Teaching Strategies
Opportunities for students to use the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Eight Practices of Science and Engineering are intrinsic to teaching the unit, especially asking and defining problems, developing and using models, analyzing and interpreting data, using mathematics and computational thinking, constructing explanations, engaging in argument from evidence, and obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information. We will also focus on several of the NGSS Crosscutting Concepts, patterns, cause and effect, scale, proportion, and quantity, systems and system models, structure and function and stability and change of systems. Implementation of the Principles of Learning are foundational to pedagogical practices. These include organizing for effort, clear expectations, fair and credible evaluations, recognition of accomplishment, academic rigor in a thinking curriculum, Accountable Talk® practices, socializing intelligence, self-management of learning, and learning as apprenticeship.
Lessons are designed in the Workshop Model with an Opening, Work-Time and Closing. Students enact classroom responsibility through defined class jobs (Lead Scientist, Chief Investigator, Recorder/Statistician, Project Manager) and maintenance of student notebooks. allow for ongoing formative assessment. Teacher-created rubrics for assignments keep expectations and criteria clear.
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