Join us to learn how OpenSciEd materials can help you build science learning experiences anchored in compelling phenomena and meaningful community and global problems. This PLI will introduce you to the first unit in the OpenSciEd High School physics course. You will experience firsthand how the unit is driven by student questions, you will put on your “student hat” to feel what it’s like to be a student whose thoughts and questions help drive learning forward in the unit, and reflect on coherence in the unit by unpacking the unit storyline. You also will gain a birds-eye view of the structure of units for all three courses of OpenSciEd– biology, chemistry, and physics– and discuss the routines and resources that promote equitable science learning in high school. Additional follow-up sessions throughout the conference will dig deeper into other courses in OpenSciEd and provide practical strategies for implementing OpenSciEd in your classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
You will experience firsthand how the unit is driven by student questions, you will put on your “student hat” to feel what it’s like to be a student whose thoughts and questions help drive learning forward in the unit, and reflect on coherence in the unit by unpacking the unit storyline.

SPEAKERS:
Zoe Buck Bracey (Senior Science Educator and Director of Design for Justice: Colorado Springs, CO), Kate Henson (University of Colorado Boulder: Boulder, CO)

Come join us to see how OpenSciEd’s materials can help you reveal your students’ brilliance. The first full day of the professional learning institute (PLI) will simultaneously prepare you to teach the first unit in the OpenSciEd middle school program and provide the support you need to advance your practice so that learning is both driven by student questions and leads to the foundational science learning they need to be successful. To do this, this session will put teachers in the student’s seat so they can feel what it's like to be a student whose thoughts and questions are valued in the drive to figure out puzzling phenomena. We actually do science together with the facilitator acting as the "teacher" and then dig in to help you see the coherence across the program and the details in the first units you will be teaching.

TAKEAWAYS:
How OpenSciEd's free and publicly available instructional materials and professional learning can make my vision for science education a reality.

SPEAKERS:
Whitney Mills (BSCS Science Learning: Colorado Springs, CO), Thomas Clayton (8th Grade Physical Science Teacher: Berkeley Heights, NJ)

This full day course will introduce and immerse participants in the Next Generation Science Assessment (NGSA) design approach including unpacking dimensions, developing integrated dimension maps, articulating learning performances, identifying phenomena, and designing tasks.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn the steps for designing 3-dimensional tasks that align with NGSS performance expectations, take into consideration students’ diverse backgrounds, and create their own tasks at the grade level and science topic of their choice.

SPEAKERS:
Joseph Krajcik (CREATE for STEM Institute, Michigan State University: East Lansing, MI), Christopher Harris (WestEd: No City, No State)

Our brains are wired for stories. Stories make learning stick and can make science relatable and relevant to students’ lives. Stories in science are also shaped by both who is doing the telling and how they’re telling us about it. We want our students to have the opportunity to envision themselves as scientists. If a scientist looks like our students, speaks their language, struggles, and celebrates like them, then students begin to see science as a possibility for themselves—something to explore and enthusiastically engage with. To make science learning more story-driven and inclusive, Complexly and BioInteractive have teamed up to refresh Crash Course’s hugely popular YouTube biology series. The new series, produced fully in both English and Spanish, opens a window into the process of science, highlighting its collaborative, community-driven nature, through engaging stories of discovery by a diversity of scientists both past and present.

TAKEAWAYS:
We want our students to have the opportunity to envision themselves as scientists. If a scientist looks like our students, speaks their language, struggles, and celebrates like them, then students begin to see science as a possibility for themselves.

SPEAKERS:
Samuel Ramsey (Professor), Minerva Contreras (Graduate Student Researcher)

In pre-NGSS approaches to science teaching, units were often sequenced based on how experts understand the relationship among concepts. This means that it typically requires an understanding of the concepts being taught to understand why a unit is sequenced the way it is. The result is that the sequence of activities may make sense to a teacher, but doesn’t necessarily make sense to the students. The shift to phenomena-based 3D learning brings the student to the center of the learning and uses their life experiences and approaches to sensemaking to drive the learning. This session will highlight how powerful this shift is for student ownership of learning and general engagement. Additionally, we will describe HOW to make this a reality in classrooms and provide participants with resources and supports to bring this learning to life in their classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
The shift to phenomena-based 3D learning brings the student to the center of the learning and uses their life experiences and approaches to sensemaking to drive the learning forward.

SPEAKERS:
Matt Krehbiel (OpenSciEd: New York, NY)

The NSTA Sensemaking Tool (adapted from the research-based NGSS Lesson Screener) is designed to help educators be critical consumers of curricular materials as well as create and/or revise science lessons to reflect the instructional shifts required by new standards (sensemaking). Join us to gain experience using the tool and facilitating criteria-based consensus conversations with colleagues.

TAKEAWAYS:
Recognize the critical aspects of sensemaking in a science lesson.

SPEAKERS:
Emily Mathews (NSTA: Arlington, VA), Holly Hereau (NSTA: Arlington, VA), Kate Soriano (NSTA: Arlington, VA)

Science writing is an essential part of authentic science. However, both perception and reality suggest that science texts of various genres are difficult and challenging for many students. What can a teacher do to help students meet challenges so that they can realize the beauty and significance of pivotal works in the history of science, groundbreaking contemporary research, and the deep reflections found in scientific creative non-fiction? In this workshop we will try out techniques based on cooperative groups who create graphic narratives and lay summaries. An assortment of texts will be available to explore, like the concluding paragraph to Darwin’s Origin of Species and the story of Carbon by Primo Levi. Experience in the classroom will be shared where understanding of the texts is achieved by students, including reluctant readers and English language learners.

TAKEAWAYS:
Great, significant, and sometimes difficult written works in science can become accessible to students through cooperative groups, graphic narratives, and lay summaries.

SPEAKERS:
Richard Frazier (retired)

Participants will experience using dialogue structures and literacy skills in the science classroom. Research shows that when students are engaged with the content and are allowed the chance to make sense of it for themselves, they will learn more. Participants will experience mini lessons that incorporate phenomena and showcase research-proven structures. Participants will be actively learning strategies that can be implemented in classrooms to increase visual literacy amongst students. Strategies include reading, writing, speaking, and graphing skills. Science examples will be modeled. There will be collaborative discussions on how these strategies can be incorporated into a variety of grade levels. Throughout these strategies, we will focus on the dialogue structures set in place to encourage all students to participate and use the academic language. Each of these structures focuses on the teacher being the facilitator of the learning, rather than leading the discussions.

TAKEAWAYS:
Takeaways include: 1. Identify how literacy and dialogue are an integral part in sensemaking; 2. Engage in examples of activities that integrate speaking, listening, and reading into the science classroom; and 3. Pick up tips to promote retention of vocabulary through scaffolding.

SPEAKERS:
Molly Niedens (Tays Junior High School: Katy, TX)

Data is key to NGSS. Yet many students struggle to make sense of it. Leaving many of us baffled by what our students do with data and/or confused by the claims they make from graphs. What can we do? Leverage classroom-ready strategies based on what research says about how younger students learn from data! Join us to discuss the data skills our young learners need and try strategies to integrate these skills into whatever your curriculum or platforms. We will explore how such strategies foster science learning for all students and increase students' interest in working with data (from Pre-K to 8th). We will discuss how novices and experts interact with data differently and what that means for our teaching. As we explore classroom-ready resources around data, data visualizations, and instructional strategies to enhance our current K-8 science content instruction and increase our toolkits. Let’s set ourselves and our students up for success by building strong foundations!

TAKEAWAYS:
Acquire skills and resources to unpack strategies for K-8 students to use when interpreting science data and visualizations in our existing curriculum for building data skills.

SPEAKERS:
Kristin Hunter-Thomson (Dataspire Education & Evaluation, LLC: No City, No State)

According to recent studies, teaching elementary reading, writing, and math in isolation is not the most effective way for students to learn. We will show how it is possible to develop integrated learning opportunities using all of the subjects as attendees work together to analyze data and primary sources from the 1930's regarding the Dust Bowl in Kansas. Using a jigsaw method, attendees will first be divided into specialties: Horticulturist, Biologist, Geologist, Climatologist, Government employee, Native American, and a monoculture farmer to work together, from their discipline's unique perspective, to investigate how the Dust Bowl could have been avoided. They will analyze soil samples, graphs, charts, weather patterns, etc. and come to conclusions. Each member of the group will then be assigned a new group that includes one member from each discipline to present and share their perspectives with others in order to design a solution for the droughts being experienced in the 21st century.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how to integrate historical problems, primary source analysis, and STEM practices in engaging and meaningful ways to reinforce student learning as they work together to explore and debate possible solutions from multiple perspectives to prevent another Dust Bowl like the 1930's.

SPEAKERS:
Deborah Draper (Cedar Ridge Elementary School: Cedar Hills, UT), Julie Siebach (Retired Teacher: Cedar Hills, UT)

The session will give teachers an opportunity to participate in the same sort of rich and meaningful learning experiences that are called for by the NGSS. This session, as a result, will include approximately forty minutes of audience participation in student hat. Teachers will leave with high-quality instructional materials that they can use in their own classrooms. The agenda for this session is: • A discussion of characteristics of phenomenon-based instruction and sensemaking (5 mins). • A discussion of obstacles to sensemaking during a learning experience (10 minutes). • An opportunity for participants to experience an example of how support learners use DCIs, CCs, and SEPs during a learning experience in a way that makes the process of sensemaking useful and inclusive (40 mins). • Questions and suggestions for learning more (5 mins).

TAKEAWAYS:
Introducing meaningful phenomena is necessary, but not sufficient for fostering sensemaking. Students must also have opportunities to use DCIs, CCs, and SEPs during the learning experience, and the experience must be structured in ways that make the process of sensemaking useful and inclusive.

SPEAKERS:
Victor Sampson (The University of Texas at Austin: Austin, TX)

The growth of human settlements and natural resource use have impacted our wild spaces and led to fragmented habitats, pollution, and overharvesting. In this hands-on session, the presenter will lead participants in hands-on classroom activities that explore ecological footprints and possible paths toward sustainability. The presenter will introduce concepts around human ecology, including human population trends, biodiversity trends, and how human activities (agricultural expansion, deforestation, etc.) have impacted wildlife habitats. Most of the session will be the demonstration of hands-on activities that address NGSS content, but also integrate mathematics, social studies, and language arts. Activity formats include a large-group simulation on carrying capacity in nature, a visual demonstration of the breakdown of land use around the globe, and a modeling activity on biodiversity threats in different ecosystems.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn hands-on, collaborative approaches to guide students’ inquiry around key ecological concepts on population, wildlife, and biodiversity, using 3-D strategies and sensemaking.

SPEAKERS:
Vanessa Wyss (Professor: Big Rapids, MI)