Even after many hours of professional development on Next Generation Science Standard (NGSS), I still find myself looking for more support.
Many have taken comfort in the strategies that allow for a natural transition into current curriculum utilizing anchoring phenomena, and have employed strategies such as the use of a Question Formulation Technique (QFT), Claim Evidence Reasoning (CER) or Claim Evidence Justification (CEJ) as well as incorporated more particulate modeling into various activities to allow students the opportunity to engage in the science and engineering practices called for in the standards.
Some teachers have started to write unit plans, now called storylines, that begin with a phenomena and have all the lessons in that unit tie back to understanding that phenomena. Many teachers are struggling with the next step of how to write a storyline and move out of the content zone of teaching content in a new sequence. Moreover, writing storylines is overwhelming and the collaboration of teachers working together is essential to the process.
If you are not a total novice and you have some experience with three-dimensional learning but are looking to move to the next step, consider attending this two day workshop with Paul Anderson. If you don’t know Paul, he has a fantastic website of free resources, called the wonderofscience.com. It offers NGSS adapted state standards, phenomena by topic, science and engineering cards, cross-cutting concept cards, assessment ideas, screening tools and much more. I have attended multiple professional development workshops with Paul and can’t say enough about how dynamic he is at transitioning teachers in understanding three dimensional learning.
This is not an introductory workshop! This two-day workshop is designed to prepare teacher leaders to begin the work of facilitating workshops on how to transition to NYSSLS which is the New York State version of NGSS, which includes most NGSS content plus some additional content. The goal of the workshop is to bring together teacher leaders and provide them with multiple ideas and resources to share with other educators in their home schools/regions. Participants will work together to create storylines for lessons to help further understanding among professionals regarding the shift to the new standards and phenomenon-based learning.
Three two day workshops are being offered at the following locations:
July 29 - July 30 Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794
July 31-Aug 1 SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY 12561
August 2-3, Conference Center at Wayne-Finger Lakes BOCES, Newark, NY 14513