EQuiP-ped for Success: A Rubric to Help Implement the Next Generation Science Standards

Abstract

The Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products (EQuIP) Rubric for science is a new tool for science educators that provides criteria by which to examine the alignment and overall quality of lessons and units with respect to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The rubric criteria are divided into three categories: alignment to the NGSS, instructional supports, and monitoring student progress. The purposes of the rubric and review process are to: (1) review existing lessons and units to determine what revisions are needed; (2) provide constructive, criterion-based feedback and suggestions for improvement to developers; (3) identify exemplars/models for teachers' use within and across states; and (4) inform the development of new lessons and units. The rubric is currently being used more to review existing lessons and determine what revisions are needed, provide feedback, and inform the development of new lessons than it is to identify exemplars. But as more materials are created and revised, the rubric will be increasingly used for this purpose. A sample of a rubric section used to assess alignment to the NGSS appears on page 55. I have had the privilege of helping coordinate the development of the EQuIP rubric for science--which included working with state teams, teacher focus groups, the National Science Teachers Association, and others--and of using the tool with many educators since it was released in April and updated this fall. I'd like to share some reflections on these experiences and on the tool itself. Transitioning materials to the Next Generation Science Standards Implementing the NGSS will require shifts in many of the instructional materials educators have access to. Most of the educators I have worked with believe the shift to three-dimensional learning--the practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts working together to support students in learning--will be the biggest and most important in terms of materials. Educators who have a strong understanding of the Framework for K--12 Science Education and the NGSS are ready and excited to discuss if materials support students in three dimensional learning. In discussions of whether dimensions work together, I have started sharing contrasting examples-one from my own teaching experience in which the practices and core ideas were isolated from one another and the other example in which the practices and core idea do work together. A typical lesson for me included direct teaching of core ideas and then asking students to create a model. This is not an example of the practice of modeling and core ideas working together to further students' understanding of both. The model in this example was an assessment, a way for me as the teacher to see what the students understood after instruction. For the most part, students were not learning any more by making a model. Instead, they were creating a representation of what they heard me say. In contrast, we see examples of materials that start a unit of study by presenting students with a particular phenomenon and asking them to develop a model of what they think is happening. Through the unit they continue to revise their model to account for new phenomena they encounter, eventually ending up with a model that can explain a variety of phenomena. In this example, students are using a model to make their thinking visible to themselves, and by doing this, they are furthering their understanding of both the core idea at hand and of modeling itself. In working with educators with the EQuIP rubric, most of the lessons and units they brought to examine were developed before the NGSS were completed. The handful of materials examined that were developed after the NGSS were not created with the rubric in mind. As a result, many criteria on the rubric cannot be checked for some of the materials under review. This should not be seen as the materials failing, but rather as an opportunity to think about how to transition the materials we have now to the materials we will need in the future, using the rubric as a guide. …