Developing District Plans for NGSS Implementation: Preventing Detours and Finding Express Lanes on the Journey to Implement the New Science Standards

Many California districts are ramping up their efforts to enhance science teaching, in part because of the new California Science Test (CAST) coming online. The CAST is aligned with the revised California Science Framework, which mirrors the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The NGSS calls for substantial changes in science teaching and learning. Given this context, how are districts escalating their attention to NGSS implementation?The K-8 Early Implementers Initiative has found that careful planning is critical. With thin planning, unexpected detours or dead ends are likely. However, with solid planning, districts are more likely to achieve their implementation goals and may discover some express lanes for their implementation journey!In this evaluation report, we document lessons learned by the Early Implementer districts through their development and use of master district plans for NGSS implementation. Intended for district-level administrators and state education policymakers, this report is the fourth in a series of evaluation releases. The report is based primarily on inspection of districts' thorough NGSS implementation plans and extensive interviews with district project directors and the regional directors from WestEd's K-12 Alliance. The report's main topics are:- Benefits of developing an NGSS implementation plan- Processes used to develop plan components, including overcoming challenges- Recommendations for developing plans- Sample components of districts' NGSS implementation plansWe hope that readers will not be put off by the report's seemingly large size. While the main narrative is relatively brief, the report also provides over 40 pages of practical samples in the appendix to give readers a clear idea of what goes into a thorough NGSS implementation plan. As readers will have different interests and needs, we included a wide variety of examples

The Needle is Moving in CA K-8 Science: Integration with ELA, Integration of the Sciences, and Returning Science as a K-8 Core Subject

This first EII evaluation publication discusses one of the major shifts above, namely the shift to integrated instruction. The integration of science and ELA is the focus of one section, and the integration of the science disciplines (i.e., earth/space, life, and physical) inherent in the MS Integrated Model is the focus of the second. Also discussed at length in this publication is a fundamental shift that is not listed above, but is equally, if not more, important: the need to teach science in the first place. In order for any of the targeted shifts to take place, teachers must devote time to teaching science on a regular basis

The Future of California Science: A Story of Leadership, Collaboration, and Legacy

As leaders of the teams that implemented and evaluated a six-year statewide effort known as the California NGSS Early Implementers Initiative, the coauthors of this paper have had a front-row seat for implementation of the California NGSS since their adoption in 2013. Coauthor Kathy DiRanna was also strongly involved in the new collaborations formed among science organizations that will be described in this piece. We document this story to attempt to capture the spirit and strategies behind the remarkable collaboration that is bringing forward a new era in state science education practice. We hope this account informs and encourages educational leaders, policymakers, funders, and all who are doing the hard but crucial work of advancing the NGSS and the Common Core

Administrators Matter in NGSS Implementation (2019): Updated Findings on How School and District Leaders Are Making Science Happen

Administrators need learning opportunities if they are to adequately understand the substantial shifts of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and support teachers in implementing them. Accordingly, the K-8 NGSS Early Implementers Initiative has consistently expanded the professional learning it provides for administrators, particularly for site administrators, who generally have the most contact with teachers. This tenth evaluation report in the series, intended for site and district administrators and state leaders, highlights:- The professional learning strategies used by the Initiative to engage and empower administrators to support NGSS implementation (includes two district vignettes)- The impact of the professional learning on administrator understanding and actions- The challenges experienced by the Initiative in trying to involve administrators- Recommendations for increasing administrator help with science implementatio

The Synergy of Science and English Language Arts: Means and Mutual Benefits of Integration

The California K-8 NGSS Early Implementers Initiative (known in short as the Early Implementers Initiative) is equipping teachers to richly integrate science and English language arts (ELA). In fact, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) as well as the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) clearly call for such integration.The nature of the NGSS and their recommended instructional approaches readily enable powerful ELA learning for all students. In a dramatic departure from science instruction that emphasizes scientific information and facts, NGSS science has students working as scientists to make sense of phenomena in the natural world. The NGSS approach requires a lot of lively discussion, critical reading, and thoughtful writing and drawing. Initiative teachers have clearly demonstrated that integrated science instruction is accessible to English learners and that these learners get strong ELA benefits from science instruction.While the Initiative equips teachers to integrate science and ELA, it does not call for all science instruction to be a concerted blending of science and ELA. Indeed, teachers reported that half of their science instructional time was stand-alone science.As a member of the State Board of Education commented during an advisory board meeting for the Initiative's evaluation: "Everyone is saying you should integrate science and ELA, but what does that actually look like in the classroom?" This report -- intended for state and district leaders, including principals -- addresses that question and several others highlighted below. To get answers, the evaluation team observed all key professional development sessions and 20 classroom lessons, surveyed over 500 teachers, interviewed Initiative leaders, and more

Six Years of Scaling Up: Districtwide Implementations of the Next Generation Science Standards

Many educational initiatives are funded for only a couple of years. The California NGSS Early Implementers Initiative spanned an extraordinary six years, during which eight school districts worked toward districtwide implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which call for teachers to transform their instructional practice. This 12th report in our evaluation series for policymakers, school and district administrators, and professional learning specialists describes the Initiative's scale-up in its later years to reach all K-8 science teachers. Specifically, the report addresses the following questions:In contrast to focusing in Years 1-4 on developing Teacher Leaders, what strategies did districts use in Years 5-6 to reach all other K-8 teachers of science (called "expansion teachers" in this report)?What impacts has the Initiative had on expansion teachers?Which professional learning strategies have been most and least effective for influencing the practice of expansion teachers?What special attention was paid to providing administrators with professional learning to prompt their support of NGSS implementation

What Education Leaders Can Learn About NGSS Implementation: Highlights From the Early Implementers Initiative

From 2014 through 2020, eight diverse school districts and two charter management organizations ran a substantial experiment with ways of implementing the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in elementary and middle grades, called the California K - 8 NGSS Early Implementers Initiative. The Initiative certainly illustrated that a big financial investment can produce powerful change. However, even districts facing resource challenges may benefit from the lessons that were learned and the strategies that were developed by the Initiative.An external evaluation team has previously released a series of reports on what can be learned from the efforts of the Initiative districts. All reports are intended to be helpful to administrators at the school and district levels, education policymakers, and people charged with designing and/or delivering science professional learning. After briefly describing how the NGSS call for big shifts in science teaching and learning, this highlights report shares high-level, major learnings from the evaluation, distilled into only a couple dozen pages of main narrative. The report describes NGSS instruction as a powerful lever for equitable learning, explains how the Initiative made this kind of instruction happen, and describes the importance of the Initiative's ambitious professional learning for administrators

Its About TIME: A Rigorous New Process for Selecting Instructional Materials for Science

California counties and school districts are implementing a critically needed change in how they evaluate science instructional materials before investing in local adoption. Past adoptions were often too superficial in nature, focusing on candidate materials' overall look and feel, use of graphical elements, and availability of ancillary materials while insufficiently attending to the substance of the materials for high-quality teaching and learning. In contrast, the California NGSS Toolkit for Instructional Materials Evaluation (hereafter referred to as TIME) process enables participants to use evidence-based measures to choose materials aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) that meet their district's needs.This 11th report in the NGSS Early Implementers Initiative evaluation series is intended for school and district administrators, leaders of science professional learning, and state policymakers. It provides an overview of the full TIME process, including participants' perceptions, a detailed description of the statewide TIME trainings of 2018-19, and a vignette that illustrates a portion of the TIME process

Grid-texture mechanisms in human vision:contrast detection of regular sparse micro-patterns requires specialist templates

Previous work has shown that human vision performs spatial integration of luminance contrast energy, where signals are squared and summed (with internal noise) over area at detection threshold. We tested that model here in an experiment using arrays of micro-pattern textures that varied in overall stimulus area and sparseness of their target elements, where the contrast of each element was normalised for sensitivity across the visual field. We found a power-law improvement in performance with stimulus area, and a decrease in sensitivity with sparseness. While the contrast integrator model performed well when target elements constituted 50–100% of the target area (replicating previous results), observers outperformed the model when texture elements were sparser than this. This result required the inclusion of further templates in our model, selective for grids of various regular texture densities. By assuming a MAX operation across these noisy mechanisms the model also accounted for the increase in the slope of the psychometric function that occurred as texture density decreased. Thus, for the first time, mechanisms that are selective for texture density have been revealed at contrast detection threshold. We suggest that these mechanisms have a role to play in the perception of visual textures