 Hi, my name is Heidi Rethmeyer and this Wednesday webinar we're going to talk about the recently adopted college and career ready standards for science. So when I start with a workshop on science and these new standards, one of the questions I like to ask participants is why is science important? Why do they feel that science is an important topic that we teach our students? And often I get answers such as we want them to be curious about the world around them. We want them to be critical thinkers, problem solvers, good stewards of our planet. And when we look at those answers, I think we see a lot of that reflected in these new standards. So that's a great question for you to reflect on when you think about what do you want our students to get out of a science education? So the Nebraska Science Standards are really based on the next generation science standards and we typically call that NGSS and NGSS has been around since about 2012 and it's based on a book called a Framework for K-12 Science Education. And there's been a lot of research behind it, a lot of people involved, a lot of states that have straight out adopted NGSS but according to Nebraska legislation we must write our own standards but I will tell you that these revised standards very much follow the NGSS. So the biggest shift that you're going to see in the standards is it's shifting from learning about to figuring out. We want the students to be the scientists and engineers and science should be more about the unknown than the known. So it should become much more student centered. So again based on this framework for science education we believe that science education should reflect the interconnected nature of science and how scientists and engineers really practice and experience it in the real world. And part of that is through three dimensions. So this is something you're going to hear a lot about with the new standards that they are three dimensional. And what we mean by three dimensional is that every lesson should have one something from these three areas. There should be a science and engineering practice that the students are involved with. They should use cross cutting concepts and then probably the more traditional what we're used to the disciplinary core ideas and I'll talk about each of those. So this is the icon we see with our revised standards and again each indicator in our standards is going to reflect each of these three areas. So again the science and engineering practices are what the students are doing to be part of their scientific discovery. The disciplinary core ideas are what students will know. And the cross cutting concepts are how students think so that they can make connections to other areas other disciplines and help them more deeply understand the content. So this is a comparison of our old standards with our new standards and we would say that our old standards were very one dimensional. They were very heavy on the disciplinary core ideas but were lacking in the practices as well as the cross cutting concepts. So you can see on the left hand side are the old standards just represent and review a collected data in a systematic accurate and objective manner whereas now we're going to analyze data, support the claim about Newton's second law of motion and describe the mathematical relationship. So the bold are going to be the practices and the underlined are going to be the cross cutting concepts and we'll talk more about that notation here in a moment. So again the DCIs, the disciplinary core ideas are the core science ideas that most teachers are very used to when they're used to looking at standards. We also have science and engineering practices. We want the students to be the scientists and engineers not just the teacher providing the information of those core ideas to the students. And then the cross cutting concepts. Again how can students organize and connect their learning so that they have a deeper understanding of the material and the practices. So here's just a list of the disciplinary core ideas that again most of us are used to seeing in terms of science education. So we have life science, the physical science and the earth science and then you will also see that we have some engineering design which are an integral part of the new standards and I think something that's really important in our previous standards inquiry was pulled out and had separate indicators whereas now they're built in to every indicator that we have. So let's just take a moment to talk about what are the science and engineering practices and what are the cross cutting concepts. So on the left hand side we can see we have eight engineering and science practices. Number one, the asking questions and defining problems. The defining problems is really considered to be the engineering practice. And the asking questions, the science component, those certainly engineers are going to ask questions as well. We develop and use models, plan and carry out investigations, analyze and interpret data, use mathematics and computational thinking, construct explanations and designing solutions. Again, here we see kind of a cross between science and engineering and number six, engaging in argument from evidence which is important and then number eight, obtaining, evaluating and communicating that information. So these are the practices we want the students to engage in. And then the cross cutting concepts. This is where we're asking students again to make connections, interdisciplinary or across different areas of science to help them have a deeper understanding. So they may look at something through the eyes of patterns, through cause and effect, scale, proportion and quantity, systems and system models, energy and matter, structure and function and stability and change. Here are some icons that you will see if you've had a chance to look at the revised science standards. You're going to see these icons and you'll become familiar with them the more you use them. So again, the cross cutting concepts that we just mentioned, each one will have an icon that you will see next to the particular indicator. Also, we've tried to make some connections to other areas to help students again have a deeper understanding or provide some examples for students or for teachers in terms of the content or the activities or the pedagogy that's involved. So you might see Nebraska connections, civic science connections, computer science connections. You will see a lot of the engineering technology and application of science connections as well as the engineering design. All right, the standards format. I think this is important because this is a significant shift. In the previous standards, we had grade bands. That is no longer the case except for high school. So now for K through 8, we will have grade level standards and indicators and also important for grades 6 through 8. Again, they are going to be grade level. So grade 6 has their own standards, 7 their own and 8 their own. And they are integrated, meaning 7th grade is going to have physical science, life science, and earth science. So that may be something you have to look at in terms of your curriculum for your district. High school, we have broken down into content area standards. So we have physical science, life science, earth, and space sciences. And then we have also included some plus standards for some of those advanced classes. So physics, biology, anatomy, and physiology are also included. All right, some terminology. And this is something that NDE is really trying to be consistent about in all of their standards, whether it's math, ELA, and science. They're trying to use the same language. So the standard should be that set of broad overarching statements. And then the indicators should describe what the students must know or be able to do and be performance based that can then be assessed. And something that's really important to keep in mind with the new science standards is that the indicators are examples of assessment. For example, the indicator may say that the student needs to support an argument about something. Whereas in the actual summative assessment, they may be asked to plan an investigation. So don't think that just because you're supposed to support an argument about Newton's first law that that's the only way it's going to be assessed. They may have to use a different practice for the assessment. Okay, so again some terminology. The standard is the overarching statement of the content. And then the indicator is going to be the one that has the performance statement on it. So I want to give a few more details about the indicator. So here's an example of an indicator. So apply concepts of statistics and probability to support explanations that organisms with an advantageous heritable trait tend to increase in proportion to organisms lacking this trait. Okay, as you notice, the bold is going to be the practice. So that's one of our dimensions. And then the cross-cutting concepts are going to be underlined. That's another one of our dimensions. So in almost every one of our indicators, you will see those. Some of the engineering ones don't have a cross-cutting concept laid out because we want to leave that open to the student as to what cross-cutting concept they might use to help explore or understand a particular engineering activity. But for the most part, you're going to see a bold and underline in each indicator. And also you may see some connections. So in this case, the science and engineering practices that are going to be used are math and computational thinking or data analysis. And then the cross-cutting concept is patterns. And then also for this particular indicator, there's an opportunity that teachers could use computer science to help with this. And you could also use a Nebraska connection. I'm not going to read all of these. And maybe you can pause this video and take a moment to read through these. But I really think there's going to be a significant shift in what a classroom looks like for science. And this is important for teachers as well as administrators to have this understanding. It's going to be much less about the teacher being in front of the class imparting information to the entire class and passing out worksheets. Okay, it's going to be more of the students being the scientists and engineers, asking questions, modeling, conducting investigations, arguing from evidence, supporting their ideas from evidence, practicing those engineering skills. So it's going to look very different. So please take some time to look through that and think about what changes may happen in your classroom. All right, some curriculum implications. To start for this first year, I think to really become familiar with the standards is important, look through them, understand the concept of three dimensions. And maybe take a look at some of your lessons and say, am I incorporating three dimensions? Do I have a practice that the students are involved in? Am I being purposeful and talking about some cross-cutting concepts to help them have a deeper understanding? And then maybe take some time to evaluate your materials for the alignment to the standards. I caution anyone in jumping into changing their materials until they have a fairly firm understanding of the new standards and the three-dimensional science concepts that we're talking about. Another curriculum implication is really your high school course sequence. You might have to take a look at that and you may want to switch to an integrated course sequence. It's going to be maybe a little difficult to cover all of the standards in the physical science, life science, and earth and space science with some of our typical course sequences, so that's something to address. All right, looking forward, maybe for some of our larger districts who it might be a challenge for to switch every grade level over at one time. This is a implementation plan that's suggested by NDE so that there's no gaps when it comes time to assess our students. So really for this year, which is 17-18, we want really just teachers to explore the standards and just have a general understanding of the three dimensions of science. And then really start on aligning the different grades so that by the time we assess in 2021, this is important, when we have our summative assessment of the new standards in 2021, that all the grades then will have been switched over to the new standards. So again, this is just suggested for our smaller schools. If you're that teacher that has all high school classes, maybe it's just easier to do them all at once. So keep that in mind and we just want to have all the students ready by 2021 to be assessed on the new standards. What that assessment is going to look like, really that's a work in progress. So the science workshops for 2018, I have scheduled these in February. And these will give you an opportunity to work with other teachers in your grade band area so that you can have an opportunity to dig deeper into the standards. Maybe bring in a lesson and evaluate it against the three dimensions and see what sort of shifts need to happen in your classroom and your curriculum. So grades K through two are going to be February 6th, 3 through 5 February 8th. Grades 6 through 8 February 13th and the high school February 15th. And you can register on our website at www.esu8.org. So if you have any questions about science or you'd like me to come out and just talk to you individually or with your science teachers, I'd be happy to do that. Again, this year is really just a year to explore those standards, get a general understanding of the three dimensions of science, the science and engineering practices, the disciplinary core ideas, and the cross cutting concepts, and start using some of that terminology perhaps with your students. So please feel free to contact me at the ESU 8 and thank you for listening.