Module #2: Recognizing Science Ideas, Practices, and Skills | Snack

This unit is part of Dig Into Science learning modules, part of the ACESSE project. Dig into Science is designed to introduce teachers, paraprofessionals, principals, or anyone else to current science education, often called “three dimensional” science education.

Snack (5-10 minute learning experience)

• Science K&S Article
• Infographic Development: Example 1, Example 2 and Example 3
• The Call to Action for Science Education articulates a vision for high-quality science education, describes the gaps in opportunity that currently exist for many students, and outlines key priorities that need to be addressed in order to advance better, more equitable science education across student learning. These priorities include:
  (1) providing time, materials, and resources for science instruction;
  (2) developing and supporting a strong, diverse science teaching workforce;
  (3) designing supportive pathways for students in science;
  (4) employing well-designed assessments and accountability systems for science; and
  (5) using evidence to document progress and inform ongoing improvement efforts.
  
  Guidance for supporting the advancement of science in respect to access and opportunity can be found in the STEM Teaching Tools; developed by by the Institute for Science + Math Education at the University of Washington in collaboration with partners from the Research + Practice Collaboratory: The Exploratorium, The University of Colorado at Boulder, EDC, Inverness Research, and SRI International. This initiative was primarily funded by the National Science Foundation.
  
  Three-dimensional science learning requires educators to figure out new ways to assess student learning across the dimensions, including the eight science and engineering practices. Students need multiple, varied, system of assessment opportunities to demonstrate their competence. Many districts and states need an assessment system that aligns with the NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education and NGSS to determine whether students are developing proficiency in science and whether students have adequate opportunities for "three-dimensional" science learning that blends (a) science and engineering practices, (b) crosscutting concepts, and (c) disciplinary core ideas. Assessments serve different purposes, so a system must comprise many different kinds of assessments—but all of them should include tasks that integrate the three dimensions.
  
  Assessments should value multiple modes of engagement and expression by giving students opportunities to engage in open-ended and extended tasks. This authentic approach is better aligned with how scientists work and can lower the anxiety associated with high-stakes assessments. Also, using fewer language-embedded items may assist emergent bilingual learners. Justice-focused assessments are assessments where students use science knowledge and engineering design practices to solve problems involving matters related to the unequal distribution of consequences (e.g., benefits, harms) to communities that result from human-nature interactions and/or unequal voice of communities in matters affecting their thriving and sustainability. Justice-centered assessments are pertinent when assessing performance expectations that require students to engage in engineering practices, because such practices involve developing and testing solutions that address human needs. In addition, justice-centered assessments engage students with the idea of science as a human endeavor.
  
  “Task formats” guide the development of items designed to assess student learning across the three dimensions and can also spark ideas for classroom instruction. Tasks should highlight a range of practices through compelling, culturally relevant, and discipline related phenomena. Assessing three-dimensional standards means assessing more that just the “process” of science: it means assessing students’ proficiency through integrated use of all three dimensions to explain phenomena and solve challenges. The process includes steps to ensure that tasks are accessible and engaging to learners from non-dominant communities and to learners with identified learning differences.
  
  Teachers should use frequent formative assessments of different kinds to bridge students’ everyday and disciplinary language practices, acknowledging that understanding science and the details of student thinking should be prioritized over the style of discourse utilized by students. There are many powerful ways to support emerging bilingual students, including: (1) unpacking the specific language forms of science, (2) translating assessment prompts, (3) allowing students to respond in their home languages, and (4) helping educators better understand and build on what students know. Students’ everyday argumentation practices can support science argumentation. The best way to measure student understanding is by making language practices like argumentation explicit and purposeful in both instruction and assessment. Students deserve to know how and why they are engaging in science discourse.
  
  Educators can provide students with the strategies and practices to engage in argumentation and make sense of natural phenomena in a culturally responsive way. The components of formative assessment can help students to engage in evidence-based arguments, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of claims, evidence, and reasoning. Developing students’ practice of argumentation also requires attending to how students are engaged in making sense of each other’s ideas and conversations about what different communities value as strong evidence.
  
  Teachers, collaborating with colleagues, should use interim assessments to analyze the extent to which their instruction is supporting student learning. Like formative assessments, they provide information to individual teachers. However, unlike formative assessments, they can be meaningfully aggregated to provide information at broader levels. School and district leaders, in collaboration with teachers, should use interim assessments to improve instructional or curriculum choices based on data analyzed across classes, classrooms, and schools.