Week 5 Agenda

Below you can find a link to the Week 5 Agenda. This will be updated as the week passes and at the end of the week a reflection will be shared in a different post.

Week 5 Agenda

Week 4 Reflection

Week 4 marked the end of the first task and the start of the next topic. As a physics fan I was thrilled to get into the core of the topic of motion.

As part of the end of the first task I gave all my students who had incomplete parts of the first task forms detailing what they still needed to turn in or get mastery on.

On my part the forms worked well as they do not take much time at all to complete, though I still wait to see how much of an impact they have on student scores. I will discuss this more in a later post reflecting on the first task, but I feel like I've struggled to really convey the idea that mastery is required. I think the students are not used to that idea and until it really becomes real to them (impacts their grade), they won't really get it.

With this new topic my classes are looking at a phenomena on the Wall of Death, basically a giant tub that you can ride around the walls of if you go fast enough. There is a lot to discuss about how physics plays a role in motion, even if you don't have much background in physics. The video worked well because it provides enough information that my students were generally able to figure out that speed, gravity, and friction played a role. Some who either knew of it, or were able to guess, figured out that the walls are not completely vertical as well. 

I played around with phenomena a bit last task, with the model of Jupiter and the asteroids, but plan on incorporating it more in this task. At the very least we will return to the Wall of Death in the middle of the unit and then work on diagramming forces at the end of the task as the students learn more.

From there the students worked on collecting data for the Speed Challenge. I've done the activity before, but structured it to be a bit more inquiry based this year. The students are in charge of making their own data tables, something I've tried to do for almost all activities this year. We then went over how we describe motion (using a Pear Deck) and I had the students think about how we might calculate speed, given what they know about about units for speed (such as miles per hour). And lastly, they were then given additional directions to calculate the speed values and apply that data to other situations. All in all, it worked well to introduce the students to motion and to give them a chance to go outside, which is a great break for them.

My biggest challenge with this week is trying to hold back how much I want to just give my students about motion versus helping them discover themselves. I love motion, I love lecturing about it, I could stand up all day solving problems on the board, and in a way that makes it almost harder to teach it. Not do I only want to explain too much, but it makes it harder for me remember not liking it or finding the topic hard. But, I am exciting to move onto the new task, our first engineering design challenge. 

Week 4 Agenda and Assessment 2 Overview

Below you can find a link to the Week 1 Agenda. This will be updated as the week passes and at the end of the week a reflection will be shared in a different post.

Week 4 Agenda

Also, as a general resource, this is what my preliminary plan for this whole assessment will look like. (Things will certainly change as I see what my students need extra support with, but I find it really helpful to have a very general idea of how I might want to approach the whole task.)

Assessment Overview

Week 3 Reflection

With the end of week 3 we've reached basically the end of this first performance task (apart from their presentations and my grading of the papers). Although I still have many, many papers to grade there is a lot about this task I can evaluate now.

What worked:

• Grouping my EL students together. Usually I believe in heterogeneous groups, but since this task was focused on ultimately a single major project that was so reading and writing focused, I felt that grouping made sense. Looking back I still agree. It let these students support each other and also allowed me to have time each day to work with them as a group than I would have if I had to go to each student individually.
• Peer evaluation. I had initially planned on having students peer evaluate at different times, waiting until they were at the end of that part of the task before they got that feedback. And there is certainly logic to that. But in this task I had all my students peer evaluate at the same time. It allowed my students who were behind to see an example of someone who was further along, while still allowing those who were done to get feedback. Plus, those who were not done, had a more succinct list of expectations for the assignment. 
• Mini lessons. I included a few mini lessons throughout on credible sources, thinking maps, how to cite resources, and more. Although these were review for many students, there were certainly ones who were new to these concepts or just needed a refresher. 

What I'd do differently next time:

• Time. Next time I would focus on encouraging my students to be faster (to a degree). There are certainly students who I know spent longer researching than needed. The challenge is giving them as much time as they need, while making sure they are being effective in their use of time. 
• Conveying the importance of mastery. No matter how many times I went over the requirement for mastery (for us 80% or better on a task) I know there are students who still don't feel like it is really a requirement and probably won't until they see an impact on their grade. 

Overall:

I liked this task. I am a huge proponent of writing in science. It is something all science teachers already do, but also something we can be more deliberate about. This task did that by focusing on the steps before the final paper (such as collecting research and organizing that research), which was great for the students who don't yet have the skills to just tackle a research paper independently. Plus, it put value on those steps which means that a student could ultimately pass this assessment with those preliminary steps completed. This might seem counter intuitive as a positive in valuing writing, but if a student would likely be unsuccessful in writing the whole paper, they are at least getting something out of collecting good research and organizing that research into thinking maps.

One of the challenges in this task, compared to some of the others, is that it really was one progressive task and keeping up with grading each part was a challenge. Ultimately, I let the students move onto the next task (so if I was checking their research they could move on to the thinking maps) while I was grading. I was able to give back rubrics the next day, but it meant that students who ultimately needed to revise part of the task may have already moved onto the next part. It felt unavoidable to me without giving them busy work to complete until I gave them their score or having them sit doing nothing waiting for a grade. However, I think this contributed to some students' lack of personal buy in to the requirement of mastery.

Ultimately I look forward to grading their final papers. I have read bits and pieces here and there, but I always love see their interesting ideas and am constantly blown away by their skill in conveying their ideas through writing.

Week 3 Agenda

Below you can find a link to the Week 3 Agenda. This will be updated as the week passes and at the end of the week a reflection will be shared in a different post.

Week 3 Agenda

Week 2 Reflection

As we went into this week I knew my students would need a break from the research paper. Thinking back to my days teaching Earth Science I knew an activity looking at rock layers would be helpful in not only giving the students a chance to learn more about a related topic, but also in thinking about how so many things in science are organized by patterns. 

I really felt like this supplemental activity was perfect for the break in the task I wanted and will definitely include more similar activities to bring in related topics and to add some variation in class.

I also have tried to break up the days by discussing skills and expectations throughout. These have included mini lessons on evaluating resources and creating thinking maps and will later on include lessons on citations and creating presentations. All of these are skills the students have learned in the past, but can be helpful to review.

The research for my students has been going well. I've had a few students change topics as they realized they were not finding enough information to support their thoughts or find an answer, but all together they are developing some great information for their final papers. Having the project be so supported by class time allows me to be there throughout the process to answer questions and gives me a chance to really keep track of their progress as they are working. I found that for me, making a seating chart with their questions was critical (as I don't think I could have remembered all 244 without it). I plan on also using a seating chart in the future to make my own notes about students progress through the tasks, but haven't found that necessary for this task.

I've also had to keep organized in checking off the students' progress through the tasks as this information doesn't go into the grade book until I enter a final score at the end. With the task not having definite due dates, I have different students at all different points in the process. Using a check off sheet that included each task has helped me quickly see, not just where each student is, but also how far the class as a whole is with the project.

The numbers show me their score on the peer evaluation, and then the score from their rubric. I initially highlighted the students who had not yet reached mastery with the initial background information worksheet, but from then on I highlighted those who reached mastery. My hope is that by keeping both sets of information it will help give us more insight into their progress during parent-teacher conferences.

Valuing the Process

I will admit, there are times during this transition to NGSS that I've questioned what I am doing. I am not used to spending so much class topic on a project. Usually I would introduce it, give them a couple of days spread out in class over the course of the timeline to work, and then expect it turned in completed and perfect on the due date. I never would have spend a total of almost 3 weeks in class (about 10 full days of class time with the supplemental activities subtracted) working on a project like this. However, in reflecting back on this time I truly see the value. 

A large part of this change to NGSS, in my eyes at least, is in valuing the process. This might be the process of truly understanding a concept (not just having a teacher convey information to you), but it is also the process of creating something, like the research project. This whole activity has students finding a question they are passionate about, discovering the answer on their own, and working to figure out how to convey that information to others. But, the truth of the matter is not all students will even get there. 

In the past when a student didn't finish a project like this they would get a zero, an F, a hole they had to fight to climb out of. Maybe they would turn in a late and incomplete paper, lifting them up to a higher F or maybe even a D. But, here's the thing, that final paper only represents a fraction of the process and what they accomplished. They had to acquire background knowledge, collect research, and organize that research. Shouldn't we be valuing this whole process and not just the end result. These tasks let me do that. I think of some of my students who struggle, whether it is with motivation or ability, by valuing the whole process it makes it much harder for them to fail. I think that's a great thing.

Assessment 1.1 Videos

Below you will find a few videos that were taken throughout the 8th Grade 1.1 NGSS Assessment that requires students to ask questions, research and write a research paper. The intention of this research paper is to allow students to dive deep into any topic that interests them related to asteroids, mass extinctions, or the fossil record. This topic will be continued throughout the year to connect the four units of 8th grade integrated science.

Asking Questions with QFT

Tracking and Monitoring of Progress Through the NGSS Assessments

Mini Lesson: Credible and Non-Credible Resources

Week 2 Agenda

Below you can find a link to the Week 2 Agenda. This will be updated as the week passes and at the end of the week a reflection will be shared in a different post.

Week 2 Agenda

Week 1 Reflection

Looking back at this first week I'd say it went quite successfully. There is always a fear with change that somehow your classroom will devolve into chaos (or maybe I am the only one with nightmares about about that). 

This week the main new strategy was incorporating the question formulation technique (QFT) into the class. Last year I had my students individually work on this to develop a question about space for a research project, but it is different doing it with a whole class. In general I would say that the most successful aspect was the involvement of my students. There were a lot of great questions which in turn really helped them pick good research topics. I did give them an aim of 3 questions per group to encourage a lot of questions, but many groups had that or more without prompting. 

The one thing I would change is how I set up the document for them to write their questions on. It was a Google Sheets document shared with the class in Google Classroom and included a place for identifying the type of question as well a place to rewrite it. This meant that some groups had an individual person who classified and rewrote all questions before we even had a chance to discuss it as a class. Not the end of the world, but it meant that all members of their group were not as involved in this idea of evaluating questions. Next time I will just edit their sheets as the lesson progresses to include these that rather than including it at the start.

A focus for me this year is efficiency in grading and I've incorporated peer evaluation to help with this. No, this isn't having them check off if each question on a test or worksheet is correct and assigning a grade, it is having them give feedback to their peers to they can revise and improve their assignments before turning in the final thing. 

Below shows the peer evaluation for the Defining Key Concepts Worksheet. It is a simple check off of what is done and what has enough detail. For them the goal is to give them a focus on what to improve during the class discussion.

I still do evaluate each assignment using a rubric as seen below, but these peer evaluations help them improve and help me grade quicker.

Overall there wasn't much change from my initial plan and, although there are some small changed I would make, I am generally pleased with how the assessment is progressing...though the more difficult parts of the assessment are still to come.

Week 1 Agenda and Assessment 1 Overview

Below you can find a link to the Week 1 Agenda. This will be updated as the week passes and at the end of the week a reflection will be shared in a different post.

Week 1 Agenda

Also, as a general resource, this is what my preliminary plan for this whole task looked like. 

Assessment Overview

Background on Unit 1

The start of this school year has meant a move to the Next Generation Science Standards, a move that I, as a science teacher, heartily embrace. The work that I am doing here heavily incorporates the work that all of us science teachers, and especially Cari Williams, at Tustin Unified School District put in last spring and this summer, as well as work that continues today. This is available online at http://msngss.weebly.com/. Each week I am going to post a blog with a plan for the week and later a reflection on that.

The first NGSS Unit in 8th Grade Science is about how objects move and collide and as an overarching topic looks at asteroids. It is a fun unit as the connections between Earth Science, Life Science, Space, and Physics flow easily.

Before the unit itself I incorporated two activities. The first was a pre-assessment. (There is a picture below to give you an idea of what this looks like, but you can see the whole thing at the link.) The pre-assessment was done in Google Forms using the quiz feature. I incorporated some short answers, but if I were to do it again I would make it all multiple choice as the short answers need to be hand graded.

This pre-assessment, while it could be used for grouping students, was primarily designed to determine which topics my students overwhelmingly knew or didn't know going in to the unit. (In this case the main areas where less than 50% of students got it correct were motion terms, Newton's Third Law, and Kinetic and Potential Energy Conversion). This told me that I would need supplemental lessons on these topics to support the related assessments.

The second introduction activity was an article on Actively Learn. (Our district moved to this literacy tool this year, as someone that used NewsELA extensively in the past and was well used to it, I was a bit frustrated to have to learn a new tool. Now that I've used it I take it back. It took only one article for me to be a huge fan.) The articles I used were from an amazing site called Understanding Science and an article in particular about Walter Alvarez's work in understanding the extinction of the dinosaurs. 

The first performance task in this unit is a student guided research paper on any topic about the fossil record, asteroids, or extinctions. This assessment (as are all) is broken down into 4 parts, each of which the students will need to master to move onto the next. This means that in a classroom there will be students a different points in the project. My main aim these year is working on how to manage this effectively and support all student needs.

This performance task introduces DCI LS4.A: Evidence of Common Ancestry and Diversity (this DCI will also be addressed in the third unit of this year which focuses on evolution), SEPs on Analyzing and Interpreting Data and Scientific Knowledge is Based on Empirical Evidence, and lastly CCCs on Patterns and Order and Consistency in Natural Systems.)

With this unit and throughout the entire year, the focus is to create a student-centered culture in our classrooms that promotes student inquiry and requires students to formulate their own understandings rather than simply providing the information they need to know. We will also be focused on meeting the district's TUSD Connect Vision which is:

We will continue to focus on including and increasing the rigor of scientific literacy in our curriculum to meet individual school site writing goals and the goals of CCSS and the NGSS.

Here We Go!

The time has come and we are all about to begin implementing the NGSS in middle school classrooms in TUSD! Our transition units are coming to a close and many of us are not sure exactly where to start. This blog is dedicated to  those of you who would like someone to follow.

As a part of the TUSD Connect Fellowship, I will be coaching teachers through our first year of transition to the NGSS. We will posting together on this site and providing a sample weekly agenda. Do not feel you need to follow us the way we are implementing the lessons, go ahead and make it your own. Hopefully, our reflections on the curriculum will help you learn from the risks we are taking as we dive into this great big ocean of the unknown.