High School Phenomena and Problems Survey

As part of a project to develop and test three-dimensional (3-D) assessment tasks for the high school life science NGSS Performance Expectations, BSCS is surveying students about their interest in various phenomena and problems.

We are recruiting grade 8-11 science teachers willing to administer a survey to their students during the spring of 2024. The survey will present students with descriptions of real-world phenomena and ask them questions to gauge their interest in answering questions about the phenomena. We estimate that it will take approximately 20 minutes to complete the survey but students can be given more time if needed. We plan to use Google forms to administer the survey.

In order to participate

• You must be a science teacher in the United States.
• Your students must be in grades 8, 9, 10, or 11.
• You must be able to reserve enough computers that have a reliable internet connection for each student in your class when administering the survey.

As a thank-you, each participating teacher will receive $50.

The data from this survey will be used to inform the development of 3-D assessment tasks and will not be used for research purposes. The surveys are completely anonymous, and no identifiable data will be collected from students.

Participation in this study is limited, so registrations will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. If necessary, we will also adjust our selections to achieve representation from urban, rural, and suburban schools from different parts of the country. Teachers who are selected to participate will be notified by email. The survey will be available to administer in early May and the window for administering the survey will remain open for the rest of the school year.

School districts often have good reason to modify instructional materials for their local context, even high-quality instructional materials. BSCS Science Learning provides assistance with customizing instructional materials to schools and districts as a professional service. 

Why Districts Seek Curriculum Customization 

Sometimes districts determine that a particular instructional program is the best available fit for their needs but decide that it is necessary or desirable to modify it to improve its fit. One common reason is that the state or district objectives for the course differ from those used by the program developers. Another is that the district sees opportunities to use locally-meaningful phenomena to enhance students’ engagement.  

Customizing instructional materials can be a challenging task, particularly high-quality science materials that have been carefully designed for coherence and sequenced to develop concepts and practices over time. Often a change in part of an instructional sequence can have unintended consequences in other places. Without a full understanding of the instructional model used by the designers and the blueprint behind the program being customized, it is easy to “break” important aspects of the program. In addition, making substantial changes to an instructional program can pose planning and coordination challenges that some districts are not prepared to take on by themselves. 

How BSCS Supports Districts

Recognizing both the compelling reasons why districts want to customize instructional materials, BSCS has developed strategies, tools, and processes for adapting high quality science materials for local contexts. Understanding the challenging nature of actually doing the customization, we have decided to offer a variety of curriculum customization services to districts. 

• BSCS can customize materials for districts. 
• BSCS can provide professional learning experiences for district personnel to build the capacity to customize materials themselves. 
• Or, we can do a combination of both. 

At this time, BSCS is offering curriculum customization services for OpenSciEd programs at all levels and for BSCS Biology: Understanding for Life.

Announcing BSCS Physical Science, a one-year high school physical science course for the 21st Century!

• BSCS Physical Science is being designed to serve as a foundational 9th grade science course.
• This new course will be available on a limited basis for implementation in the 2025-26 school year and will enter broad distribution for 2026-27. 
• At this time, BSCS Science Learning is seeking 10-20 district partners to participate in the development of the course.

Course Overview

Many districts across the country teach a physical science course in ninth grade. These courses typically consist of a mix of chemistry and physics, and they lay the foundation for high school biology and more advanced study in physics, chemistry, and Earth/space science in subsequent years. BSCS is designing BSCS Physical Science to play this role in districts whose standards are based on the NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education or the Next Generation Science Standards. BSCS Physical Science will cover a full year’s worth of physical science disciplinary core ideas as indicated in the NGSS and the Framework for K-12 Science Education.  

Recognizing that many students are not yet receiving high-quality science instruction in middle school, this course will be designed to meet students where they are while building full mastery of high school level disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts. Formative assessments that are integrated into instruction will enable teachers to track their students’ progress toward the three-dimensional, phenomena driven objectives of the course and adjust their instruction accordingly.  By supporting the transition from middle school, BSCS Physical Science will lay a foundation for students to be successful in BSCS Biology: Understanding for Life or any of the OpenSciEd High School science courses in subsequent years. 

BSCS will be developing teacher professional learning resources for BSCS Physical Science as part of the course development. Through our leadership development group, we will be offering leadership development to districts to prepare their personnel to provide professional learning workshops and ongoing support to their physical science teachers. We will also offer professional learning programs led by our certified providers directly to teachers.

Suggested Scope of the Course

Key Components of the Course

• The course will be organized around problems and phenomena, not topics.
  • Units will be anchored in complex, real-world, relevant phenomena and problems. 
  • Units will be structured so that learning is driven by students’ own knowledge and questions.
  • BSCS’s Anchored Inquiry Learning will be used as the instructional model. 
• Lessons and assessments will be designed to leverage all three dimensions: disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts.
  • The course will equip students with abilities and inclinations to apply in their personal, professional, and civic lives. 
• Support for equitable instruction will help teachers remove barriers to science learning for many students.
  • Students will be provided multiple ways to experience phenomena and encouraged to express their understanding through multiple modalities.
  • Materials will incorporate specific supports for English language learners and for students who have not achieved academic success in English language arts in the past.
  • The diversity of science and scientists will be represented throughout the program in ways that support development of science identity and agency for all students.

The Development Process

To develop this course, BSCS will leverage the substantial investment that leading national foundations have made in the OpenSciEd High School Science program. BSCS will draw from units created for the tenth and eleventh grade OpenSciEd High School physics and science courses and revise them to construct BSCS Physical Science.  

With the assistance of Partner Districts, we will select a theme for the course that gives students a compelling motivation to learn physical science on top of academic success. The theme will connect to their lives and communities (e.g., safety, sustainability), then we will identify units from the OpenSciEd physics and chemistry courses to draw from. We will revise them to be coherent with the theme and to provide suitable entry points for ninth grade students. We will also create new units as needed. Finally, we will modify the activity structures, assessments, and tutorials to improve coherence and usability. All the course materials will be field-tested in collaboration with Partner Districts and revised prior to release.

District Partnership Program

BSCS is exploring an innovative development model for this new course. We are seeking districts to serve as development partners. In exchange for providing financial support for the course development, Partner Districts will have the opportunity to provide input into the design of the course and to participate in a field test of the materials and professional learning resources during the 2024-2025 school year. They will also receive rights to use the course materials in perpetuity. Finally, Partner Districts will have exclusive access to the completed materials in the 2025-26 school year—a year before the materials will be available to others. 

BSCS’s plan for funding the course development is to divide the development costs across Partner Districts. Each district’s share of the cost would depend on their student enrollment. Our goal is to recruit a sufficient number of Partner Districts to reduce the cost to each district well below the cost of purchasing a one-year, high school science course in the current marketplace. Districts will have the option of paying through one of two arrangements with BSCS that are being designed to meet the procurement requirements of typical school districts. Partner Districts will be able to enter into a fee-for-service contract to support the development of the course materials or a purchase agreement for the completed course materials. Both agreements will confer the full benefits of being a Partner District. 

As part of the field test, all Partner Districts will have the opportunity to enroll district personnel in leadership development programs led by BSCS that will prepare participants to lead professional learning for classroom teachers in their districts. District Partners will also have the option to engage BSCS as a professional learning provider for their teachers or leaders for an additional fee.

About BSCS Science Learning

BSCS Science Learning is an independent nonprofit dedicated to transforming science learning through research-driven innovation. For more than 65 years, BSCS has been setting the standard in science learning with its programs, professional services, and research findings. Today we offer classroom-tested instructional materials, immersive professional learning and leadership development experiences that meet the needs of diverse populations and educational contexts.

Building on our history of offering unparalleled high school biology courses, BSCS recently released BSCS Biology: Understanding for Life, the first and only high school course in any discipline to receive green ratings for quality across the board from EdReports. BSCS also led the development of the OpenSciEd Middle School Science program and is leading the development of the Physics + Earth Systems Science course in the OpenSciEd High School science program.

As part of an NSF-funded project to investigate the validity of three-dimensional (3-D) assessment tasks, BSCS Science Learning is interested in pilot testing 3-D tasks with students across the country. We are recruiting middle school science teachers willing to administer the assessment tasks to their students during the spring of 2024. The test will be administered using a web-based testing utility and should take one class period to complete.

Background

We are recruiting middle school science teachers who are able to pilot test assessments with their students in April or May. The assessment tasks of this study are being designed to assess students’ opportunity to engage with science and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas to figure out real-world phenomena. These assessments will be administered online and should take one class period (approximately 45-50 minutes) to complete.

About the Tests

Each student will be given multiple assessment “tasks”. Each task focuses on a phenomenon and asks students to use their content knowledge, science practices, crosscutting concepts, and prior experiences to make sense of the phenomenon. Tasks may include multiple-choice, short-response, fill-in-the-blank, and/or modeling questions. Some questions will contain follow-up questions which ask the students to explain their response and/or provide feedback on the task. Students should complete as many questions as they can in a single class period. The test will be administered through our web-based testing utility.

Our goal is to receive feedback from students with a wide range of experiences with science learning. However, we are especially interested in involving students who have experienced NGSS-aligned instruction.

These tests are not intended to evaluate teachers or students. Individual student and teacher data will remain strictly confidential and individual students will not be identifiable. Students will not be asked to provide their name, email, or any information that would allow individual students to be identified. Our only interest is to learn how students respond to these tasks to better evaluate the tasks’ ability to measure what students’ understanding of science. This data will be invaluable in helping us refine and continue to develop assessments that support high quality science curriculum and instruction.

In order to participate

• You must be a science teacher in the United States.
• Your students must be in grades 6-8.
• You must obtain permission to participate in the field test from the appropriate school or district personnel before registering.
• You must be able to reserve enough computers that have a reliable internet connection for all students in your classes on the day of testing (one computer per student).

As a thank-you, each participating teacher will receive $100.

Participation in this study is limited, so registrations will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. If necessary, we will also adjust our selections to achieve representation from urban, rural, and suburban schools from different parts of the country and to include students who have had NGSS-aligned instruction. Teachers who are selected to participate will be notified by email.

Assessment Website

We are also inviting teachers to our soft launch of the assessment website. The website currently contains assessment resources for two assessment projects. One is focused on the development of multiple-choice questions about energy, and the other is focused on the development of NGSS-aligned assessment tasks about energy. The resources include the assessments, scoring rubrics, student performance data, research papers, and a testing utility. The testing utility allows users to administer tests to their students. Users can administer BSCS-designed tests or develop their own using the available assessments on the site. The resources are available to all users, but the item bank and ability to administer tests are only available to registered users.

After you experience the site, please provide feedback in this survey.