Erwin, T.

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Midterm Exam
By
Tyler Erwin
Teaching Science in Middle and Secondary School
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October 17, 2016

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1.
a. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are a new set of educational
standards that were created by The National Research Council, the National
Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, and Achieve (FAQs) to help provide American students the ability to
achieve and learn at a higher level. One of the top draw point that theses standards
have is that they were created using benchmarks set by countries that are well
known for their science and mathematics curriculum. The purpose of these
standards is to help our students achieve greater learning as well as help prepare
them to get jobs or to continue their education at a time where science and
technology are constantly changing and evolving, and our students need to know
how to use what information and technology are at their disposal now but what
might be in the near feature.
b. To read the NGSS you begin at the top of the page where you can find the topic
with the expected performance standards under the title. These performance
standards are what the students are expected to be able to demonstrate what they
have learned at the end of the lesson or unit and include a clarification statement
as well to ensure that the educator does not misunderstand the standard. Each
standard also has a code that matches information in several different areas of the
standards sheet that allows the educator to see what standard matches a given
Disciplinary Core Idea or other similar information found on the sheet. Under the
performance standards the foundation boxes which include the Science and
Engineering Practices, Disciplinary Core Ideas, and the Crosscutting Concepts.
These boxes outline the practices, overarching themes, and what the students are

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expected to know at the end of the lesson. Below these boxes are the connection
boxes that show connections between similar standards in the same grade. This
box also shows connections between standards in other grades as well as other
subjects such as math, language arts, etc.
2. The three dimensions of the NGSS are Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Disciplinary
Core Ideas.
a. Practices
i. The term Practices is used by the NGSS to define what is commonly
defined as skills, but the NGSS adds the stipulation that not only do these
behaviors should be a skill the students can complete or execute but to be
considered a practice by the NGSS it must have some knowledge that is
accompanied with each unique practice. (Three Dimensional Learning).
b. Crosscutting Concepts
i. This dimension of the NGSS focuses on having concepts that are
introduced in the class that not only apply to the class and subject that the
students are currently learning about but are concepts that carry through
and have applications in all areas of science. Using these crosscutting
concepts allow the students to make connections across different science
subjects to create a more fully developed idea of what the role of science
is in their everyday life whether it be in the classroom, at home, or in the
workplace. (Three Dimensional Learning).
c. Disciplinary Core Ideas
i. This dimension of the NGSS focuses on ensuring that the information that
is being presented to the student, as well as the information that they are
being assessed on, are the most important aspects of science (Three
Dimensional Learning). For the NGSS to consider information a core idea
it must meet a minimum of two of the four criteria. These criteria for core

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ideas include needing to be important across (1) multiple disciplines and a
(2) key tool to understand ideas in one or more different problems or areas
of research. These core ideas must also be able to (3) learned across more
than one grade level at various depths of understanding and complexity.
The last criteria that these core ideas need to meet is the that they need to
either be a matter of social concerns or the information needs to be
relatable to the life experience of the students. (Three Dimensional
Learning).
3. The video is composed of several individuals ranging from educators across the United
States as well as people that helped create the NGSS explaining why these new standards
are important and why we are ready/need to implement them. The part of the video that
stuck out when I viewed the video several times was when Fred D. Johnson was
discussing how educators previously taught was isolated from other educators in different
subject matters and when it came time for the students to synthesize their learning or to
begin to form ideas the knowledge wasn't there for the students to do so. Based on this
example and my experience working with the standards I feel that this is a perfect
example of why both educators and students need the NGSS.
4. My philosophy of education does lend itself to use with the NGSS because the entirety
of my philosophy of education is centered around helping the students make the
connection to the information that they already know and to what will be useful to the
students. The NGSS focus on teaching content that connects to information in other
subjects as well as information and practices that will be useful to the students when they
leave the classroom and either enter the workforce or continue their education in a trade
school or at a higher institution. The only drawback that might be found is that with the

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use of the NGSS I will not be able to focus as heavily on what the students find
interesting and what they want to learn. With the way that the NGSS are laid out, this
will not be a large issue with the way that I view education and how science education
should be implemented since the standards naturally build in an amount of
interconnection to other subjects and topics.

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Resources
FAQs. (n.d.). Retrieved October 17, 2016, from
http://www.nextgenscience.org/faqs
Three Dimensional Learning. (n.d.). Retrieved October 17, 2016, from
http://www.nextgenscience.org/three-dimensions