1. Making sense of the world through science and engineering practices
tinyurl.com/NGSSSEP
Making sense of the world through science and engineering practices
Brian J. Reiser
Learning Sciences
Northwestern University
March 13, 2015
This research was funded by the National Science Foundation under Grant ESI to the Scientific Practices Project at Northwestern University. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NSF.

2. Shifts in NGSS for K-12 science: Both Evolutionary and Revolutionary
Organized around disciplinary core ideas (explanatory ideas)
Central role of scientific practices
Coherence: building and applying ideas across time

3. Shift from Learning About to Figuring Out
Learning about the science idea
Vs.
Knowing the body systems and levels of organization (cells, tissues, organs, systems)
NGSS: Figuring out how & why it works
Developing a model that explains how we get energy out of food
Being able to explain why we have cells
Being able to argue why a chemical reaction is needed to get energy from food, why it occurs in cells
Being able to trace matter and energy through the body
NGSS means helping students “figure out” thru the sci practices vs. having them just consume answers that we provide from teachers and textbooks.

4. Shift from Learning About to Figuring Out
Learning about the science idea
Vs.
Knowing that matter is made of particles called molecules.
NGSS: Figuring out how /why it works
Developing a model that explains phenomena (compression, expansion, phase change)
Being able to explain why this makes sense
Being able to explain how we know this (evidence)
Being able use the model to explain everyday phenomena
This class spent along time going thru this argument. This is usually a PARAGRAPH in a middle school textbook.
Content and practices work together to build understanding that students can use to predict and explain phenomena, solve problems and learn more.

5. A System of Practices

6. Example of teaching with practices: What does the invader eat?
Foxes 
Invader ?
Rabbits 
Grass
One week activity
Overall exploring what could be responsible for change in ecosystem of Great Lakes. Considering invasive species. But there was a debate…
The students were given this food web, with foxes, rabbits and grass. What happens when an unknown organism — the invasive species — comes into the ecosystem?
Where Have All The Creatures Gone, from IQWST (Krajcik, Reiser, Sutherland, & Fortus)

7. I. Does NGSS just use “practices” as a different name for inquiry?
tinyurl.com/NGSSSEP
I. Does NGSS just use “practices” as a different name for inquiry?
What are the key differences?

8. NGSS Practices are Inquiry 2.0
Inquiry as observed in many classrooms
Goal of practices in NGSS
Isolating which factor causes an effect
Finding relationship between variables
Testing hypotheses
Reporting findings
Explaining mechanism – building a “how and why” story
Incrementally building an explanatory model
Key role for discourse -- argumentation, building consensus

9. tinyurl.com/NGSSSEP
II. What are the key challenges in supporting students in science and engineering practices?

10. Challenges for practice (1): Telling, then practice
Problem
NGSS SEP Goal
Teach the DCI first, then bring in the practice as practice
“develop and use specific elements of the disciplinary core ideas to make sense of phenomena and/or to design solutions to problems” -- EQuIP Rubric I.A

11. Natural selection: Tell, then “practice”
Students read about theory of natural selection
Do natural selection simulation to see the idea in action

12. Galapagos Finches mystery
Galapagos Finches mystery
Large decrease in the finches from 1976 to 1977.
Why are so many finches dying?
Why are some of the finches able to survive?
(Galapagos Finches: Tabak & Reiser, 2008)
Here is another case of population change for the students to explain. We need multiple cases to help them build a general model. I am going to quickly summarize this one.
Why Do Organisms Look The Way They Do?, from IQWST (Krajcik, Reiser, Sutherland, & Fortus)

13. Eco-system data

14. Analyzing population data

15. Individual profiles

16. Typical student final explanation
The finches with longer beaks had a better chance at survival than those with shorter beak lengths. All of the dry seasons had very little rain. However, all of the wet seasons have between 150 and 200 cm of rain except the wet season of In the dry season of 1977, there was no rainfall. This proves that there was a drought.
There were the fewest number of seeds in the wet and dry seasons of The wet season of 1977 had the fewest number of seeds than any other wet season. There were the fewest number of finches in the dry season of This was because of the shortage of food in 1977.

17. Explanation (cont.)
The beak lengths for the finches that died in the wet season of ranged from 9.0 to The beak lengths for the finches that survived in the wet season of 1977 ranged from 10.5 to This shows that the finches that survived during the drought had longer beaks than those who died in the drought. There was a drought in the wet and dry seasons of Since there was less rain, there were fewer plants that were growing. Since there were fewer plants, there were fewer seeds and less food for the finches. Since there was less food, the finches had to dig down into the ground to find the food. Therefore, the longer their beaks were the better chance they had of finding food in the ground. There were more deaths in the wet season of The finches with the longer beaks could crack open the few seeds left on the island.

18. From Explanations of Cases to General Models
“Natural Selection”
Variation that can be inherited
Change in environment
Advantage: Some survive due to the variation on the trait
Survivors have offspring
Next generation has increased numbers with the advantaged trait.
Differences increase over generations.
Peppered Moths Population Change Explanation
Galapagos Finch Population Change Explanation

19. Challenges (2): Practices need to be meaningful work
Problem
NGSS SEP Goal
Looks like a practice but there is no reason to do this task other than “the teacher said so”
Doing the work fits into a bigger picture of making sense of phenomena or solving problems

20. “Now that we have adopted NGSS, can we still use that great osmosis lab? Kids love this lab!”
Distilled Water
Onion cells with fresh water
After rinsing with salt water
After rinsing with fresh water

21. Content matches ok, but I’m worried about making this meaningful science practice
Coherence
Why are you doing this?
Should be able to say what we are trying to figure out

22. Why are we working on this science idea?
Application: Teach the idea, then have students do the lab to see the idea in action
Trust me: Do the lab, then teach the idea so kids understand what they just saw.
Mr. Wizard: Isn’t this cool? How does this work?
NGSS Storyline: We are trying to figure out this big question that connects to a lot of experiences we have. As part of working on this bigger story, we just hit another phenomenon we realize we need to investigate and explain.

23. Phenomena-driven Questions
What Is Going On Inside Me?, from IQWST (Krajcik, Reiser, Sutherland, & Fortus)
Driving question What is going on inside our bodies that helps us get energy to do the things we do?
Anchoring phenomena
Phenomena-driven Questions
Make sense of phenomena with sci/eng practices
What we figured out
What is my body made of?
Plan investigation, Analyze microscope data
We are made out of cells.
Where does food go?
Analyze digestion & blood glucose data
Food goes thru digestive system into blood stream.
Where is blood taking the food?
Analyze and explain food in circ. system
Blood stream takes food to cells all over the body
Can food get into the cells?
Conduct and model osmosis experiments
Both water and glucose can cross membrane to get in
Milestone Performance
Can cells actually use the glucose?
Experiment on & model use of glucose in yeast
Cells use glucose, produce waste, for growth and energy
Why is oxygen sent along with glucose?
Experiment O2 in exhaled air, model chem reaction
Oxygen used in chemical reaction to release energy from food
Capstone Performance

24. A Tool for Storyline Coherence

25. Conclusions Explanatory ideas: figuring out, not just learning about
Scientific practices build explanatory ideas
Coherence: Storyline where investigations are motivated by questions from phenomena, not order of topics in textbook
This research was funded by the National Science Foundation under Grant ESI to the Scientific Practices Project at Northwestern University. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NSF.
@reiserbrianj

26. Coming soon from NSTA Press…