Skip to main content

[ClimeTime, OpenSciEd] FREE Middle School OpenSciEd PD for winter 2021!

Please help spread the word to your middle school colleagues!

Thanks to the ClimeTime Climate Science Initiative, your WA State Science Coordinators are coordinating with teachers in our state to offer FREE remote introductory courses to the OpenSciEd OER instructional materials! OpenSciEd is a FREE suite of instructional materials native to the NGSS era that are research-based and are rigorously piloted. Many of the developers and researchers are part of what I call the "NGSS Braintrust" -- that is, many of the very people who helped develop A Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards.

Registration is now open for the next round of Implementing OpenSciEd courses. Please feel free to share these with any interested teachers in your region.

These trainings are taught by teachers who have used the materials with their own students. Many of them have been piloting OpenSciEd for the last three years! This is a GREAT opportunity for middles school teachers who want to know more about these materials and maybe even use them with their students. One of the OpenSciEd partner states, Louisiana, has even re-developed teacher guides to facilitate using these materials in a remote setting. 

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out!

Brian



🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫 🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫 🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫 🀫🀫🀫 🀫🀫 🀫 🀫


Brian MacNevin (he, him, his) 

Regional Science Coordinator 

Northwest Educational Service District 189 

360.299.4716 

bmacnevin@nwesd.org 


Together We Can 


The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material, the disclosure of which is governed by applicable law. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and destroy the materials contained in this message.


Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

OSPI Bulletin 065-23: Learning Standards Review Update

Summary:  This bulletin provides an update to the information about the learning standards review project addressed by Superintendent Reykdal’s letter to district superintendents dated February 14, 2023. It includes current information about the reviews of the Washington state learning standards for English/Language Arts, mathematics, and science. It also includes a timeline for the review process. Key Audiences:  Educational Service District Superintendents, School District Superintendents, School District Business Managers, School District Curriculum Directors OSPI's Bulletin re: Math, ELA, Science: [ PDF ] Science Updates: [ PDF ]
Read more

[STATE-LEVEL] ASSESSMENT SHOULD NOT DRIVE INSTRUCTION

Regional Science Coordinators are developing an online orientation class for the new Washington Comprehensive Assessment of Science (WCAS). We have involved OSPI’s Science Assessment lead, Dawn Cope and OSPI’s Director of K-12 Science, Ellen Ebert, in the process as well as Lois Sherwood from WSTA. In our first planning meeting, I wanted to hear the most important message from each person at the [virtual] table. Dawn Cope of the assessment department was the first to speak up and quite pointedly said, “assessment does not drive instruction.” That pretty much spoke for the rest of us. What does that mean for teachers in Washington State where we’ve spend the last 13 years writing “powerful classroom assessments” that mirrored the content and format of the WASL and the MSP? Assessment systems serve specific purposes . They are developed to provide specific kinds of data for those purposes. And an assessment developed at the state level to inform state-wide decisions does not l...
Read more

Three-Dimensional Nature of the new Washington Comprehensive Assessment of Science (WCAS)

The new science assessment does NOT privilege content above practice or crosscutting concepts. We have heard from two different parts of the region that someone who self-identifies as an NGSS-assessment-item-writer has returned to their district and erroneously reported to supervisors and colleagues that the new NGSS-aligned assessment’s (WCAS) items focus solely on one of the three dimension of NGSS (namely, the Disciplinary Core Ideas, most closely related to our previous notions of “content”). This is idea represents a serious misunderstanding that could derail a district’s transition efforts around NGSS. Not being an item-writer myself, I reached out to OSPI. Dawn Cope of OSPI’s Science Assessment Team responded with wonder that anyone could come away from item writing with that idea and, explained that all the training materials and the process used reflect the 3-dimensional nature of the NGSS. She shared all the training items for me to examine so I could try and see wher...
Read more