Science Curriculum Topic Study Bridging the Gap Between Standards and Practice

Who’s in the Room, lets introduce ourselves!

Objectives for today: 1.To introduce CTS and its components 2.To allow teachers time to research a topic and prepare for a future lesson. 3.To introduce a strategy for introducing grade level vocabulary words. 4.To discuss some Common Assessment strategies by doing some examples. 5.To do a Science Assessment Probe and discuss it’s relevant uses.

District Science Content Vocabulary There are 30 words per grade level that are to be taught throughout the entire year. This amounts to less than one per week. Students learn the meaning of words best when they are exposed to them daily. Step 1: Provide a description, explanation, or example of the new term. Step 2: Ask students to restate the description, explanation, or example in their own words. Step 3: Ask students to construct a picture, symbol. Or graphic representing the term or phrase. Step 4: Engage students periodically in activities that help them add to their knowledge of the terms in their notebooks. Step 5: Periodically ask students to discuss the terms with one another. Step 6: Involve students periodically in games that allow them to play with terms.

Through the CTS process, teachers and educators can:

1. Improve their understanding of the science content they teach. 2. Use the State "big ideas," for effective instruction. 3. Clarify concepts, specific ideas and skills in a learning goal from the state standards 4. Identify related learning goals that make up a curricular topic.

5. Improve topic development within a grade as well as K-12 vertical articulation. 6. Identify potential learning difficulties, developmental considerations, and misconceptions associated with a topic. 7. Examine and apply effective strategies for teaching concepts and skills associated with a topic.

8. Improve their ability to identify relevant connections among concepts and skills within and across topics. 9.Increase opportunities for students of all levels and backgrounds to achieve learning goals articulated in the state standards.

The CTS process guides individuals or groups through a systematic study of readings from a core set of professional science education resources. These readings are identified and screened in advance, then organized in “Curriculum Topic Study Guides”. There are 147 CTS guides that address all “Big Idea” or “Main Idea” topics.

For each topic, CTS guides list relevant professional readings from sources that include national standards documents, trade books written by scientists, research summaries, and K-12 conceptual strand maps. The following are the primary materials used in a CTS study:

Objectives for today: 1.To introduce CTS and its componentsX 2.To allow teachers time to research a topic and prepare for a future lesson.X 3. To introduce a strategy for introducing grade level vocabulary words.X 4. To discuss some Common Assessment strategies by doing some examples.X 5. To do a Science Assessment Probe and discuss it’s relevant uses.X