Volume 1, Issue 4
October 2006
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In This Issue
CSE Signs Publishing Contract with NSTA
CSE Unveils New Web Site
Curious George Debuts
Curriculum Field Testing and Professional Development
Did You Say Conference?
Focus on High School
New CSE Products & Resources
New Curriculum Development Endeavors
Research News and Updates
CSE is proud to introduce the newest incarnation of our Web site—an attractive, easily navigable site incorporating the many valuable online features on which visitors have come to rely, and more. The site has grown dramatically over the past six years. What was once a simple listing of our funded work has become a repository of products and resources to help teachers and school administrators.
One of the most noticeable changes is the complete redesign of the site’s appearance. The new interface is sleek and easy to navigate. The site is designed to better follow the categories of our work, allowing easier access to our curriculum programs, research and evaluation projects, and our newly available professional development opportunities, including customized services, courses, workshops, and institutes.
The search page gives you three options as to how to best find what you are looking for: a free-text search, a keyword search, and a Google search. Our goal in this redesign was to make it easier for you to view our work and offerings in a way that is customized to your tastes. We also hope to introduce you to some of the work that you may not have been aware of.
Our home page address has not changed, but you may need to update some of your bookmarks. If you have any questions or difficulties, please use the Contact Us feature on the site. http://cse.edc.org/
On September 4, Curious George, a new show for young children, premiered
on WGBH Channel 2 in Boston. Based on the books of the authors, Margret
and H. A. Rey, and following the release of the movie last spring,
the television series is designed to motivate children to use their
curiosity and explore the world around them. Each half hour is divided
into two episodes—a short story of George’s adventures
and a brief look at real children exploring the same question or
problem at home, on a field trip, or in a classroom. Three members
of CSE have been closely involved with the development of the television
series as content advisors: Sally Crissman, Karen Worth, and Bernie
Zubrowski.
For more information on CSE’s role on this project, contact Karen Worth at kworth@edc.org. To visit the Curious George Web site, visit http://pbskids.org/curiousgeorge/
TM & © 2006 Universal Studios and/or HMCo. All Rights Reserved
Catalog of Resources
The CSE high school team will distribute early this fall a catalog of selected services and resources developed or offered by CSE staff for high school science teachers. CSE will send 5,000 copies of the catalog to educators throughout the country. Joe Flynn, Kerry Ouellet, and the Creative Services group at EDC produced the document.
Resources for High School Science describes nine courses, workshops, and institutes. The variety of offerings is large. It includes a leadership institute for science teachers and a new workshop on using science in the news in the classroom.
The catalog describes other selected high school resources and publications available from CSE, including a guide to computer-based high school science curricula and a collection of resources for incorporating the history of science into a core science program. In addition, the publication introduces high school science curricula that CSE has authored.
The catalog also introduces the customized services CSE can provide high school science educators. Staff will help schools create strong professional development programs that meet local needs. Technical support is also available to help schools reform their science programs comprehensively.
To view CSE’s complete list of high school resources, go to http://cse.edc.org/highschool/
Small Schools
On September 21, the CSE high school team convened science teachers from eight small high schools formed in Boston in recent years. Joe Flynn and Marian Grogan facilitated the five-hour after-school meeting at EDC.
The conversation reflected on the various ways science takes place in small, innovative high schools. It looked at how science is affected by the special and often unique mission each school defines for itself. CSE is interested in the issues surfacing as part of the national high school reform movement. The public arguments for more rigorous curricula and personalized teaching has caused us to examine these issues with the high schools that participate in our programs, especially the Urban Systemic Program. We provide technical assistance to the school districts engaged in that program nationwide.
The September conversation was an opportunity to discuss the potential that schoolwide reform has for creating effective science programs in urban communities. Some of the questions discussed include:
- How do the special characteristics of the school affect the science program?
- How do the state testing requirements impact the school’s overall philosophy and its attitude toward science?
- How does personalization affect science teaching?
- How do the special characteristics affect the ways teachers interact with each other around curriculum and instruction?
- What consensus does the staff hold regarding rigor?
- What approaches toward science in the school could be used by larger comprehensive schools?
Urban Systemic Program Update
CSE's work
with the Urban Systemic Program (USP) districts continues to focus
on high school science and mathematics. We kicked off the 2006 calendar
year with two e-conferences with USP project directors to discuss
their approaches to professional development for high school science
and mathematics teachers. The e-conference technology was new to
many of us, and we discovered several unexpected benefits and limitations
of the technology. We hope to be able to make more use of it in our
work with USP districts.
Following
the professional development theme of the January e-conferences, we hosted
a face-to-face conference in May for high school science and mathematics
professional development providers in Newton. Thirty administrators and teacher
leaders gathered with CSE project staff Marian Grogan, Marian Pasquale, and
Joe Flynn to share their successes and challenges, and reflect on their own
personal development as professional development providers. In addition,
participants learned about a sampling of innovative professional development
strategies, including lesson study, action research, and “critical friends” groups
as well as EDC’s work in online professional development, mentoring,
and the use of videotaping in professional development. Participant response
to the conference was extremely positive, and based on some of their feedback,
we will host a conference for many of these same districts later this fall.
This conference, titled “When Two Reforms Meet: Good for High school
Science?” will examine the interface between the national reform movements
in high school restructuring and science education. The conference is scheduled
for November 30-December 2, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
For more
information on CSE’s high school work in general, contact Joe Flynn at highschool@edc.org.
For more information on the USP project, contact Marian Grogan at mgrogan@edc.org.
CSE is proud to announce some new (and improved) publications and Web products. You can find them all at http://cse.edc.org/
Videos and Guides for the Study of Pond Life
Newly
available this fall are two new life science guides. In-Depth
Investigations of Pond Organisms Through Video (with
CD-Rom) uses computer software and video to enhance the study of
pond organisms. The included CD-Rom combines a video player, a word
processor, and an audio recorder, which allow students to view up
to 12 different videos to record their comments and observations.
Students can play, replay, and slow down the videos and examine them
frame by frame. They can enter text or voice comments and then edit,
save, or delete them. These features make In Depth Investigations
of Pond Organisms a powerful learning tool that offers students
a unique opportunity to investigate the life of ponds. This guide
is available for grades 1–3 and 5–8.
In addition,
we are happy to present Investigating Pond Organisms:
An Exploration of Pond Life and Its Environment. This
companion curriculum piece provides guidance for grades 1–3
and grades 5–8 teachers for extended
investigations of living pond organisms. These organism investigations
are meant to extend over the whole school year, with focused activities
in the fall and spring, and occasional sessions during the winter.
This type of extended investigation can be used to address multiple
life science standards.
These guides will be available through Neo-Sci at http://www.neosci.com/ For more information on this program, contact Bernie Zubrowski at bzubrowski@edc.org.
Insights in Biology: Journey of Discovery (2nd
edition)
Insights in Biology, originally published in 1998 as five separate
modules, has been revised and has had quite a face lift! What’s new
in the 2nd edition? We’ve updated content on cell biology, genetics,
molecular biology, ecology, and evolution; we’ve consolidated four
of the five modules into a single, case-bound, four-color Teacher and Student
Edition (the fifth module, Different Stages Through the Ages, is
available separately); the Teacher Edition is now formatted as a wraparound;
and it is filled with references to NSTA's SciLinks®.
Insights
in Biology represents an innovative approach to teaching and learning
introductory biology. This new approach incorporates the traditional discipline-specific
concepts with an emphasis on presenting concepts in depth and in context.
It develops conceptual connections through a storyline that is relevant to
students' lives, and uses inquiry-based activities that focus on process
and thinking skills.
EDC recently wrote an article about Insights in Biology, titled “Conquering the Mysteries of Science.” Read the article at http://main.edc.org/newsroom/ features/insights.asp. For additional information, visit the publisher’s Web site (http://www.kendallhunt.com/ insightsinbiology) or e-mail Jackie Miller (jsmiller@edc.org).
Explore It! Science Investigations in Out-of-School
Programs
Explore It! Science Investigations in Out-of-School Programs is finalizing production of its 13 activity guides and Implementation Guide, published through Kelvin (www.kelvin.com). The goals of the Explore It! program are to adapt and develop science activities for out-of-school child care programs serving children ages 8–12 and to collaborate with science centers, out-of-school programs, and community resource personnel to develop support systems to sustain science investigations in out-of-school programs. Guide topics include balancing toys, magnets and magnetism, siphon systems, heating and wiring houses, and sinking and floating. These extended explorations provide an experiential foundation for science concepts associated with basic phenomena and help develop essential skills for inquiry in the formal context.
Read an article about all of our after-school programs at http://main.edc.org/mosaic/Mosaic11/science.asp And
for more information on this program, contact Bernie Zubrowski at bzubrowski@edc.org
Supporting Students with Learning Disabilities in High School Science
In addition to our work on professional development with USP districts, CSE staff Marian Grogan and Erica Fields have developed a Web resource for science and special educators, titled “Supporting Students with Learning Disabilities in High School Science.” Designed primarily for science teachers and administrators, the site highlights research and practice in the field of special education as it is being applied to teaching and learning science at the high school level. We chose to emphasize students with learning disabilities, as our USP colleagues indicated a need for resources to support this population.
This resource was recently featured at the Universal Design in Mathematics and Science Conference convened by the Eastern Alliance in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (EAST) in Augusta, Maine. The resource can be accessed through the CSE Web site at http://cse.edc.org/products/ supportingStudentsLD/ default.asp
Research Products
CSE’s research and evaluation team have gathered reports and resources from completed projects and are presenting them as a “bundled” resources. This bundling will provide a larger project context by having all related documents together. The two bundled products available now are Researching the Sustainability of Reform: Site Reports and Articles and Publications and Other Resources Resulting from a Synthesis of Research on the Impact on Inquiry Science Instruction. To get the latest information on CSE’s Research and Evaluation work, go to http://cse.edc.org/ researchEval/
Curriculum Field Testing and Professional Development
Foundation Science: Earth Science
The field test of the first semester of Foundation Science: Earth Science is currently underway. Written by Ruth Krumhansl (lead author) and Bettina Dembek, the course explores plate tectonics, the power of water, and global climate change. Field-test sites range from Rhode Island to Alaska. The Earth Science team is hard at work developing the second semester of the course, which will be field tested in the spring.
Building Foundations: Professional Development
Starting September 12, the Foundation Science curriculum
team launched a professional development component called Building
Foundations. Building Foundations is designed to support
teachers who are using the curriculum by deepening their understanding
of the science content of the materials.
To identify content areas in need of strengthening, the project conducted a pre-assessment of the teachers’ knowledge of the science related to the curriculum. Areas identified will become the topics in each session.
In a series of eight biweekly sessions, eight teachers field testing the Earth Science course will participate via Web conferencing in sessions that consist of presentations by local scientists on the topic of the evening and discussions among the participants relating to teaching of the materials. At the conclusions of the sessions, the lectures and discussions will be organized into a set of materials that will accompany the curriculum to be used by teachers who wish to strengthen their content knowledge in the specific areas.
In addition to scientists from local universities, the professional development team consists of Joe Flynn, Bettina Dembek, Jud Hill, and Marian Pasquale, with additional technical assistance from Matt Maguire. The Earth Science course writing and assessment teams make critical contributions as well.
CSE Signs Publishing
Contract with NSTA
Since 2001, CSE has been designing, piloting, and field testing a
middle-grades science mentoring model. Initially a three-year statewide
model preparing experienced middle-grades science teachers to become
mentors, we worked with 20 Massachusetts teachers who eventually
supported the efforts of an estimated 20 teachers new to teaching
science. Several years later, the model was adapted in Cleveland,
Ohio, as part of the professional development program of a large
urban school district’s Mathematics and Science Partnerships
(MSP) program. More recently, the mentoring component was “tweaked” to
prepare selected elementary teacher leaders in Region 9, New York
City. Simultaneously, selected elements of the model were used in
conjunction with a comprehensive professional development effort
led by the University of Central Florida.
As a result of these experiences, we have developed a Facilitators’ Guide to help facilitators from a wide range of backgrounds (professional development providers, teachers leaders, and curriculum specialists) to prepare experienced teachers to become science mentors or coaches, with particular attention to the middle grades. The guide, to be published by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA Press), provides facilitators with a one-year course, including a detailed ten-day course syllabus and selected activities, resources, and tools for the in-school mentoring cycle. The guide is developed with the assumption that facilitators will be preparing experienced teachers who will then support teachers new to middle-grades science: recent college graduates, career changers, or those who are teaching at the intermediate grade level for the first time. The guide is flexible enough to be used for professional development of mentors who are being prepared as part of a larger project or as a stand-alone initiative of a school, district, consortia, intermediate agency, or state. Video clips of authentic classroom experiences and mentoring sessions accompany the guide. These provide footage that can be used to illustrate the skills and processes essential for subject matter mentoring.
The plan is to have the guide available at the annual 2007 Annual NSTA conference in St. Louis.
Did You Say Conference?
The summer of 2006 provided a respite for CSE staff who had been
involved in planning and conducting conferences during the past
school year. As a subcontract to Abt Associates, we organized three
regional meetings for the U. S. Department of Education’s
MSP program and conducted site selection for four meetings planned
for 2005–06. We organized and led the Second Annual PI Conference
for the National Science Foundation’s Teacher Professional
Continuum Program (TPC), and have already begun thinking about
the agenda for the 2006–07 meeting. We organized a professional
development conference in the spring for representatives from the
NSF-supported Urban Systemic Programs (USP). Planning is now underway
for a high school-focused national meeting to be held in Boston
for USP high school science leaders. In collaboration with BSCS
and NSRC, we also held a symposium in Baltimore to collect information,
stories, and lessons learned about curriculum selection and implementation
based on NSF’s investment in Science Curriculum Dissemination
Centers.
We are already preparing for regional and national NSTA meetings. CSE will be leading a Professional Development Institute (PDI) at the 2006 Salt Lake City conference on December 6. Entitled “Redesigning Professional Development for In-Depth Inquiry,” participants will examine current conceptions of in-depth inquiry, look at the relationship between in-depth inquiry and learning progressions, and explore how these conceptions can be infused into professional development. In addition, participants will be introduced to a planning/observation tool that can be used to structure extended professional development.
This summer also was highlighted by a grant from the TPC program for a conference focused on the impact of specialists on science learning at the elementary level.
New Curriculum Development
Endeavors
CSE is proud to announce its first grant from DoDEA (Department of
Defense Education Activity). We will be developing grade-specific
science curriculum guides for grades Pre-K through 8 (one per grade)
and course-specific curriculum guides for high school science courses
(one guide per course for Earth and space science, biology, chemistry,
physics, environmental, physics applications in the community, chemistry
applications in the community, marine biology, and human anatomy
and physiology). The opportunity to impact teachers and students
in seven states, thirteen countries, Guam, and Puerto Rico is truly
exciting!
This project will build upon the mathematics guides being developed by EDC’s Center for Online Professional Education (COPE).
For more information on this new project, contact Barbara Berns at bberns@edc.org.
In addition, CSE and the Center for Applied Ethics and Professional Practice (CAEPP) have received a contract from the National Institutes of Health to develop a supplemental curriculum in bioethics to be used in high school biology courses. An advisory team of ethicists, scientists, and teachers will work with EDC staff members to develop instructional materials on topics of social importance in the life sciences. These topics may include the nature of bioethics, clinical trials, vaccination, genetic enhancement, and genetic screening. The goal of these materials is to have students begin to develop skills related to thinking about ethics and to relate their learning in biology to real-life issues.
For more information on this new project, contact Jackie Miller at jsmiller@edc.org
CSE has been commissioned by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) to write a paper for their upcoming invitational symposium, “Scope and Consequences of K-12 Science and Mathematics Teacher Turnover.” The symposium, funded by the National Science Foundation, will be held October 3–5 at Wingspread Conference Center, and attendees will include 40 scholars, policy makers, administrators, and educators from across the country. Our paper is addressing the state of knowledge about the impact of teacher turnover on student achievement and on the incidence of teachers teaching out of field. If you are interested in obtaining a copy of this paper, please contact Abigail Jurist Levy at alevy@edc.org.
CSE’s new project development work continues to grow. In collaboration with Quinsigamond Community College, we have been contracted to assist with the development of a proposal for NSF’s Advanced Technological Education Program. Our specific responsibility in the proposal is to develop the formative and summative evaluation plan. This is an excellent and rare opportunity for us as evaluators to work with an institution on the conceptualization of a project well in advance of proposal submission, weaving the role and function of evaluation into the fabric of its activities and goals. This approach will allow for an evaluation plan that is better integrated with the work and arguably offers greater utility. If you are interested in this kind of collaboration on your work, please contact Abigail Jurist Levy at alevy@edc.org to discuss various options.
As for other project work, we are pleased to announce the completion of our Inquiry Synthesis Project. We have been developing articles for peer reviewed publications and a general presentation of the overall findings. If you are interested in exploring the possibility of a presentation of the findings for your institution, please contact Daphne Minner at dminner@edc.org. As part of the completion of this work, we have a full set of six technical reports, which describe in detail the conceptual and methodological aspects of the work. These can be found at http://cse.edc.org/products/inquirysynth/.
An extension of this work is a recently funded NSF project entitled The Inquiry Science Instruction Observation Protocol (ISIOP) Development Project. The focus of this work is on expanding the conceptual framework for describing inquiry science instruction that was developed as part of the Inquiry Synthesis Project. The new framework will be used to develop a classroom observation protocol describing the nature and extent of inquiry pedagogical practices present in middle school science instruction. We are currently completing the first draft of the observation instrument and will begin the first pilot for reliability and validity testing in January 2007. If you are an evaluator interested in collaborating in this piloting process, please contact Daphne Minner at dminner@edc.org.
