CRUSH SCHOOL

5644 1st Avenue South Minneapolis, MN, 55419

I blog on Brain-Based Learning, Metacognition, EdTech, and Social-Emotional Learning. I am the author of the Crush School Series of Books, which help students understand how their brains process information and learn. I also wrote The Power of Three: How to Simplify Your Life to Amplify Your Personal and Professional Success, but be warned that it's meant for adults who want to thrive and are comfortable with four letter words.

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Beginning the School Year with NGSS and Phenomenon-Based Learning

August 21, 2024  /  Oskar Cymerman

The start of a new school year is an opportunity for a science teacher to engage students in science learning that is both fun and effective. Combining the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) with phenomenon-based learning (PhenBL) in the right way can create a lively classroom environment where students develop a deep understanding of scientific concepts through real-world explorations.

Here’s how to make it fun and effective.

NGSS and Phenomenon-Based Learning

NGSS focuses on three dimensions: disciplinary core ideas (DCIs), science and engineering practices (SEPs), and crosscutting concepts (CCCs). These standards encourage students to think and work like scientists and engineers, emphasizing inquiry, evidence-based reasoning, and the interconnectedness of scientific concepts.

Phenomenon-based learning involves using observable events or phenomena to anchor learning. Students investigate these phenomena through questioning, experimentation, and critical thinking, leading to a deeper and more relevant understanding of scientific principles.

Steps to Implement NGSS and Phenomenon Based Learning

1. Identify Compelling Phenomena

Start by selecting phenomena that are engaging, relatable, and aligned with the NGSS. Effective phenomena are those that naturally spark curiosity and connect to students’ lives. For instance, exploring why leaves change color in the fall or investigating the effects of plastic pollution on marine life can be excellent starting points.

2. Develop Driving Questions

Formulate open-ended driving questions that guide the inquiry process. These questions should be broad enough to allow for exploration but specific enough to maintain focus. Examples include, “How do plants adapt to different environments?” or “What causes extreme weather events?”

3. Design Coherent Learning Experiences

Plan a series of interconnected lessons and activities that allow students to explore the driving questions. Utilize a mix of hands-on experiments, collaborative projects, and technology-enhanced investigations. Ensure that these experiences integrate the three dimensions of NGSS, promoting a holistic understanding of the content.

4. Encourage Student-Led Inquiry

Empower students to take ownership of their learning by encouraging them to ask questions, design experiments, and present their findings. Facilitate a classroom environment where students feel comfortable taking risks, making mistakes, and learning from them. Provide scaffolding and support as needed, but allow students the freedom to explore and discover.

5. Use Formative Assessments

Incorporate ongoing formative assessments to gauge student understanding and adjust instruction accordingly. Use a variety of assessment methods, such as observations, discussions, quizzes, and student reflections. This approach helps identify misconceptions early and provides opportunities for timely feedback and intervention.

6. Foster a Collaborative Classroom Culture

Create a classroom culture that values collaboration, communication, and respect. Encourage students to work together, share ideas, and construct knowledge collectively. Group work, peer reviews, and class discussions are essential components of a collaborative learning environment.

Check out this classroom poster on collaboration.

7. Reflect and Iterate

At the end of each unit or project, take time to reflect with your students on what worked well and what could be improved. Use this feedback to refine your approach and enhance future learning experiences. Continuous reflection and iteration are key to the successful implementation of NGSS and PBL.

Embrace Phenomena and Watch Your Students Grow

Implementing NGSS with phenomenon-based learning sets the stage for an engaging and effective science classroom. When teachers use interesting phenomena and foster collaborative inquiry into these phenomena, students develop a deeper understanding of concepts and a passion for learning. PhenBL is challenging, exciting, and… a lot of work, but if you embrace this approach, you will see your students thrive and become curious, capable, and confident young scientists.

If you’d like some help getting started with Phenomena-Based Learning in Earth Science, check out the Intro Unit of Study I created and will start using in less than two weeks time. Yikes!

It contains 5 PhenBL Student Projects, will last about 3 weeks, and is on sale through Labor Day.

Introduction to Earth and Space Science - 5 Phenomenon-Based Projects
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categories / Science, Earth Science
tags / teaching teens, parenting teens, deeper learning, independence, lifelong learning, simplicity, skills, success skills, learning, making life easier, kids

Why the 5E Model Provides the Best Way to Teach Science the NGSS Way

August 05, 2024  /  Oskar Cymerman

5E + NGSS and how they fit together

Understanding the Next Generation Science Standards and using NGSS to create engaging and effective science lessons can be a challenge. However, by mentally replacing the NGSS with the 5E model offers a solid and structured approach to teaching that promotes inquiry and discovery the new standards call for. In this blog post, I’ll show you how I use both NGSS and the 5E model to design engaging and effective Earth Science lessons.

Understanding NGSS and the 5E Model

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)

The NGSS three-dimensional learning includes:

  1. Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs): Key concepts students should understand in each science discipline.

  2. Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs): Skills students should develop to engage in scientific inquiry and engineering design.

  3. Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs): Concepts that help students connect knowledge across different scientific disciplines.

The 5E Instructional Model

The 5E model is a five-part teaching framework:

  1. Engage: Capture students' interest and stimulate their curiosity.

  2. Explore: Provide hands-on experiences to form understanding.

  3. Explain: Allow students to show understanding and provide clarification.

  4. Elaborate: Deepen students’ learning through application.

  5. Evaluate: Assess students’ understanding and skills.

Engaging with Phenomena

Engage: NGSS emphasizes the use of phenomena—observable events that can be explained scientifically—to spark curiosity and drive learning of concepts and skills through inquiry. The Engage phase of the 5E model captivates students’ interest and activates their prior knowledge.

By presenting a fun phenomenon, such as the year without a summer, you can immediately draw students into the lesson on lesser-known effects of volcanism, setting the stage for the initial exploration.

Hands-On Exploration

Explore: In this phase, teachers can design hands-on activities that explore key concepts or experiments that help explain the phenomenon. This phase aligns with NGSS’s focus on Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs), such as asking questions, developing models, and analyzing data. Ideally, you plan a lesson that challenges students to use online resources and simple materials you provide them with to design and build their own model or create their own experiment (and understanding) that shows the process, rather than giving them a set of directions to follow.

Activities such as creating a simulation of volcanic ash and gas spread using confetti and a fan allow students to actively engage in the scientific process and model the work of professional scientists.

Constructing Explanations

Explain: Here, students can use their models or experiments to show their understanding of the phenomenon and its key concepts. You may need to provide some instruction (direct, small group, individual) to clarify and expand on the more complex concepts. This phase connects the hands-on experiences from the Explore phase with the Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs) outlined in NGSS. By constructing explanations for the investigated phenomenon, students develop a deeper conceptual understanding and refine their scientific thinking.

For example, you can ask student groups to record a video of their confetti explosion and spread and explain how it relates to an explosion of a volcano such as Tambora aka the year without a summer culprit.

Extending Learning

Elaborate: Challenge your students to apply the concepts they learned to new situations or to explain other, related processes. This leads to a deeper and more flexible understanding of the concepts. This phase supports NGSS’s emphasis on Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs) by encouraging students to recognize patterns and make connections across different scientific disciplines.

For instance, after studying how the particles ejected from Mount Tambora spread and led to a year without a summer, students might explore how ocean circulation and the Earth’s rotation affect global wind patterns..

Assessing Understanding

Evaluate: The Evaluate phase is designed for students to demonstrate their learning through assessments that can seamlessly be aligned with NGSS’s three-dimensional framework (DCIs, SEPs, and CCCs). Performance assessments, as NGSS calls them, might include investigative projects, multimedia presentations, or other reflections that help teachers gauge factual knowledge and application of scientific concepts and scientific and science and engineering skills.

For example, students could create a museum exhibit that contains: (1) a model that thoroughly explains the types of volcanic eruptions that lead to ejection of large amounts of gas and particulates, (2) a statistical analysis of how the explosion of Tambora compares to average eruptions of this kind, and (3) a computer simulation of the mechanism of how the volcanic smog from Tambora spread and led to the year without a summer showing the influence of ocean circulation and global wind patterns on this process.

5E Model and NGSS Just Fit

The 5E model’s emphasis on inquiry, hands-on learning, and real-world application makes it ideal for implementing NGSS. By starting with phenomena, the 5E model can be used to engage students in authentic scientific exploration, helping them build a deeper understanding of science concepts and practices. This approach not only aligns with the goals of NGSS by preparing students to think and act like scientists and equipping them with the skills and knowledge needed for them to become informed citizens, difference makers, and problem solvers of the future.

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categories / Earth Science, Science
tags / teaching teens, parenting teens, deeper learning, independence, lifelong learning, simplicity, skills, success skills, learning, making life easier, kids

How to Create Engineering Challenges for Your Science Classroom

July 25, 2024  /  Oskar Cymerman

Illustration about usiung Science and engineering practices to create engineering experiences in a science classroom in eight steps

Integrating engineering challenges into your science classroom can ignite curiosity and foster critical thinking among students. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs) were designed to provide a framework for teaching students how to use the process engineers and scientists use. But teachers must still do the work of creating activities that accomplish the NGSS engineering goals.

Below, is a step-by-step guide to doing so. But first…

Understanding NGSS and SEPs

The NGSS are K–12 science content standards that set the expectations for what students should know and be able to do. SEPs are one of the three dimensions of NGSS, focusing on the skills and practices scientists and engineers use to investigate the natural world and design solutions to problems.

The eight SEPs are:

  1. Asking Questions and Defining Problems

  2. Developing and Using Models

  3. Planning and Carrying Out Investigations

  4. Analyzing and Interpreting Data

  5. Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking

  6. Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions

  7. Engaging in Argument from Evidence

  8. Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Engineering Challenges

1. Identify Learning Objectives

Start by identifying the key learning objectives from the NGSS. Determine what concepts you want your students to understand and what skills they should develop. For example, if you want students to understand the principles of force and motion, align your challenge with relevant performance expectations and SEPs.

2. Define the Problem (use a Phenomenon Whenever Possible)

Present a real-world problem that is relevant and challenging. Frame the problem in a way that requires students to apply their knowledge and creativity. For instance, challenge students to design a bridge that can hold a certain weight using limited materials. You can introduce it by using a phenomenon such as the The Minneapolis Bridge Collapse (August 1, 2007) to introduce the engineering challenge to peak students’ interest.

3. Develop a Guiding Question

Formulate a guiding question that will direct students' inquiry and design process. A well-crafted question encourages critical thinking and exploration. For example: "How can we design a bridge using only paper and tape that can support a 5-pound weight?"

4. Set Criteria and Constraints

Clearly define the criteria for success and any constraints. Criteria might include the weight the bridge must hold, while constraints could involve the materials and time available. This step is crucial as it mimics the limitations engineers face in the real world.

5. Encourage Research and Brainstorming

Guide students to research existing solutions and brainstorm their own ideas. Encourage them to think creatively and consider multiple approaches. This aligns with SEPs such as Developing and Using Models and Engaging in Argument from Evidence.

6. Plan and Create

Have students plan their designs, create prototypes, and test their solutions. Provide opportunities for iterative testing and improvement. This hands-on process allows students to apply concepts from SEPs like Planning and Carrying Out Investigations and Analyzing and Interpreting Data.

7. Test and Evaluate

Once the prototypes are built, conduct tests to see how well they meet the criteria. Encourage students to analyze the data collected during testing to evaluate the effectiveness of their designs. This phase emphasizes SEPs related to Analyzing and Interpreting Data and Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking.

8. Communicate Results

Have students present their designs, processes, and findings to the class. This can be done through reports, presentations, or demonstrations. This step aligns with Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information, allowing students to articulate their understanding and reasoning.

Example Engineering Challenge

Objective: Understand the principles of aerodynamics and forces.

Possible Phenomenon: Glider Airplanes

Problem: Design a paper airplane that can fly the farthest distance.

Guiding Question: "How can we design a paper airplane that maximizes flight distance using principles of aerodynamics?"

Criteria and Constraints:

  • The airplane must be made from a single sheet of standard paper.

  • No additional materials (e.g., tape, clips) are allowed.

  • The plane must be launched by hand.

Process:

  1. Research different paper airplane designs and the principles of aerodynamics.

  2. Brainstorm and sketch multiple designs.

  3. Build and test prototypes, measuring flight distances.

  4. Analyze results and refine designs.

  5. Present final designs and explain the aerodynamic principles applied.

Conclusion

Creating engineering challenges using NGSS and SEPs can transform your science classroom into a dynamic learning environment. By following the steps above, you can help students develop a deep understanding of scientific concepts while honing their problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. These challenges not only make learning fun but also prepare students for real-world scientific and engineering endeavors.

BOOKS & TOOLS

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categories / Earth Science, Engineering
tags / teaching teens, parenting teens, deeper learning, independence, lifelong learning, simplicity, skills, success skills, learning, making life easier, kids

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