National Framework for K-12 Science Education Overview
by Heather A. Marshall
If you have not heard yet, the new National Framework for K-12 Science Education came out in late July from the National Research Council. You can download the framework here. I have looked at the framework and reviewed their published overviews so that I can give you an overview of the framework.
The overriding visions of the National Research Council (NRC) are science for all students and coherent learning. They have three dimensions to direct their vision: scientific and engineering processes, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas. Some of this includes developing and using models, asking questions and defining problems, planning and carrying out investigations, and more. Their idea is that students will DO more science instead of rote learning of science concepts. Students should come up with their questions, plan an investigation, and develop the model to test their ideas. The team came up with “Disciplinary Core Ideas” for physical, life, and earth and space sciences and engineering, technology, and applications of science.
The NRC also put together some guidelines for standards developers, the next step in this journey. We now have a framework, lets develop the standards, develop the curriculum and assessments, plan and prepare pre-service preparation and professional development to train teacher. For the standards development, they need to think about the following: setting rigorous learning goals, emphasize all three dimensions mentioned earlier, include performance expectations, organize standards in a way that progressions support learning over multiple grades (not repeat- but build), and attend to issues of diversity and equity.
One of the features of the new framework that I like is that the framework is focusing more on depth of science knowledge rather than breadth. There are more narrow core ideas to cover, enabling teachers and students to go further into the material than we currently can. If the standards end up similarly, we will have more depth to cover in the future, enabling us as teachers, to really get our students interested in science.
Visit http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13165 for a free pdf version of the Framework.
For more on news on the framework visit Ed Week.
Heather Marshall teaches CP geology at Sobrato High School in Morgan Hill and is CSTA’s high school director.
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