Department of Education After the first draft of the Science Standards, what are the next steps?
A big step has been completed on the way to new science standards. The first draft of the 2019 Academic Standards in Science was published November 9th and was open for feedback by online and in-person meetings. There were John Olson is the science specialist 231 responses to the for the Department of education. survey, 73 attendees He will keep us updated on science education. in the MnSTA newsletter. at the Minn. Dept. of Education Open Houses and 156 participants at MnSTA meetings or sessions at the fall conference. Thank you to everyone who reviewed the draft and put energy into providing thoughtful feedback. This is an important component of the standards development process. The Standards Review Committee at their December meeting read all the comments and analyzed the patterns in the responses. As expected, there was a wide range of responses. The majority of the responses favored the major organization of having standards based on Science and Engineering Practices and having Benchmarks as three dimensional statements that combine Practices, Core Ideas and Crosscutting Concepts. The committee affirmed this direction, but wants to make some adjustments for the second draft. The Review Committee assigned writing teams to look carefully at some of the following items: • Improving clarity of statements and potential inclusion of examples • Making equity more visible • Format of the standards and benchmarks that makes the progression of core ideas (content concepts) easier to track. • Assignment of core ideas in elementary grades to provide continuity to current topics whenever possible and yet preserve learning progressions. • Addition of chemistry and physics standards to support the graduation requirements. The second draft will be published February 14th and available for feedback until February 28th. Watch for announcements of feedback meetings and the online survey at http://bit.ly/MNSciStds . The final
draft will be available in May and there will likely be a three or four year period to phase-in the standards and benchmarks. Additional comment: Many comments about the first draft noted the frequent use of the practice of model development. Some also indicated an incomplete understanding of that practice as it is being used in the standards draft. I suggest that you look at this quick video, introduction to model development https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=Gn26g5RFXpQ by Paul Anderson of Montana, who was a keynote presenter at one of our recent MnSTA conferences, and this NSTA Article http://nstahosted.org/pdfs/ngss/resources/201203_ Framework-KrajcikAndMerritt.pdf on Modeling
News
Second Draft of the Minnesota Science Standards The Science Standards Review Committee is analyzing data and making revisions in preparation for second draft which will be published Feb. 14. It will be available for feedback until Feb. 28. Watch for information about feedback meetings and the online survey in the February update and on the MDE Science page https://education.mn.gov/MDE/dse/stds/sci/. Additional information about the feedback and the plans for the second draft are at the MnSTA Science Standards page https://www.mnsta.org/MN_Science_Standards.html. The final draft will be published in May with full implementation of the standards and a new version of the MCA exam in three or four years.
Teacher Events and Workshops
MN Earth Science Teachers Conference, Feb. 1, Plymouth
The annual Minnesota Earth Science Teachers Assn. conference features: Keynote: Annette Lee, director of the Native Skywatchers program and Astronomy Professor at St. Cloud State University. The presentation will focus on crosscultural, interdisciplinary, and STEM/STEAM resources for authentic astronomy education engagement. Concurrent sessions: • Skywarn Storm Spotting and Severe Weather • Authentic Learning and Assessments • Story Maps with FREE ESRI mapping products • Bedrock Geology and Hydrological Challenges of Southeast Minnesota And don’t miss the fabulous door prizes. The Thursday evening pre-conference session features the Como Planetarium and dinner at Gabe’s by the Park.
Winter 2019 7
