Weeks 6,7,8,9 (Assessment 1.1)

The 6th grade assessment 1.1 seems to be the most difficult assessment written for NGSS MS science  yet. The evidence statements used to help build the assessment concentrate on the connections and interactions between organelles, cells and body systems to make up the living organism. This is much different than how we have ever taught these topics in the past. In our pre-NGSS instruction, we stressed more on the memorization of the functions of each organelle and how they contributed to the overall function of the cell. Now, students can look up these functions but must analyze and dive much deeper into how these organelles work together as subsystems in the overall system of the organism.

We will definitely be revising this assessment this summer now that we have all gone through it and found what worked and what did not work. Overall, it seems that teachers are impressed with student learning and the results of the assessment. However, we need to possibly shorten the assessment and decrease the rigor at the part 1 and part 2 levels.

This year we are going VERY slowly through the curriculum. This assessment has taken between 4 and 5 weeks to complete. It is OK that we are going slow since teachers are learning how to implement these types of tiered assessments and students are learning how to proceed through the tiered assessments. A trend that we are seeing is that some students lack the drive to move quickly since they have not yet felt any consequences. When the final grades are tallied, this may awaken some motivation in students to move more quickly through the next one. Remember, we are all in transition!

Next year, we will not give as much time to complete these assessments. Over the summer we can predict a pacing guide now that we have gone through them once. In the future, we will introduce the assessment with an estimated timeline of when the assessment will close. We should give enough time in class for the majority of students to get through Part 3. Students who wish to complete Part 4 will need to do some of this work outside of the classroom. This means students will actually need to put in some extra effort to get the A.

At this time, we predict assessment 1.1 to be done by the end of the first week after we return from Winter Break. It took over four weeks to get through this assessment as can be seen in the agendas below. The assessments get easier from this point forward!

Week 6 Agenda

Week 7 Agenda

Week 8 Agenda

Week 9 Agenda

Weeks 4 & 5

As most of you know all too well, the past few weeks have been crazy for both myself and Jen. Between being pulled out for conferences and Jen's sick baby, we have had to push the assessment off as we continued to work on the organization of life analogy.

Jen and her teaching partner, Danielle, were also observed this past week and were not ready to do this with the assessment. So, they included the Sports ball lab to reinforce the ideas of structure and function before moving on. This was one of the assignments created over summer with the curriculum team.

They said it really helped, especially the EL students, get a good grip on structure and function. This will hopefully show during the assessment.

I have also updated the 1.1 assessment to include 4-point mastery rubrics and peer review checklist rubrics. Jen and Danielle would like to explain this new shift in grading at the start of the assessment, so you will see in the Week 5 agenda the haiku page resources to help with explaining this and the assessment.

We almost made it to Thanksgiving Break!! You are all doing great:)

Click here for Week 4 Agenda

Click here for Week 5 Agenda

Moving Students Through Assessment 1.1

In the video below, you can see how Lynn sets up her class for one of the last days students will be working on Part 1 of the NGSS 1.1 assessment for 6th grade. Prior to shooting this video, students had been working in groups of 4 to collaboratively complete a wiki project. Each student researched 3 organelles using articles provided on Haiku LMS. As a group, they decided on an analogy to represent the cell and the organelles and each student had to write three paragraphs explaining how their organelles related to the analogy.

Most students were finishing up the wiki project on this day in class. Lynn sets up her class for less than 5 minutes and then begins meeting with students to provide feedback and complete the rubrics. Although we want all kids to reach mastery before moving onto Part 2, it does take time to meet with all the groups. Sometimes, student may move forward as they wait for your feedback. In this instance, the IOS app game Cell Explorer allows students to continue their learning while waiting to meet with their teacher.

Week 3 Agenda

Here is a  look at Week 3. We will be finishing up the organization of life slide shows and Introducing our first NGSS Assessment 1.1 in 6th Grade. The first performance task is being implemented right now at Orchard Hills School and the teachers think that the rigor of Part 1 may be a bit too difficult to be considered a Part 1.

Here are the original performance tasks with students researching an organelle and creating a media product to explain the structure and function. After reflecting on part 1, we are going to revert to using the original versions of the assessment found below.

OLD version of the student directions of assessment 1.1. 
OLD version of the teacher directions for assessment 1.1

The reason we changed it in the first place to the analogy project was due to the fact that students are required to peer review and use student products to answer questions in Part 2. We were worried that we would not be able to check the accuracy of the videos before students were ready to move on to Part 2 and that students would not be able to peer review if they researched a different organelle. We also thought that having a more shallow understanding of each organelle would be better than a deep understanding of just one. However, we have changed our mind.

With the addition of the IOS App game Cell Explorer, it allows students to attain an overall understanding of all organelles and it helps with peer review. It also can be used to take notes to help with answering questions in part 2. It seems best to have students move onto the game Cell Explorer at the end of Part 1.

You might also want to make sure you have more than one student/group researching the same organelles to help with peer review. The game will also give you time to view student products, provide feedback and check for mastery before being shared with the class.

CLICK HERE FOR WEEK 3 AGENDA

Week 2 Reflection

Due to the curriculum planning day and Femineer Program Training at Cal Poly Pomona this week, Jen and I have still not met to reflect on the lessons.More will be added once we meet.

Below you will find a video of Lynn setting up students to complete the Organization of Life analogy.


                                    

Week 2 Agenda

Here is a look ahead to week 2. We will be finishing up the slide shows on the characteristics of living things and moving ahead into the Organization of Life.

Click here for Week 2 Agenda

Week 1 Reflection

I have talked with several of you about Week1 and the consensus is that Week 1 was a huge success!

The Living, Nonliving, Dead lab was a nice introduction to the instructional shift of providing opportunities for students to figure out concepts on their own. It is hard for most of us to not correct students as they go through this process. However, the final class list of characteristics of living things culminates the activity to make sure students do not walk away with misconceptions and the student created slide shows at the end provided evidence of their accuracy in understanding. 

I know that Lynn found one station where she stayed while the students rotated through. This allowed her to connect with every student, look at their characteristics and begin addressing misconceptions. And of course, they had them! 

We will add more to this on Monday when Jen and I meet.

Week 1 Agenda

We are estimating at this time to begin Week 1 on October 17th, 2016. You will also find a possible introduction activity to introduce the students to the three domains of NGSS. Possible revisions may be made to the agenda as we work our way through the week. Reflections will soon follow!

 Click Here for Week 1 Agenda

Background on Unit 1

Throughout the year, I will be working closely with my current TUSD Connect fellow, Jen Smith, and former fellow, Lynn Okenwa, to help determine weekly agendas that will connect each unit's overarching concept into a variety of lessons using new instructional models to try and meet the requirements of the NGSS. Both Lynn and Jen were on the curriculum design team that met for a week in August to begin designing the day to day lessons in Unit 1. Together, we will reflect on the implementation of these lessons to hopefully help others in their transition to the NGSS.

In Unit 1, we will be focusing our lessons around the overarching concept  that "A cell, a person and planet Earth are each a system made up of subsystems."

We will start the unit by having students develop their own understanding of what it means to be living, nonliving, or dead. They will create a list of characteristics for living things and we will spend the first half of the unit going deeper into this topic. The organization of life will be used as the system to classify the levels of living things into subsystems. We will also spend several weeks discovering the characteristics of living things at the smallest living subsystem, cells (MS-LS1-1, MS-LS1-2, MS-LS1-3).

A transition to nonliving will occur after our microscopic investigations come to and end, studying the Earth system and the classification of the subsystems into Earth's four spheres. Students will make connections within and between Earth's spheres, looking at interactions and transfer of matter and energy (MS-ESS2-4, MS-ESS2-6).We will not take a deep dive into these topics in Unit 1, but will revisit these concepts in later units and in 7th grade.

We will end the unit by introducing the engineering design process and having students ask questions, define problems, and brainstorm solutions to the human impacts that have negatively impacted Earth's spheres (MS-ETS1-1, MS-ETS1-2).

Throughout this unit and the entire year, our focus is to try and create a student-centered culture in our classrooms that promotes student inquiry and requires students to formulate their own understandings rather than simply providing the information they need to know. We will also be focused on meeting the district's TUSD Connect Vision which is:

We will continue to focus on including and increasing the rigor of scientific literacy in our curriculum to meet individual school site writing goals and the goals of CCSS and the NGSS.

I want to mention how appreciative I am to Lynn and Jen for taking this huge risk of opening their classroom doors and sharing their reflections with the rest of us who are following along. Thank You!

Here We Go!

The time has come and we are all about to begin implementing the NGSS in middle school classrooms in TUSD! Our transition units are coming to a close and many of us are not sure exactly where to start. This blog is dedicated to  those of you who would like someone to follow.

As a part of the TUSD Connect Fellowship, I will be coaching teachers through our first year of transition to the NGSS. We will posting together on this site and providing a sample weekly agenda. Do not feel you need to follow us the way we are implementing the lessons, go ahead and make it your own. Hopefully, our reflections on the curriculum will help you learn from the risks we are taking as we dive into this great big ocean of the unknown.