The Practices

These first two weeks have gone very smoothly. But wow, I am tired! You’d think after all these years that I would remember… but it takes a lot of energy to engage authentically and enthusiastically, maintaining the same levels of liveliness and expression for period 7 as I had for period 1! Yet for all of my exhaustion, it’s so much fun to start fresh, meet all new faces, and introduce them to an eye-opening subject. And gradually, I am explaining the Learning Progression Model, without ever using that name.

The start of it must be the practices. Not all at once, mind you. To the students, I introduce one at a time, as they come up naturally. In this blog post, I will explain what a practice is, how the practices are developed, and what they are used for. Practices describe behaviors shown by students as they engage with the skills and knowledge specific to your discipline. This is distinct from “units”, “topics”, and “content”. (Content is the vehicle, while the practice is the roadway, with mastery (at some defined level) being the destination. This will be deeply discussed in a later post.)

Each teacher has an umbrella under which they choose their content. This may be a district curriculum, a state curriculum, and/or a national guideline. It can also be influenced by state or commercial exams. In our case, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) published disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and cross-cutting concepts, all meant to help science teachers guide students towards building a cohesive understanding of science over their K-12 years. I can go onto their website to identify what my high school physics classes are expected to have mastered by the time they have exited my class.

Comparing My practices to that of NGSS

The 8 practices that we are supposed to use are listed in the right column. The problem is that they are written for teachers, and are difficult to use for assessment as written. So we have used them as a guideline, breaking them into more manageable chunks that are easier to understand and use in our classroom.  I want to show you how our 10 practices (listed in the left column) incorporate those mandated.

  • NGSS’s Asking questions and defining problems, which we evaluate in two practices: Experimental design and The Engineering Design Process.
  • NGSS’s Developing and using models, which we evaluate in four practices: Problem Solving, Creating Graphs, Interpreting Graphs and The Engineering Design Process.
  • NGSS’s Planning and carrying out investigations, which we evaluate in two practices: Experimental design and The Engineering Design Process.
  • NGSS’s Analyzing and interpreting data, which we evaluate in four practices: Data Analysis, Interpreting Graphs, Creating Graphs, and The Engineering Design Process.
  • NGSS’s Using mathematics and computational thinking, which we evaluate in a practices: Problem Solving.
  • NGSS’s Constructing explanations and Designing solutions, which we evaluate in two practices: Creating Explanations and Making Predictions, and The Engineering Design Process.
  • NGSS’s Engaging in Argument from Evidence, which we evaluate in two practices: Creating Explanations and Making Predictions, and Arguing a Scientific Claim.
  • And lastly, NGSS’s Creating, Evaluating, and Communicating Information, which we evaluate in three practices: Using Feedback, Creating Explanations and Making Predictions, and Graph Interpretation.
Our Practices come from the NGSS SEPs.

As you can see, I evaluate all of the Next Generation Science Standards, just rearranged under different titles. Why do I do that? Again, the NGSS is worded for educators, not for students. My practices are for students. They have to understand the language we are using.

Let’s examine “Designing and Carrying out Investigations” in more detail, so you can see how we developed our language. The NGSS has terrific criteria that I (almost uniformly) appreciate and agree with. However, their language is often impossible for students (and parents) to comprehend. I wanted to pull out the essence of their criteria without getting too caught up in the formal edu-speak, which can be opaque and too dense. Therefore, out of their 3 bullet points, I created my own much simplified criteria. For example, Instead of “Formulate a question that can be investigated within the scope of the classroom, school laboratory, or field with available resources and, when appropriate, frame a hypothesis (that is, a possible explanation that predicts a particular and stable outcome) based on a model or theory,” I wrote “Ask a testable question.”

Change the language so that it is comprehensible to students and parents.

Instead of “Decide what data are to be gathered, what tools are needed to do the gathering, and how measurements will be recorded,” I wrote “Collect accurate data using appropriate tools”. And so on…

I want to go through all ten of our practices so you understand what the purpose of each one is. When students hand in a Lab Report, I evaluate their performance on each of the following four practices:

  • LP1 – Experimental Design The parts of the experimental design section are: the lab question, the methods and materials, the data and observations. The goal is to communicate what and how you did the data collection, with enough detail so that someone else can follow your work easily.
  • LP2 – Data Analysis (in a lab context) The goal is to communicate what and how you did the data analysis, with enough detail so that someone else can follow your work easily. A discussion about sources of experimental error is essential. The other parts of the analysis section may include any or all of the following: graphing (creation and interpretation), problem solving (set-up and theoretical derivation), sample calculations, and/or quantitative error analysis (percent error and/or difference).
  • LP3 – Arguing a Scientific Claim The parts of the Arguing a Scientific Claim section are: the claim, the evidence, and the reasoning. The goal is to communicate the answer to the lab question, the best evidence you have for that answer, and how those results relate to the known physics theory.
  • LP4 – Using Feedback The using feedback section is where you annotate your lab, highlighting the changes you made from the previous lab. The goal is to communicate what changes you made, why you made them, and how you have improved over time.

When students hand in a Test, I evaluate their performance on each of the following four practices:

  • LP5 – Creating Explanations and Making Predictions The goal is to show what physics you know and can apply from the current unit of study. The physics can take the form of overly stated definitions, laws, mathematical models, equations, or relationships.
  • LP6 – Problem Solving The goal when solving scientific problems is to show the process used. This problem solving process includes givens and variables on a labeled sketch or illustration, diagrams (MD, FBD, Bar Charts), equations used, numbers plugged in, and an answer to the question asked. Units are necessary on all values.
  • LP7 – Graph Interpretation The goal is to overtly use features of the graph accompanied by an explanation, to demonstrate your understanding of the physics. “Features” include coordinate pair(s), slope, graph shape, area, and/or y-intercept. When appropriate, a mathematical model is developed or interpreted. Some of these are more sophisticated than others, depending on the question.
  • LP8 – Graph Creation The goal is to overtly create a graph, including all relevant features. This includes axes labeled with variables and units, a trendline, a descriptive title, plotted points, and any given or reference values on the axes (to scale when appropriate). An overtly stated physics relationship is presented, in the form of theory and/or mathematical model.

When students hand in a Project, I evaluate their performance on each of the following two practices:

  • LP9 Engaging with Content The goal is to overtly encourage and develop creativity. Creativity requires flexible thinking, originality, fluency with concepts, and elaboration.
  • LP10 – The Engineering Design Cycle The goal is to solve a real-world problem, generally by building something. The steps of the engineering design process include asking questions, brainstorming ideas, planning solutions, creating a design, testing and evaluating, then repeating this process through as many iterations as possible in the time provided to improve the product. You document all your progress and thinking in a journal.

 

Remember, I am a science teacher, specifically a Physics teacher, and these are practices useful to our classes. If you are a teacher of another subject or grade level, and would like to see examples of other practices, please refer to the book “Going Gradeless” and/or the online professional development course “The Essentials of the LPM”. There are lots of other examples!

Importantly, the practices are dynamic. As I use them, I can see what’s missing or not working or where students are struggling. I then address those issues by making adjustments to unit targets, the language, the order, or the expectations. So our practices have evolved as needs become apparent. In addition, students aren’t expected to “get” the practice all in one go. We set benchmarks, or target levels for each unit, which I will discuss in a later post. The details of each practice are spelled out in the “Learning Progressions” which is the focus of the next post.

If you explore further on this website www.reimaginedschools.com, you can find the professional development course “The Essentials of the Learning Progression Method”, in which you will learn how to create your own Learning Progressions. You can find podcast “From Earning to Learning”, here or on your favorite podcast provider. The book “Going Gradeless: Shifting the Focus from Earning to Learning” describes the development of the Learning Progression Method from its inception, and can be found on Amazon.