Designing for the Next Generation Science Standards: Educative Curriculum Materials and Measures of Teacher Knowledge

ABSTRACT

Focusing on the science knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge that teachers need to realize the vision of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in their classrooms, this article presents findings from efforts to (a) adapt existing criteria and design heuristics for educative features of curriculum materials and apply them in the development of materials to support NGSS and (b) develop an authentic measure of teachers’ knowledge and practice based on an analysis of teachers’ evaluations of their students’ written explanations of phenomena. The study demonstrates that existing criteria and heuristics for designing educative features of curriculum materials can be used productively, with minor modifications, to design features that support teachers in their use of materials that support NGSS. It also provides quantitative and qualitative data to show that teachers’ analyses of the explanation task produced useful information about their understanding of the science ideas targeted in the assessment; of the misconceptions their students held; and of their students’ ability to reason from evidence, science ideas, and models in explaining phenomena. This study builds on and contributes to a body of work on the design and use of educative curriculum materials and the evaluation of teacher knowledge. It suggests a practical approach to the design of NGSS-aligned curriculum materials that support both student and teacher learning based on findings from analysis and empirical studies.

KEYWORDS:

• curriculum
• educative
• measures
• standards

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Project 2061 staff members Ana Cordova, Jean Flanagan, Martin Fernandez, Bernard Koch, and Caitlin Klein for their work on the Toward High School Biology project. We are also grateful for the many contributions of the staff at BSCS, who worked in partnership with AAAS during the first three years of the project (2010 through 2013); these include Janet Carlson, Rhiannon Baxter, Brooke Bourdélat-Parks, Elaine Howes, Rebecca Kruse, Stacey Luce, Chris Moraine, Kathleen Roth, and Kerry Skaradzinski. We would also like to thank the many excellent teachers and their students in Colorado, the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Massachusetts who participated in pilot and field testing the unit. During the final phase of the project, Rebecca Kruse (currently at the National Science Foundation) worked with Project 2061 staff in scoring student responses to the embedded assessment tasks.

Funding

The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through grant R305A100714 to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the institute or the U.S. Department of Education. The work of contributor Rebecca Kruse (2014 to 2016) was funded by the National Science Foundation Independent Research/Development Program. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Additional information

Funding

The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through grant R305A100714 to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the institute or the U.S. Department of Education. The work of contributor Rebecca Kruse (2014 to 2016) was funded by the National Science Foundation Independent Research/Development Program. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.