Practice Brief 23 -- Topics: Instruction Implementation

Evaluating Curriculum Materials for Alignment with the New Vision for K-12 Science Education

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Why It Matters To You
  • Teachers should collaborate to analyze and select curriculum materials that are aligned to the NGSS.
  • District Staff & PD Providers should understand how to appropriately use the EQuIP Rubric in a collaborative process to evaluate curriculum materials for their NGSS alignment.
  • School Leaders should provide the time, space, and resources for collaborative teams to evaluate curriculum materials for potential adaptation or adoption.

What Is The Issue?

Many teachers, schools, and districts are now challenged to identify curriculum materials that support the vision of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and A Framework for K-12 Science Education. Whether adapting existing materials or adopting new ones, it is important to evaluate all curriculum materials for deep alignment to multiple dimensions of the new vision. This tool highlights how the Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products (EQuIP) Rubric and support videos can be used to guide that process.

Authors:

BY KRISTEN CLAPPER BERGSMAN - JANUARY 2016


Reflection Questions

  • Are the science units you are currently teaching aligned to the NGSS? Are they equitable? How do you know?
  • What does deep alignment of instructional materials to the NGSS vision look like? How might this differ from a more superficial alignment?
  • What do you need to learn in order to select lessons that align with the new vision or to adapt them to be better fit?

Things to Consider

“What is particularly important is that teachers develop the capacity to design sequences of instruction by learning a set of pedagogical principles that can guide their selection or adaptation of materials.”

— Penuel, Gallagher & Moorthy (2011)

Attending to Equity

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Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License. Others may adapt with attribution. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.