Once more onto the breach, dear friends, once more...

I have had a couple of request for my lesson plan format, and as I am about to embark on writing grades three through five, I suspect my postings will be limited for a while.  Our legacy curriculum was already based on the 5E model.  Happily, this integrates with Understanding by Design (UbD) fairly easily.  Keep in mind that UbD is more of a curriculum design framework rather than a just a lesson plan template.

During stage 1, we spend a lot of time unpacking the standards and making sure we understand exactly what students are asked to know and be able to do.  This process was made significantly easier by the addition of the NGSS evidence statements.  These really clarified what the writers had in mind and doubtless signal what and how students will be assessed.

Now, I will say the release of these statements drove me mad.  They came out on the day we wrapped up grades K-2.  A quick analysis of what we wrote showed that we were close, but some work will need to be done after our field test next year.

Back to stage 1.  These evidence statements will be converted to "I can" statements.  For my purposes, I define these as a restatement of the evidence statements in student friendly language.   A task I am dreading when it comes to my rewrite of Kindergarten.

• I can push
• I can pull

These might be the limits given the reading ability of most Kindergarten students.  I have seen some "I can" statements based on the NGSS.  These, however, are a restatement of the performance expectations.  These are far too coarse for my purposes.

Once we understand the standards, it is time to move on to stage 2.  This is the assessment development portion.  Here is where we dip into problem based learning and develop a performance based assessment.  For our units, these problems are locally relevant and attempt to tie as many of the "I can" statements together as possible.  These are also the basis for our storylines.

I am of a firm believe that a good curriculum should tell a story across each lesson.  It is our goal that at some point during the lesson, students are asked to apply what they have learned to the problem in the unit.  By the end, these individual applications become the basis for a final iteration of their original solution. Whatever does not fit into this performance assessment is assessed through more traditional means using our learning management system's assessment engine.

The assessments form the bookends of the curriculum.  For each unit there is a pre-performance assessment.  Here students are given the opportunity to solve the problem with whatever background knowledge they bring to the unit.  By the end, their new iteration is a measure of how much they have grown across one unit of study.  An important feature in our new era of teacher accountability.

At stage 3, we carve individual lessons plans.  Just so we are on the same page, a lesson is not necessarily built on a specific amount of time.  It is built on whatever it takes for students to accomplish the "I can" statement (formerly known as an objective).

The next page shows the lesson plan format we are using and was discussed above.  I look forward to your questions and suggestions. 



Standards-

For NGSS use the specific coding you were given.  Copy and paste.  USE HYPHENS IN PLACE OF BULLETS

Look for opportunities to integrate CCR and P21 as well. 

Description: Gives the teacher a brief summary of what the lesson is about and what students will be doing.  Finishes with estimated time to implement the lesson expressed in number of 60 minute classes.(Two-60 minute classes) 

Stage 1- Desired Results

Essential Question: Avoid yes or no questions or those with a “Google-able” Answer.  Should drive instruction during the lesson.  Conveys the big idea to the teacher.

Enduring Understandings:  Students will understand that:  -What specific understandings should students have after the lesson?  There can be multiple items.  USE HYPHENS IN PLACE OF BULLETS

Objective:  STUDENT FRIENDLY LANGUAGE which starts with “I can”

Stage 2- Assessment Evidence

Assessment Type	Description	Criteria
Summative:	What tool will teachers use to collect the evidence that students have mastered the “I can…”?	What is the evidence of mastery?
Formative:	What should a teacher observe during the lesson in order to make modifications along the way?	What specific evidence should guide teachers to making modifications?

Stage 3- Plan

Lesson Background:

What would be helpful for the teacher to understand about the content of this lesson? Include link

Lesson Prep:

What will a teacher need to prepare before the lesson?  This is copied to the Advanced Preparation section of the previous lesson.  USE HYPHENS IN PLACE OF BULLETS

Materials:

For the teacher:  What materials will the teacher need?  Include the physical and digital assets. For each group of students Group work is essential to 21st century skills. Groups should be no larger than 3-4 students. Materials kits will be built for a max class size of 32 (8 groups of 4). For each individual student: What materials will students need?

Lesson Planner with Differentiation:

Components	Brief Description
Engagement	How will you capture students attention and focus them on the “I can..”? What do students already know (or think they know) about the phenomena? Have students make a claim when appropriate. USE HYPHENS IN PLACE OF BULLETS Each stage should be written with enough detail to guide instruction, but IT IS NOT A SCRIPT.  Be sure to include suggested questions to assist teachers in guiding discussions.  Highlight critical points in the lesson if a teacher must absolutely follow the lesson or else a teachable moment may be lost.
Exploration	How will students interact with the phenomena? What evidence will they collect to support their claim? USE HYPHENS IN PLACE OF BULLETS
Explanation	How will students explain the evidence?  How will they express their understanding?  In science, students should not be limited to only written explanations.  USE HYPHENS IN PLACE OF BULLETS
Elaboration	How does understanding the phenomena help students solve the problem? USE HYPHENS IN PLACE OF BULLETS
Evaluation	What tool will teachers use to collect the evidence that students have mastered the “I can…”?  (Summative Assessment) USE HYPHENS IN PLACE OF BULLETS

Advanced Preparation for Next Lesson:

Will be pasted in from the Lesson Prep section of the next lesson. Complete after finalizing next lesson.

Grade		Unit		Lesson
Developers

Interactive Notebooks with Training Wheels

An essential component to our new curriculum will be the use of Interactive Science Notebooks (ISN).  If you are among the uninitiated, check out the works of Kelly Marcarelli, Lori Fulton, and Brian Campbell.  .  I have also created a Pinterest board full of ideas to get you started.  

After conducting professional development for about 2000 teachers, I realized I needed to adopt a hybrid model to bring the other 5000 over to "light side".  There will always be a place for authentic ISNs in classroom, but I have to wean everyone off of worksheets first (#Death2Worksheets).   Thus the model I have adopted brings in the best of both worlds.  

It has the structure of traditional ISNs but built with efficiency in mind.     Traditional ISNs utilize some classroom time to building the ISN including paste-ins, foldables, and data tables.  These are all valuable tasks, but when there is only 30 minutes of instructional time (K-2 in my world), I want to make every minute focused on collecting and anything the data rather than making the data chart.  

To the purest out there that are now scowling,  I know what you're saying.  Learning how to build a data table is an instructional tasks.  Yes it is, but in NGSS the words "with guidance" appear quite a bit it the K-2 practices.  As we move to grades 3-5, the pages will get more open-ended.  Now, back to the show.  

There a couple of ways to sum up our model.  It still uses the left-right format, but when I first tried telling teachers that the output was on the left more than a few screams were heard.  So after some consultation with my friends in the 6-12 world (middle and high schools have used ISNs for many moons in my district),  a rephrasing of the model was developed.  

 

On the left side, the student is talking to the teacher.  On the right side the teacher is talking to the student.  Another way to look at this is through the lens of the 5E model.

                          

At the start of the lesson, students are asked to demonstrate what they know (or think they know).

During the lesson, students engage in understanding some phenomena.  This encompasses Exploration and Explanation.  Towards the end, students demonstrate their new understanding through a summative evaluation.  I sometimes have a hard time separating the elaboration from the evaluation because in many cases, they both require students to apply what they know.  For those of you writing SLOs, the left page captures where a student started and how far they have grown by the end.  

This is not THE way.  Everyday, this model evolves a little as we build the ISNs to compliment the curriculum.  Below, are a couple of the pages currently in production for the field test next year. I produce these using Publisher.  Our printshop copies and distributes to the schools.

K:Weather and Climate

K:  Pushes and Pulls

Lastly, as we move into grades 3-5, I am looking for a digital version to replace the paper based model for K-2.  I am having a hard time finding an efficient way for students to put down their ideas. As always, please comment.  Don't take my word for it.  Question everything.  

3..2..1...Launch!!!

So, I am working on the Structures and Properties of Matter storyline.  Lots of possibilities here but I think I will settle on the classics.  Nothing engages kids more than the old baking soda and vinegar rocket.  It really captures all of the performance expectations nicely.  However, the problem I have with them is the whole "turn over the rocket and run" solution to safety.

So how do we make the launch more predictable and safe for everyone?  That became my obsession this weekend.  After many iterations, I have a usable solution.  It requires some refinement but the core idea is pretty solid.  To finish it off, I want to add a pressure gauge and a catch to hold the rocket on until mission command is ready to launch.  It took six modifications and a 3D printer, but I think that will work as well.  Here is the "Mk 1" launcher.   

Baking Soda and Vinegar Rocket Laucher from Eric Cromwell on Vimeo.

How did we choose what to teach in the NGSS?

Greetings everyone!  Just getting back from NSTA and am really charged up (as is the intention of good conferences).  It is really gratifying to talk with so many enthusiastic teachers and administrators with a passion for teaching elementary students about the wonders of the universe.  I still find it a hoot when I get approached by people excited about reading my blog.  It tells me there is a real need to talk about this time of change we are going through, but please don't take my word for it...

 Honestly, the intent of this blog from the beginning has been to put out the path that I am taking not as thee  path, but as a set of ideas to get this process moving.  I want to be questioned and challenged about my ideas.  Indeed, challenge is the path to improvement.  In the spirit of that idea, I have been asked the question in my title several times.  So here is my response.  

I use the topic based arrangement of the NGSS as is.  Each page of performance expectations is the basis for a unit.  My assumption has been that there was some reason the PE's to be bundled this way; although after questioning the writers for confirmation of this the best I got was "these are the ones that seemed to fit together coherently."  In a couple of units, we have to get very creative.  

The grade 3 page on Forces and Motion for example.  It combines classic Newtonian concepts with electromagnetic forces. We can make it work, but it feels very odd.  The Safe Racer program is being upgraded.  It will not only challenge students to keep an egg safe in their cars, but also require them to explain how the magnetic release system we will be adding works.  Along with measuring how far the car goes, we can measure how fast the cars are going by accurately measuring the time it takes the car to reach the end of the ramp.  

In another example, the unit is split into two parts under a coherent storyline.  The Kindergarten Weather & Climate performance expectations have two distinct themes; protecting yourself from the sun and predicting the weather.  Our storyline for this unit asks students to build a structure to protect everyone from the sun while on the playground.  Part 2 asks the students to evaluate weather data in order to determine if they should tell the principal to take down the structure so it is not damaged by severe weather.  We actually have students evaluate the radar image.  It is easier than you think.  Break it down into two parts.  What colors symbolize severe weather and what direction is it moving?

So why not cherry pick the NGSS like so many publishers are doing.  For one, the NGSS is built on learning progressions.   This focus on progressions makes science cumulative.  When I talk to principals and other officials, I tell them to think about science like math now.  Imagine what would happen if schools stopped teaching math from K-5.  There is no way middle schools would ever compensate for that lost foundational knowledge.  That is science in an NGSS world.
  
My second concern in a buffet approach to the NGSS is orphaning a performance expectation.  I did not want to get to the end of curriculum writing and realize we missed one.  The one exception to this was in grade 5.  I shifted the PE on people improving the environment (5-ESS3-1) from the Earth Systems page to the Movement of Energy and Matter page.  That was the topic of my last blog entry.  

Lastly, I have ignored the engineering PE's as a separate entity.  It felt too much like the days when we "wove in" the old skills and processes.   Each unit, so far, has students working collaboratively to build a physical object.  That may be a model (beach erosion prevention), prototype (biomimicry solution), or fully functioning object (hand pollinator for example).  In this way, students are learning to act as engineers within context.  

As always, context and relevance are of extreme importance to me.  We are a practical species.  We tend to care about things when they are important to us.  I attended a pre-conference session by Megan Bang.   One of the great points she brought up is that we have to stop expecting our students to ask questions and respond based on our cultural norms.  What does that mean in this context?  Curriculum developers may find the phenomena of science exciting but until students see themselves connected to it, they will continue to ignore it.  As you read through your curriculum ask yourself these two questions from the perspective of your students.

Why am I learning this?

What will it help me to do?

Two Birds with One Curriculum

One of the myriad of challenges faced by curriculum developers today is finding out how many initiatives can be jammed into one curriculum guide.  Just in terms of standards, there are six sets which must be addressed to some extent in my curriculum.

• College and Career Ready Standards (aka Common Core)
• Next Generation Science Standards
• Environmental Literacy Standards
• STEM Standards of Practice 
• Partnership for 21st Century Skills
• Technology Literacy Standards

What I will attempt to do is illustrate on possible model to satisfy many of these standards in one unit.   

For many years, students across the district have enjoyed a one day outdoor education experience as part of their grade five curriculum.  The focus is on energy transfer within different habitats.

Fortunately, the NGSS did not shift this content from grade five.  The Matter and Energy in Organisms and Ecosystems topic page still requires students to develop the quintessential food web model.  At the same time, elementary students across the state must have a "Meaningful Watershed Experience" (MWEE).

A MWEE is most readily defined by a primary research process (I smell a Common Core connection!) developed in the early 1980's by Harold Hungerford and Trudi Volk at the University of Southern Illinois at Carbondale.  The name of the process is Investigating  and Evaluating Environmental Issues and Actions (IEEIA).  Not to be confused with E-I-E-I-O.  The research process was co-opted by Maryland and is now standard 1 of the Environmental Literacy Standards.  The process looks like this:

• Identify an environmental issue. 
• Develop and write research questions related to an environmental issue. 
• Given a specific issue, communicate the issue, the stakeholders involved and the stakeholders’ beliefs and values. 
• Design and conduct the research. 
• Use data and references to interpret findings to form conclusions. 
• Use recommendation(s) to develop and implement an environmental action plan.
• Communicate, evaluate and justify personal views on environmental issue and alternate ways to address them. 
• Analyze the effectiveness of the action plan in terms of achieving the desired outcomes.  

With this process in mind, how do we have students focus on matter and energy in ecosystems?  To answer that, let's start with the issue.  Issues are usually stated in a simple question.  For this unit, we are looking at the following:

Can people manage the ecosystem within Baltimore County?

From here students go into the field and conduct a modified "BioBlitz". They leave the field study with a large list of living things that undoubtedly interact.  The students must develop a food web of these organisms.   Now, here is the secret.  The areas students  survey are overpopulated with deer.  This is no surprise as most of the metropolitan area is overrun.  The impact these large herbivores have on the environment cannot be overstated.  The question is what to do about it.  This is one of those situations which has no one right answer and one that will not make everyone happy. (Ambiguity is part of the P21 Standards).  Here is a great video to introduce the complexity of the issue.

There was a physicists several years ago that stated something to the extent that we have to stop asking students questions that had answers.  I think this might have been in reference to theoretical physics but the idea stuck with me.    We have a lot of big problems in the world that cannot be simply bubbled in on the test.  Giving students the opportunity to grapple with complex issues in a safe environment is something we should do in schools.  

If you are interested in seeing what students can generate when given a complex topic, take a look at my repository of student generated projects.  

Issues Investigation Repository

2/3 Down and Looking Ahead

Greetings Science Curriculum Fans!  Well, we are two thirds done with curriculum writing this year.   I think we are getting a little better each time.  How do I know?  During the reviews, we give each table a composition book to record suggested changes or concerns they have.  The number of comments drastically dropped between  the first review and second.  Not a scientific study but a point of data nonetheless.

As often happens, a discussion with the field test teachers led to an inspired project for me.  Each of the major curriculum offices create their own implementation calendars.  Mine is a suggested sequence by unit.  The reading office has their calendar by week.  The idea that came about was a combined calendar showing all the curriculum at once.  

I am still gathering input on the layout, but it has been met with a lot of interest from the few teachers who have seen the draft.

Moving ahead, I prepare for curriculum writing this summer.  As stated earlier (A Five Year Mission),  this summer we start work on grades three through five.  This summer will be a little different.  I started with teams of five teachers working on one unit.  That was a little ungainly and presented a curriculum draft with lots of voices to sort out and homogenize.  This summer the teams will be smaller with only three writers per unit.  Also, I solicited middle school science teachers and Gateway to Technology teachers.  As I look at the performance expectations, much of the content at grades four and five is currently taught in middle school.  Whats more, I really want the insights that the Gateway to Technology teachers bring.  They manage engineering projects with students everyday.  That kind of pedagogical knowledge will be worth its weight in gold.  

Stay tuned. Over the next few weeks.  I will give you some ideas about the storylines we are planning for this summer.  Here are a few hints: