SECONDARY SCIENCE CORE COMPONENTS OF INSTRUCTION
STUDENT OUTCOMESStudents must… / Rather than…
CONNECTIONS:Actively make connections between new content and their existing knowledge, concrete applications of the content, and/or other scientific topics as appropriate.Students recognize patterns and relationships and use underlying concepts as organizing schema. Students must build on their existing scientific knowledge to explain observations or to evaluate competing claims, and to apply scientific knowledge to draw conclusions (especially in novel situations or contextualized applications). / Treat science as a series of discrete, disjointed skills or facts.Believe that science is only useful inside the science classroom and that what was learned last week has little bearing on what is being learned now. Regurgitate knowledge or skills on an assessment, and then promptly forget them.
DISCOURSE:Talk and write about science in ways that demonstrate a deep understanding of underlying concepts.Students shoulder the burden of thinking in a class period, engaging with the teacher and peers on questions and problems that are just out of reach, determining the best approach for moving forward. As they take notes during traditional instruction and take part in exploration activities, students should explain a diverse range of observations, engage in discourse to evaluate and defend scientific claims, independently pose questions and generate reasonable hypotheses using scientific knowledge, and use scientific language purposefully, accurately, and independently. / Students are primarily passive recipients who cannot talk about science in a sophisticated manner.Students rarely articulate thinking or refer to “the thing” or “that theory” rather than using precise scientific vocabulary.They recall facts in ways that are disconnected and disorganized—blindly accepting, copying, and memorizing new information.Questions are only posed by the teacher.
MINDSETS:Believe that science is useful, beautiful, and exciting causing students to feel enthusiastic, confident, and joyful.Use time urgently to build an understanding of scientific knowledge and processes, because they believe that science matters and that they are capable of being successful in science with hard work and persistence. Students recognize that science is everywhere, that it’s an essential tool for understanding the world (including the food they eat, their health, and sports), and that mastering science skills and understandings will open pathways to opportunity up to and including a STEM career. / Count the minutes until class is over. Believe that science is only for “smart” students, that there is no way to improve science ability, that science is boring because it requires so much memorization, and that the only way science can ever be interesting is through clipart, songs, and review games.Exert as little effort as possible, never initiating scientific dialogue with teacher or peers and at times act disrespectful, non-compliant, and/or off-task.
TEACHER ACTIONS
Teachers must… / Rather than…
INQUIRY:Strategically design opportunities for students to make observations as a means of building accurate student understanding of key scientific ideas.Recognize that changing student conceptions is extremely difficult, and creating cognitive dissonance between what students observe and what they thought they knew is one of the best ways to help them develop key scientific ideas. Regardless of access to traditional laboratory equipment, teachers should seek creative, inexpensive opportunities for inquiry where appropriate—since inquiry is time-intensive, it should only be used to develop key scientific ideas, not secondary knowledge built upon key ideas. A physics teacher could ask students to drop a series of objects of similar size but different density to draw conclusions about gravity. A biology teacher could ask students to examine bone structures of different animals over time and draw conclusions about evolution. / Present key scientific ideas without reference to the phenomenon these ideas are built upon.Avoid inquiry because it seems time-consuming, impossible given limited resources, or that students are not capable of making observations, conducting experiments, and/or drawing conclusions on their own. Alternately, focus inquiry on content that is best presented (supporting details, facts) rather than developed.
QUESTIONING:Prompt students to reflect on, articulate, and explain key scientific ideas by asking cognitively complex questions, which may not have a clear and immediate correct answer. Ask questions that challenge students to develop hypotheses, to weigh multiple options and draw a conclusion, to defend their rationale or solution method, to pose their own questions, etc. Low-level questions are necessary to scaffold learning, but constitute a small percentage of the dialogue. / Rely solely on straightforward checks for understandings or low-level questions. Ask primarily yes/no questions, questions that require numerical answers over process or memorized facts over meaningful thought, or questions that require students to restate a definition, instruction, or procedure.
PROBLEM SOLVING: Help students use understandings of key scientific ideas to independently identify or generalize mathematical procedures, allowing for multiple pathways to solve problems.Emphasize the underlying rationale, purpose, or origin of the lesson's scientific content and do so in a way that is accessible and student-friendly. For math heavy curriculum, a physics teacher could ask students to solve for the speed of a falling object four different ways by incorporating key ideas from topics such as kinematics, force, conservation of energy, and conservation of momentum. / Present students with strict steps needed to solve problems—disconnecting problem solving from key scientific ideas. Present procedures, methods, notation, or definitions as rules that are arbitrary, teacher- or textbook-imposed, and inflexible (e.g. there is only one way to solve a problem).