THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERFORMANCE TASKS HIGHLIGHTS THE NEED FOR DATASETS AND RESOURCES FOR SUCCESSFUL CLASSROOM IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NGSS

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) represent a major shift in what K-12 students are expected to know and be able to do following instruction. This does not include just content knowledge but also couples that content with methods of scientific practice and the conceptual connections among scientific disciples. To successfully demonstrate proficiency on the standards (performance expectations), students will need to engage the scientific content through such practices as “analyzing and interpreting data”, “using mathematical and computational thinking”, and “engaging in argument from evidence”. This requires clear and understandable datasets, models, and other similar resources that both the teachers and the students can understand and manipulate.

Teams of educators from different disciples and instructional levels developed classroom sample assessment tasks that evaluate proficiency on both NGSS and Common Core State Standards in Math. Work on performance tasks that were made to assess the middle and high school-level NGSS Earth and Space Sciences performance expectations highlighted major gaps in the data and resources available for teaching and assessing these new standards. Data sets, computational models, and other resources required by the standards will need to be compiled and developed in order for the NGSS to be successfully implemented in the classroom, particularly in the area of climate change and resource use. Rather than being an insurmountable challenge, this need represents an unappreciated opportunity for satisfying broader impacts requirements of grants through such things as the development of NGSS-compatible datasets for use in the classroom and K-12 teacher research experiences and training.