The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) standards for educators as designers calls (5b) calls for us to “design authentic learning activities that align with content area standards and use digital tools and resources to maximize active, deep learning.” Designing technology-enhanced instructional materials for the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) can be a complex task, so it is best to use a guide. The makers of the NGSS designed the Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products (EQuIP) Rubric to assess and inform the development of science lessons and units. Educators and curriculum developers can use the EQuIP Rubric criteria as a guide to enhance science instructional materials with technology where most effective.
In this post, I select EQuIP criteria from each of its three sections (I. NGSS 3D Design, II. NGSS Instructional Supports, and III. Monitoring NGSS Student Progress) to examine possible technology enhancements for science lessons or units. The EQuIP Rubric may also be used as part of the Primary Evaluation of Essential Criteria (PEEC) for NGSS Instructional Materials Design in evaluations of year-long programs or programs that span multiple grade levels. One useful aspect of the PEEC is its “less” and “more” format, which compares traditional science instruction to ideal NGSS instruction. I will borrow this format to compare how technology is often used in classroom to how it should be used within each selected .
I. NGSS 3D Design
A. Explaining Phenomena/Designing Solutions: Making sense of phenomena and/or designing solutions to a problem drive student learning. (EQuIP Version 3.0, 2016, p. 2)
Less:
Prefabricated models for students to examine without opportunities to critique the model and create their own. Some digital instructional materials for science are visually beautiful and scientifically accurate, but leave nothing for the student to create on their own (see previous post about coding science models). If our goal is to get students to think about science phenomena through modeling, we, as educators and curriculum designers, should not do all of the thinking and modeling for them, and only allow students to interact on a consumer level with our products.
More:
Opportunities and supports for students to observe phenomena and critique and design their own models. This strategy is more effective, and often more difficult for educators to design. Technology can provide experiences for students that traditional science instruction cannot, and should be used alongside real-world observations and systems modeling. For example, using computer models to represent a phenomena that would otherwise be impossible for a middle school student to observe (e.g., the Earth, Moon, Sun system from outer space). Students should be given a variety (multiple modalities) of opportunities to make observations and design models (e.g., observing phases of the moon, creating “hands-on” models with spheres and a light source, or creating their own computer model).
II. NGSS Instructional Supports
E. Differentiated Instruction: Provides guidance for teachers to support differentiated instruction by including appropriate [supports and extensions for students.] (EQuIP Version 3.0, 2016, p. 2)
Less:
Traditional, one-size-fits all instruction in digital format, with suggested differentiation strategies.
More:
Differentiation built into digital curriculum. Differentiation is an area where the technological potential is great, but the curriculum design and implementation lags far behind. Computer software’s great advantage over textbooks is wasted if it is not designed to be differentiated, dynamic and supportive. Ideally, multiple levels of support and extensions would be built in so that students can access them when needed.
Newsela provides a good example of how science texts can be adapted to meet the needs of students at different reading levels. Newsela also shows us that if curriculum is to be truly differentiated, then instructional materials must be designed to be far more robust. Such reading supports need to be designed and written into the curriculum before it reaches the classroom.
The same is true for supports like charts, graphs, audio narration, illustrations, animations, additional examples, and additional practice questions. A truly differentiated curriculum could be designed like a “choose-your-own-adventure” book, that offers different pathways to students to reach the same learning goal. For such a curriculum to be successful, instruction must be available for all students along the way. Here is an opportunity for “flipping the flipped classroom” (Watson, 2017), where instructional videos are available for students when they need them.
While it would be best to organize and access the instructional materials for this type of differentiated curriculum online, students’ learning experiences and the products of their learning should not all live and stay exclusively online. Online instructions should guide both online and offline learning experiences, like student-to-student dialogue and debate (online: with students in other classrooms and offline: with students in the same classroom), hands-on science experiments, engineering challenges and outdoor learning experiences.
Admittedly, designing a curriculum with greater complexity takes more planning, design work and professional development than a traditional, one-size-fits-all curriculum. Educators, curriculum designers and school administrators should take up this challenge so we can adequately serve 21st century science students.
III. Monitoring NGSS Student Progress
F. Opportunity to Learn: Provides multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate performance of practices connected with their understanding of disciplinary core ideas and crosscutting concepts and receive feedback. (EQuIP Version 3.0, 2016, p. 3)
Less:
Biased tasks that favor some learners over others as summative assessment. We know that students learn in different ways, but, too often, we offer only a single means (modality) by which they can demonstrate their understanding.
More:
Variety in assessment tasks, reflecting learning experiences in multiple modalities. As we vary the learning process, we must vary the assessment process accordingly. Just as curriculum supports would need to be more robust to support both students and teachers in a curriculum with more options, so too must assessment supports be expanded and improved to facilitate the monitoring of student progress.
Adaptive learning software can help provide some of the many pathways students take. In essence, the learning software guides them on their path and can provide supports along the way. Adaptive learning software in science might present a student with an excerpt from an article, a diagram or a video clip when students need further explanation or with a supported extension when the student has demonstrated mastery of a concept. The primary limitation of adaptive learning software in NGSS classrooms would be its reliance on multiple choice questions, where the focus of NGSS is constructing sound scientific arguments and solving problems.
If students learn a chemical process like photosynthesis through physical movement, dance or song, there should be an option for students to demonstrate their knowledge of a complimentary chemical process (cellular respiration) in a similar fashion. Supports for these assessments would include rubrics, (maybe dynamic digital rubrics, where students can choose how they will demonstrate their learning, and share their proposal with teachers for review/approval) instructional supports (as mentioned before with “flipping the flipped classroom”) that are focused on the chosen medium (for example, if a student chooses to make a video, there should be video editing tutorials available for them). Allowing and supporting student choice with thoughtful and robust digital curriculum design will increase student engagement and learning.
References
Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products (EQuIP) Rubric (2016) Retrieved from http://www.nextgenscience.org/resources/equip-rubric-lessons-units-science
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) standards for educators (2018) Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/standards/for-educators
Newsela (2018) Retrieved from https://newsela.com/
Oremus, Will (2015) No more pencils, no more books: Artificially intelligent software is replacing the textbook – and reshaping American education. Slate. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2015/10/adaptive_learning_software_is_replacing_textbooks_and_upending_american.html
Primary Evaluation of Essential Criteria (PEEC) for Next Generation Science Standards Instructional Materials, Version 1.1 (2017) Retrieved from https://www.nextgenscience.org/peec
Watson, Tim (2017) Flipping the flipped classroom. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/flipping-flipped-classroom
