The dual goal of this Special Issue is to highlight the implementation of computational systems modeling tools for K12 science teachers and students and to address equity and access for student ...groups who have historically been left out of mainstream research on computational systems modeling ...
Maybe you have a good grasp of disciplinary core ideas and science and engineering practices- critical parts of the Next Generation Science Standards- but you are looking for more resources about ...integrating crosscutting concepts (CCCs). Or maybe you understand CCCs but want to know more about how to make them part of your students' toolkit for exploring science phenomena or engineering problems, both now and in the future.Regardless of your needs, Crosscutting Concepts is your guide. It shows how to design and implement three-dimensional instruction for all students by understanding the potential of CCCs to strengthen science and engineering teaching and learning. Crosscutting Concepts helps you do the following:* Grasp the foundational issues that undergird crosscutting concepts. You' ll find out how CCCs can change your instruction, engage your students, and broaden access and inclusion of all students into your science classroom.* Gain in-depth insights into individual crosscutting concepts. You' ll learn how to use each CCC across disciplines, understand the challenges students face in learning CCCs, and adopt exemplary teaching strategies.* Discover how CCCs can strengthen the way you teach key topics in science. These topics include the nature of matter, plant growth, and weather and climate, as well as engineering design.* Understand related implications for science teaching. These topics include student assessment and teacher professional collaboration.Throughout Crosscutting Concepts, vignettes drawn from the authors' own classroom experiences will help you put theory into practice. Instructional Applications show how CCCs can strengthen your planning. Classroom Snapshots feature practical ways to use CCCs in discussions and lessons. Useful for teachers at all grade levels, this book will enrich your own understanding while showing you how to use CCCs for both classroom teaching and real-world problem solving.
The crosscutting concepts (CCCs) are a collection of ideas that span the science and engineering disciplines. While various standards documents have identified similar sets of ideas in the past, ...calls for their explicit inclusion into science and engineering instruction began in earnest only about a decade ago. When these calls began, the research base on the teaching and learning of the CCCs was limited; in the intervening years, educators have debated whether and how the CCCs are useful for supporting science and engineering learners. In this article, we summarize a recent scholarship that has clarified the role of CCCs in supporting science and engineering learning. Then, we highlight two exemplary curricular units (one elementary and one secondary) that showcase CCC-informed instruction. Based upon these research and development efforts, we identify three core messages: (1) CCCs provide learners with a set of complementary lenses on phenomena, (2) CCCs are powerful tools for broadening access to science and engineering, and (3) practitioner innovations play an especially important role in the time-sensitive work of establishing a more robust research base for how CCCs can strengthen science and engineering teaching and learning.
As federal legislation requires that English language proficiency (ELP) standards are aligned with content standards, this article addresses issues and concerns in aligning ELP standards with content ...standards in English language arts, mathematics, and science. It starts with a brief description of federal legislation for alignment between ELP standards and content standards along with challenges of ensuring alignment. Then, it highlights how current efforts to ensure alignment center on the language used to engage in disciplinary practices of content standards. Next, taking a perspective on ELP standards from the vantage point of content areas, the article presents a critique of ELP standards developed by the two major consortia of states, WIDA and English Language Proficiency Assessment for the 21st Century (ELPA21). Specifically, the critique focuses on how each consortium addresses two aspects of alignment: (a) disciplinary practices across content areas and (b) cognitive expectations across proficiency levels. Both consortia fall short in accurately reflecting disciplinary practices and maintaining consistent cognitive expectations. Lessons learned from this critique offer recommendations for the field to move forward in ensuring English learners capitalize on the opportunities and meet the demands for both content and language learning presented by content standards. As the challenges in ELP standards development lie squarely at the intersection of content and language learning, the article ends with a call to action for closer collaboration between language and content educators.
As the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English language arts (ELA)/literacy and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) highlight connections across subject areas, convergences and ...discrepancies come into view. As a prominent example, this article focuses on how the CCSS and the NGSS treat "argument," especially in Grades K-5, and the extent to which each set of standards is grounded in research literature, as claimed. Analysis of both sets of standards and relevant bodies of research literature on argument in ELA/literacy and science education indicates that what counts as argument (i.e., disciplinary norms) and when argument is expected developmentally and whether children are capable of engaging in argument (i.e., developmental progressions) differ substantially and often contradict Such discrepant information presents a dilemma to practitioners, especially classroom teachers who are faced with the real-time work of resolving these differences in their classrooms. I consider implications for classroom teaching and recommendations for educational policies and research agenda.
The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 mandates that English language proficiency (ELP) standards align with content standards. As the fast-growing population of English learners (ELs) is expected to ...meet college- and career-ready content standards, the purpose of this article is to highlight key issues in aligning ELP standards with content standards. The overarching question is how to align ELP standards with academically rigorous and language-intensive disciplinary practices of content standards while respecting and maintaining the nature of the discipline within each area. I begin by describing contributions and shortcomings of content standards and ELP standards. Next, I propose consideration of three components in aligning ELP standards with content standards: (a) norms of disciplinary practices across content areas, (b) developmental progressions of disciplinary practices across K–12 grade levels or bands and across content areas, and (c) language use across levels of English proficiency. For each component, the challenges in establishing alignment and potential trade-offs in addressing these challenges are discussed. Finally, I highlight how these challenges present opportunities for substantive collaboration between EL education and content areas to move these fields forward and ensure ELs achieve academically rigorous content standards while developing ELP.
This review analyzes and synthesizes current research on science education with ELLs. Science learning outcomes with ELLs are considered in the context of equitable learning opportunities. Then, ...theoretical perspectives guiding the research studies reviewed here are explained, and the methodological and other criteria for inclusion of these research studies are described. Next, the literature on science education with ELLs is discussed with regard to science learning, science curriculum (including computer technology), science instruction, science assessment, and science teacher education. Science education initiatives, interventions, or programs that have been successful with ELLs are highlighted. The article summarizes the key features (e.g., theoretical perspectives and methodological orientations) and key findings in the literature, and concludes with a proposed research agenda and implications for educational practice.
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) provide a vision for contemporary science education with all students, including the fast‐growing population of multilingual learners in the United ...States K‐12 context. The shifts heralded by the NGSS have resulted in significant changes to English language proficiency (ELP) or English language development (ELD) standards so they better align with content standards and support all students, including multilingual learners, to engage in language‐rich disciplinary practices (e.g., arguing from evidence). The purpose of this article is to describe ELP/ELD standards aligned with content standards. Specifically, we describe how the policy initiatives of the NGSS as science standards and WIDA 2020 as ELP/ELD standards reflect each other in terms of conceptual foundations and architecture of the standards guiding classroom practices. By becoming more explicitly aware of how science standards and language standards present “mirror images” of each other, science educators will be better positioned to collaborate with their language education colleagues. As this article is intended to engage science educators who are generally familiar with the NGSS but likely new to ELP/ELD standards, we describe WIDA 2020 in detail and in ways accessible to a broad audience. In doing so, we aim to ensure the science education and language education communities are coordinated in their efforts to promote equitable science learning for all students, including multilingual learners. We close with implications for research, policy, and practice through collaboration between science education (as well as other content areas) and language education.
The purpose of this study was to investigate how computational modeling promotes systems thinking for English Learners (ELs) in fifth-grade science instruction. Individual student interviews were ...conducted with nine ELs about computational models of landfill bottle systems they had developed as part of a physical science unit. We found evidence of student engagement in four systems thinking practices. Students used data produced by their models to investigate the landfill bottle system as a whole (Practice 1). Students identified agents and their relationships in the system (Practice 2). Students thought in levels, shuttling between the agent and aggregate levels (Practice 3). However, while students could think in levels to develop their models, they struggled to engage in this practice when presented with novel scenarios (e.g., open vs. closed system). Finally, students communicated information about the system using multiple modalities and less-than-perfect English (Practice 4). Overall, these findings suggest that integrating computational modeling into standards-aligned science instruction can provide a rich context for fostering systems thinking among linguistically diverse elementary students.
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