FACILITATING THREE-DIMENSIONAL LEARNING WITH ADAPTABLE, SEARCHABLE, NGSS-ALIGNED CURRICULAR MATERIALS FROM INTEGRATE

The InTeGrate project developed and tested curricular materials with goals to address societal grand challenges, use rigorous science and research-based practices in learning, and be adaptable by instructors in many types of institutions and environments. These goals, developed prior to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), are encoded in a detailed rubric that materials had to pass in order to be tested in the classroom, peer-reviewed, and published online as freely available modules and courses. The rubric consists of six sections: guiding principles, learning objectives and outcomes, assessment and measurement, resources and materials, instructional strategies, and alignment. The guiding principles are well-aligned with disciplinary core ideas (DCIs) in Earth science as well as with the science and engineering practices (SEPs) and cross-cutting concepts (CCCs) within the NGSS, while the rest of the rubric encodes research-based practices in curriculum development.

In July of 2017, a team of experienced educators independently assessed the InTeGrate materials for alignment with the NGSS and coded each component of the materials with the relevant CCCs, DCIs, SEPs, as well as, where possible, performance expectations. Within this extensive collection, virtually all materials address elements from all three dimensions. As a result of the coding process, instructors interested in adopting InTeGrate materials can: (1) search and browse the InTeGrate materials by NGSS elements, such as a particular cross-cutting concept; (2) find activities that “bundle” elements from the three dimensions to create new performance expectations; and (3) see how to adapt the materials to fit their own classroom needs.

These curricular materials have already been tested and utilized in courses designed for pre-service teachers, including elementary and secondary methods courses, as well as introductory geoscience courses that fulfill General Education requirements. Assessment results from these implementations show greater learning gains in systems thinking with use of the InTeGrate materials over traditional materials. The new coding and search/browse functionality allow instructors to more purposefully select activities to align with the NGSS in their own classroom in a way that suits their needs.