Massachusetts’ Revision of the Science & Technology/Engineering (STE) Standards

1. Massachusetts’ Revision of the Science & Technology/Engineering(STE) Standards Overview and update Mid-May, 2012

2. Agenda • Background and context • Anticipated shifts in revised STE standards • Overview of draft NGSS • Initial planning for implementation of revised STE standards • STE-related policies Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

3. Background and Context Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

4. MA Revision • State Review Panel (started 2009) • Charged with guiding STE standards revision • Phase I: Recommended changes • Progress report (January 2011) • Phase II: Drafting state revision http://www.doe.mass.edu/omste/review.html

5. NGSS • Delayed state process to join development of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) • Collaborative effort of 26 states • Key organizations: Achieve, NRC, NSTA, CSSS • First draft available for review now (to June 1) • Second draft available for review fall, 2012 • Final standards expected ~spring 2013 www.nextgenscience.org Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

6. NGSS Lead States (26)

7. A Two Stage Process www.nextgenscience.org http://www7.nationalacademies.org/bose/Standards_Framework_Homepage.html

8. Anticipated Shifts in Revised STE Standards

9. Characteristics of any revised STE standards (state and/or NGSS) • Attention to progressions of learning • Integration of practices (inquiry & design skills) with content • Inclusion of Engineering • Career and college readiness perspective • Links to Mathematics & Literacy (ELA) standards

10. Attention to Progressions of Learning • Improve progressions of concepts and skills (vertical alignment) • Base changes on learning progression research as possible www.cpre.org/sites/default/files/researchreport/829_lpsciencerr63.pdf • Pay particular attention to PreK-8 standards to support High School and Career & College Readiness

11. MA STE Strand Maps: another representation of standards http://www.doe.mass.edu/omste/maps/default.html

12. Integration of Practices & Content • Current MA 2001/2006 STE standards: • Strong conceptual (content) focus • Inquiry skills are separate • Design process presented as content • Upcoming revised STE standards: • Integration of science and engineering practices with content to promote analytical thinking and learning in context • Note change from inquiry to practices! • Practices includes both inquiry and design skills • Focuses on just skills students are to learn, not instruction

13. Integration of Practices & Content • Verbs in standards will reflect STE practices • For example, predicting, investigating, designing, or modeling • Practices will be strategically integrated with content • Careful attention given to how a practice contributes to conceptual understanding and vice versa • Framework will include full list of STE practices and emphasize that students should continue to engage in full inquiry and design processes when appropriate

14. Thinking Analytically: Common Practices Practices of science and engineering very similar, with slight differences in purpose and product Adapted from A Framework for K-12 Science Education (NRC, 2011)

15. Inclusion of Engineering “Exponential advances in knowledge, instrumentation, communication, and computational capabilities have created mind-boggling possibilities, and students are cutting across traditional disciplinary boundaries in unprecedented ways. Indeed, the distinction between science and engineering in some domains has been blurred to extinction” (Charles Vest, former MIT President, 2006)

16. Inclusion of Engineering • State revision assumes same structure as current MA 2001/2006 Framework • Equivalent strand for Tech/Eng • Equivalent Tech/Eng high school course • NRC Framework and NGSS integrates engineering • Engineering design highlighted • Integrates engineering core ideas and cross-cutting concepts with traditional sciences

17. STE Career and College Readiness Under discussion. Basic state elements likely include: • Breadth of exposure • General knowledge and skills in a range of STE subjects • Depth of experience • Opportunities for in-depth learning, projects, laboratories, designs, field work, etc. • Advanced study: upper-level STE options • Capstone projects • Interest and ability to think analytically • Multiple pathways

18. Links to Math & Literacy • New Mathematics Curriculum Framework • Will allow us to write STE standards that includes more explicit math • New Standards for Literacy in Science & Technical Subjects (in ELA Framework) • Includes key disciplinary literacy skills • Contributes to effective learning of STE

19. Overview of Draft NGSS Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

20. Dimensions of the Framework The Framework establishes three dimensions for science learning: • Scientific and Engineering Practices • Crosscutting Concepts • Disciplinary Core Ideas

21. NGSS Architecture Integration of practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas.

22. Scientific & Engineering Practices • Science and engineering require both knowledge and practice. Science is not just a body of knowledge that reflects current understanding of the world; it is also a set of practices used to establish, extend, and refine that knowledge. • When students actively engage in science practices they deepen their understanding of core science ideas. • Past science standards have treated the dimensions of science as separate and distinct entities leading to preferential or differential treatment in instruction and assessment.

23. Scientific & Engineering Practices • 1. Asking questions (science) and defining problems (engineering) • 2. Developing and using models • 3. Planning and carrying out investigations • 4. Analyzing and interpreting data • 5. Using mathematics and computational thinking • 6. Constructing explanations (science) and designing solutions (engineering) • 7. Engaging in argument from evidence • 8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

24. Crosscutting Concepts • Crosscutting concepts are concepts that cross disciplinary boundaries and contribute to the sense making that leads to students valuing and using science and engineering practices • Many of the concepts cross other areas of the curriculum • Language arts (e.g., cause and effect, structure) • Math (e.g., patterns, scale and proportion) • social studies (e.g., cause and effect, structure and function, systems)

25. Crosscutting Concepts • Patterns • Cause and effect • Scale, proportion, and quantity • Systems and system models • Energy and matter • Structure and function • Stability and change

26. Disciplinary Core Ideas • The Framework describes science content essential to understanding natural and designed phenomena. • The ideas are generally of a large grain size and tend to focus on specific aspect for making sense of phenomena. “Matter of any type can be subdivided into particles that are too small to see, but even then the matter still exists and can be detected by other means (e.g., by weighing or by its effects on other objects).” 5th Grade - Grade Band Endpoint Physical Science Framework 5-3

27. Disciplinary Core Ideas Specifically, a core idea for K-12 science instruction should: • Be a key organizing principle of a discipline or have broad importance across multiple sciences or engineering. • Provide a key tool for understanding or investigating complex ideas and solving problems. • Be connected to societal or personal concerns that require scientific or technological knowledge or relate to the interests and life experiences of students. • Be teachable and learnable over multiple grades at increasing levels of depth and sophistication. Framework 2-6

28. Disciplinary Core Ideas Physical Sciences • PS 1: Matter and its interactions • PS 2: Motion and stability: Forces and interactions • PS 3: Energy • PS 4: Waves and their applications in technologies for information transfer Life Sciences • LS 1: From molecules to organisms: Structures and processes • LS 2: Ecosystems: Interactions, energy, and dynamics • LS 3: Heredity: Inheritance and variation of traits • LS 4: Biological Evolution: Unity and diversity Earth and Space Sciences • ESS 1: Earth’s place in the universe • ESS 2: Earth’s systems • ESS 3: Earth and human activity Engineering, Technology, and the Applications of Science • ETS 1: Engineering design • ETS 2: Links among engineering, technology, science, and society

29. How to Read the NGSS • Performance Expectations (the standards) • Foundations Boxes (from the NRC Framework) • With coding (letters and/or color) • Connections Boxes • Presentations: • Search by topic • Search by individual performance expectation • Filtered by dimension or feature (grade-span, practices, core idea, etc.) Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

30. Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

31. Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

32. Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

33. Please Provide Input! • To access the draft NGSS and survey: www.nextgenscience.org • Review what you can • Please provide feedback on broad structure as well as specific performance expectations • A summary of MA feedback will be returned to MA ESE Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

34. Stay Involved! • Public drafts of Next Generation Science Standards (May, 2012; ~ fall 2012) • Final version of NGSS (~ early 2013) • Discussions of viability of NGSS for MA: consideration of pros and cons (~ early 2013) • Public comment draft of revised standards for Board of Education (~ spring 2013) • Final STE standards adopted (~ late spring 2013) • Dissemination & implementation (~ 2013-2015) • MCAS Assessment Development Committees (every year)

35. MA STE Standards Revision Timeline

36. Initial Planning for Implementation of Revised STE Standards

37. Implementation planning • Intent: • To make available a range of resources to support schools and districts as they implement revised STE standards • Particularly focused on key shifts in revised STE standards • ESE role: • Identify currently available resources • Coordinate organizations to develop needed resources • Enhance access and sharing of resources by all

38. Possible resource categories • Dissemination & Awareness Events • STE Resources • Standards alignment documents • Curriculum, instruction & assessment resources • Tools for data-rich learning • Student learning supports • Observation instruments • STE Professional Development • STE Technical Assistance If you have anything that could help others, please share! (see contacts last slide)

39. STE-Related Policies

40. STE State Assessment • No change in MCAS structure anticipated at this time • Continue to test at grades 5 & 8, end-of-course at high school • Once revised STE standards adopted, will take 2-3 years to revise MCAS • Looking into performance assessments formats and options (through RTTT grant) Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

41. John and Abigail Adams Scholarship • Current: score Advanced on the ELA or Math test and Proficient or higher on the second test; AND have combined scores from both tests that places the student in the top 25% of students in the graduating class in their district • Beginning with the class of 2016: Science and Technology/Engineering (STE) will be added to the Adams Scholarship eligibility criteria www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/adams.html Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

42. School & District Accountability • NCLB Flexibility Waiver in effect next school year (and for the next 3 years) • Changes how school & district calculations will be made; redefines some subgroups • Includes science in addition to ELA and Math www.doe.mass.edu/apa/titlei/default.html Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

43. Educator Evaluation • Phasing in revised educator evaluation system • 5-step evaluation cycle • Multiple sources of evidence needed www.doe.mass.edu/edeval/ Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

44. Admissions to State Higher Ed • ESE MassCore: “3 units lab-based science” • Which does include any technology/engineering course taken for science credit • www.doe.mass.edu/ccr/masscore/ • DHE Admissions Requirements: “3 sciences (including 2 with laboratory work)” • Working with DHE to be explicit about recognizing technology/engineering courses as science • www.mass.edu/forstudents/admissions/admissionsstandards.asp Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

45. Thank you!Questions, Comments, Contributions: mathsciencetech@doe.mass.edu Jake Foster 781-338-3510 jfoster@doe.mass.edu Joyce Bowen 781-338-3540 jbowen@doe.mass.edu