One of my favorite ways to introduce phenomena is to use a notice and wonder activity. During a notice and wonder activity, you present students with your phenomenon and ask them what they notice and what they wonder. Students write…
The NGSS Science and Engineering Practice of Asking Questions and Defining Problems asks students to identify the criteria and constraints presented by a given problem. Criteria and constraints are both aspects of a problem that limit a solution. Students should…
Last year, I earned my STEM Certificate and Master’s Degree in STEM Leadership. The program made me rethink some common practices in STEM education. The NGSS are designed to bring a STEM focus into the science classroom. Here are some…
Graph annotations help students with the Science and Engineering Practice of Analyzing and Interpreting Data. Help your students to do digital graph annotations with Google Presentations.
I use Google Apps for Education almost every day in my classroom. One of my favorite ways to use Google is to have students create digital graphs. The video below will show you, and your students, how to use Google…
I got a question from a reader last week asking me if I knew of any good resources for writing NGSS aligned lab reports. At face value, this seems like a very simple question. But with the adoption of the…
I get so many questions asking about the relationship between storylines and phenomena, but I am rarely asked about student questions. In an ideal scenario, student questions would be at the heart of your storyline. Check out this definition from…
One major shift in an NGSS aligned classroom is that students no longer do confirmation style labs. During confirmation style labs, the teacher has already taught students what they need to know and then students perform a lab to confirm…
One of the biggest changes that occur in the shift to meet the intent of the Next Generation Science Standards is the role that students play in their own learning. Students are no longer allowed to be passive participants in…
Now that we have had a preliminary discussion about models (click here to review the post!) in an NGSS aligned classroom it’s time to discuss helping your students create better models. Here are my top 5 ways to help your students…
