Redesign or relabel? How a commercial curriculum and its implementation oversimplify key features of the NGSS
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21392695 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Benjamin R Lowell (0000-0001-5716-6173, Department of Teaching, Curriculum, and Society, Lynch School of Education and Human Development Boston College Chestnut Hill Massachusetts USA, corresponding author), Kevin Cherbow (0000-0003-4281-4806, Department of Teaching, Curriculum, and Society, Lynch School of Education and Human Development Boston College Chestnut Hill Massachusetts USA), Katherine L Mcneill (0000-0003-3673-6637, Department of Teaching, Curriculum, and Society, Lynch School of Education and Human Development Boston College Chestnut Hill Massachusetts USA) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 105 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 5-32 |
| Publication date | 2021-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Science Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0036-8326 • E-ISSN: 1098-237X |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/sce.21604 |
| OpenAlex | W3096016131 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 14 |
| References cited | 50 |
The adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) requires many teachers to drastically change their classroom instruction. Curricular materials offer a tool to support this transition, but there are questions about the degree to which available curricula truly reflect the shifts required by the NGSS. This study proposes a framework of four key elements of NGSS design that can be used to analyze both curriculum and instruction for alignment to the NGSS. The four key elements include phenomenon‐based, three‐dimensional, supports student epistemic agency, and coherent. We used this analytic framework to analyze one commercially available middle school curriculum and its implementation in two classrooms. We found that the curriculum and instruction oversimplified the complex vision of science learning required by using natural phenomena primarily as hooks or examples, creating lessons in which students engaged in core ideas and science practices but separately in service of different goals, placing the cognitive load on the teacher to do most of the sensemaking rather than the students, and having the teacher, rather than the students, build coherence between the lessons. Our work suggests that future curriculum should focus on asking students to tell a how and why story around a phenomenon to support three‐dimensionality, student epistemic agency, and coherence. Furthermore, future work should explore how educative elements can highlight and illustrate the vision of NGSS‐aligned instruction and the use of well‐aligned curricula in a variety of settings including curriculum‐based professional development
Agency (philosophy) · Coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) · Curriculum · Engineering ethics · Mathematics education · Next Generation Science Standards · Pedagogy · Science education · Sociology · Computer Science · Education and Critical Thinking Development · Educational Strategies and Epistemologies · Engineering · Psychology · Science Education and Pedagogy
Phenomenon-based learning and storylines in K-12 science education
Supporting teachers through curriculum-based professional learning
Making for science
Developing Primary School Students’ Abilities to Evaluate the Evidence of Written Scientific Arguments
Teacher enactment of the crosscutting concepts in next generation science classrooms
A comparison of elementary teachers' verbal supports for students in inclusive and general classroom contexts during an NGSS‐aligned science, engineering, and computer science unit
Getting to a good place with science instruction
Leveraging curricular and students' resources to instigate and sustain problematizing
Collective (Un)Learning
Revisiting the Teacher‐Curriculum Relationship
Organizational sensemaking during curriculum implementation
The student hat in professional development
Changes in teachers' beliefs
Preservice elementary teachers' perceptions of their science laboratory instructors in a phenomena‐based laboratory and how it impacts their conceptual development
Defining sensemaking
“The Coat Traps All Your Body Heat”
Misconceptions Reconceived
Examining Classroom Science Practice Communities
Strengthening the Research Base That Informs STEM Instructional Improvement Efforts
Epistemologies in practice
Accommodation of a scientific conception
Addressing the epistemic elephant in the room
Sciience
Educative Curriculum Materials
Designing Educative Curriculum Materials to Promote Teacher Learning
What Do New Views of Knowledge and Thinking Have to Say about Research on Teacher Learning
Preparing Teachers to Design Sequences of Instruction in Earth Systems Science
Building Student Capacity for Mathematical Thinking and Reasoning
Nature-culture constructs in science learning
Teaching Scientific Practices
Shared Epistemic Agency
Desettling Expectations in Science Education
| Unique citing works | 14 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,8 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 14 |