initial hook is called the anchor phenomenon. A good anchor phenomenon will not only build interest but it will also be complex enough to address the performance expectation(s). What are phenomena? Check some examples out here. But they don't need to be a demonstration. They could be information from a news report or article. It could even be something puzzling you saw on the way into work. The key is to engage students in questioning and wondering.

Throughout the storyline, there are a number of different routines that have been constructed and clarified by http://www.nextgenstorylines.org. To access the original graphic click here.

Each different routine has a different purpose in building the storyline. You can see that most routines have a phenomenon. While the anchor phenomenon is the overarching piece we are looking at, there needs to be smaller experiences/phenomena that can be looked at to uncover the smaller ideas that are found in the performance expectation. It’s through these individual lessons that we uncover these ideas, deepen understanding, and make connections. So, an individual lesson will start with a phenomenon that will require a practice to uncover the idea and/or connection. So each lesson will provide the pieces to understanding this larger anchor phenomena.

If it sounds like a lot of work, it is. But, I can’t help but think that it represents what was missing from my high school science experience: doing rather than getting, being engaged in what I was doing beyond a grade, seeing connections between units and years of instruction.

If you’d like to see some sample storlines, check out the following presented by Next Generation Science Storylines.