Understanding Modeling, the NGSS Practices, and Day & Night the Moon

1. Understanding Modeling, the NGSS Practices, and Day & Nightthe Moon Rich Hedman—Sacramento Area Science Project (CSUS) Cindy Passmore—UC Davis California Science Education Conference 2013

2. Let’s Begin By Making Sense of Some Data • The data is in the form of a vignette; a short written example of a classroom lesson. • You will read two vignettes.

3. Vignette Instructions • Read each vignette. • While you read, keep in mind these three questions: • What are the students doing? • What are the students learning? • How is science portrayed to students in this vignette? (i.e. science is …). • Pair-Share. Turn to someone next to you and discuss your answers. Make sure to discuss both vignettes.

4. Share out your ideas • Can someone share the dialogue you had about the vignettes? • We are going to provide you with labels: • Sense-making frame for instruction • Information frame for instruction

5. Frames for Science Instruction Information frame Sense-making frame • Vignette 1 • This lesson is centered in an information frame for instruction. • Students are focused on knowing information. • Science is portrayed as a body of established facts. • Vignette 2 • This lesson is centered in a sense-making frame for instruction. • Students are focused on understanding something. • Science is portrayed as a way to make sense of something.

6. So what is science? • From A Framework for K-12 Science Education (2011): “Science is not just a body of knowledge that reflects current understanding of the world; it is also a set of practices used to establish, extend, and refine that knowledge. Both elements—knowledge and practice—are essential.” • Science is both a body of knowledge and set of practices focused on understanding the natural world.

7. Science as Sense-making • Science is fundamentally about making sense of the natural world. • We often use the language: “figure something out”. • When you are tying to figure something out, you are trying to make sense of it. You are engaged in the process of sense-making.

8. Information Versus Sense-making • So both an information frame for instruction and a sense-making frame for instruction represent an aspect of science and are important. • Let’s be clear here: • We want students to know stuff. • But we also want students to make sense of stuff. • The interesting thing is, you need to know some stuff in order to make sense of other stuff. • But the converse is not true, because you can know stuff without making sense of it.

9. I can memorize and “know” all the words here, without having any understanding of what this is:

10. Just as I can memorize and “know” all the words here, without having any understanding of what this is:

11. Shifting along the Information/ Sense-Making Continuum • While both frames for instruction are important, research and personal experience show us that most teachers are very good at the information frame for instruction. • What most teachers need help with is the sense-making frame for instruction. • Sense-making is the core of the NGSS

12. NGSS Provides a Map for Sense-Making

13. NGSS Has Three Dimensions • Disciplinary Core Ideas • Crosscutting Concepts • Scientific and Engineering Practices • (Distribute NGSS Overview handout)

14. Disciplinary Core Ideas

15. Crosscutting Concepts

16. Scientific and Engineering Practices • The practices are highly interconnected. • The practices are not meant to be learned separate from the science. PRACTICES CORE IDEAS OF SCIENCE

17. The practices are reduced to meaningless skills if they are disarticulated from one another and divorced from content

18. 3 Dimensions of NGSS: • Disciplinary Core Ideas • Crosscutting Concepts • Scientific and Engineering Practices • Let’s do a Friendly Talk writing prompt (see handout). • Work on your own to answer the question. • Share out.

19. Let’s Make Sense of the Practices • Receive detailed handout on NGSS Practices. • Re-read vignette 2, thinking about the practices. With a partner, analyze vignette 2: • What practices occur in vignette 2? • Circle and label segments of vignette 2 where specific practices play out. • Be prepared to share your findings.

20. Discuss Practices in Vignette 2

21. NGSS Performance Expectation aligned to the vignettes—lets get into the reasoning • MS-ESS1-1. Develop and use a model of the Earth-sun-moon system to describe the cyclic patterns of lunar phases, eclipses of the sun and moon, and seasons. [Clarification Statement: Examples of models can be physical, graphical, or conceptual.]

22. Let’s Look at Some of the Student Diagrams Generated during Vignette 2 With your partner: • Figure out what the underlying conception of the student authors might be. • Do the students in each of these groups have fundamentally the same idea (model) for how phases works or not? What is your evidence? • Imagine working with students to refine a class version of this diagram. What are the merits of each? How might they be combined to best communicate the underlying model for explaining moon phases?

23. Picture—For Discussion—Diagram 1

24. Picture—For Discussion—Diagram 2

25. Picture—For Discussion—Diagram 3

26. In the information frame one might imagine simply giving these diagrams to kids. How is what happened in vignette 2 different? http://www.moonphases.info/moon_phases.html http://www.moonconnection.com/moon_phases.phtml

27. Going deeper on the practice of MODELING… • Models are sets of ideas about how some feature of the natural world works. • These sets of ideas (i.e. models) can be used to explain, predict, and make sense of phenomena.

28. These are NOT the kinds of models we are talking about: These are physical replicasor representations that may be useful in communicating about and reasoning with underlying models.

29. Modeling is . . . • Modeling is using and understanding a set of ideas that can help us explain a phenomenon. • In the moon vignette, the modeling isn’t holding a ball representing the moon, and moving it around a globe. • The modeling is when students are mentally grappling with a set of ideas which can explain the moon’s changing appearance in the sky. [the props are helpful in this grappling, but it is not the presence of the props that makes this a case of modeling]

30. Modeling is an Anchor Practice Modeling is a productive anchor for the other practices.

31. Connecting the Practices • Work with a partner. • Complete the task titled “Connecting the Practices”.

32. Models help identify questions and predict answers 5. Using mathematics and computational thinking 6. Developing explanations and designing solutions 7. Engaging in argument from evidence 8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information 1. Asking questions and defining problems 2. Developing and using models 3. Planning and carrying out investigations 4. Analyzing and interpreting data

33. Models help point to empirical investigations 5. Using mathematics and computational thinking 6. Developing explanations and designing solutions 7. Engaging in argument from evidence 8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information 1. Asking questions and defining problems 2. Developing and using models 3. Planning and carrying out investigations 4. Analyzing and interpreting data

34. And models are the filter through which data are interpreted 5. Using mathematics and computational thinking 6. Developing explanations and designing solutions 7. Engaging in argument from evidence 8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information 1. Asking questions and defining problems 2. Developing and using models 3. Planning and carrying out investigations 4. Analyzing and interpreting data

35. Models are revised and applied to “answer” or explain, predict, and solve 5. Using mathematics and computational thinking 6. Developing explanations and designing solutions 7. Engaging in argument from evidence 8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information 1. Asking questions and defining problems 2. Developing and using models 3. Planning and carrying out investigations 4. Analyzing and interpreting data

36. We use mathematics to formulate some models and mathematical reasoning to evaluate models 5. Using mathematics and computational thinking 6. Developing explanations and designing solutions 7. Engaging in argument from evidence 8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information 1. Asking questions and defining problems 2. Developing and using models 3. Planning and carrying out investigations 4. Analyzing and interpreting data

37. Argumentation is involved in both developing and evaluating models 5. Using mathematics and computational thinking 6. Developing explanations and designing solutions 7. Engaging in argument from evidence 8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information 1. Asking questions and defining problems 2. Developing and using models 3. Planning and carrying out investigations 4. Analyzing and interpreting data

38. Models hold and organize relevant information and become the focus of communicating ideas 5. Using mathematics and computational thinking 6. Developing explanations and designing solutions 7. Engaging in argument from evidence 8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information 1. Asking questions and defining problems 2. Developing and using models 3. Planning and carrying out investigations 4. Analyzing and interpreting data

39. WOW! Models do a lot! 5. Using mathematics and computational thinking 6. Developing explanations and designing solutions 7. Engaging in argument from evidence 8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information 1. Asking questions and defining problems 2. Developing and using models 3. Planning and carrying out investigations 4. Analyzing and interpreting data

41. Models and Sense-making • Models are the tools we use for making sense of the natural world. SCIENCE • Models are the tools we use for doing science.

42. And NGSS Provides the Map for Sense-Making Questions? Rich Hedman hedmanrd@csus.edu http://saspcsus.pbworks.com