NGSS Webinars For HIDOE NSTA LC PD Collection
Thu, Oct 01, 2020 2:11 PM
Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes
This reflection is on the NGSS Webinar on the 2nd episode of a 12 park web seminar that focuses on the disciplinary core ideas of the Next Generation Science Standards From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes. In this webinar, they start with a refresher on the framework and background for the NGSS Standards. In this episode, they really break down how the standards are constructed and work. Then it had speakers Aaron Rogat a Molecular Cell Biology who works as a Research Scientist at ETS and Barbara Hug a Developmental Biology/ Human Genetics professor at the University of Illinois who works in the education program to deliver the content about the core idea of molecules to organisms.
This webinar really breaks down the disciplinary core idea and explaining why it is important and how it connects with and across the Life Science discipline. Each of the component ideas are made up of four component ideas. For Molecules to Organisms, it is Structure and Function, Growth and Development of Organisms, Organization for Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms, and Information Processing. This webinar then went into comparing the NSES and NGSS framework. I found that this part of the webinar was not beneficial to me. I just started teaching and I am not familiar with the NSES. This webinar was published in 2016 and I think that is part of it. NGSS is now more widespread and has been adopted by Hawaii.
The next section of the webinar gives examples of modeling and the learning progression of students through the grade levels. This was interesting to see the progression of the same standard at different grade levels to show how students build on their knowledge and understanding. Next, was what I thought was the most beneficial part of the webinar was explaining how teachers can support learning. At the elementary level curriculum and instruction should be helping students become familiar with some terminology and developing how to construct models. Then at the middle school grade students are focusing on developing cellular and molecular level explanations for organism function and making connections across multiple levels. At the high school level, students develop connections across multiple levels of organization.
I found this webinar informative which demonstrates how this standard applies to the different grade levels and demonstrated how modeling works for it as well.