Thanks for sharing your project with us. One of the hardest Dimensions for teachers to understand is the Cross-Cutting Concepts, since most of them require systems thinking in order to be done effectively. If you have approaches to help deepen teachers' understanding of systems, that would be an important resource and way for them to fit the puzzle pieces of the other dimensions together into a coherent whole.

Thanks for your comment, Stephen. We agree that addressing the CCCs is a real challenge! We've addressed them explicitly in our student and teacher materials, and in our professional development. One of the simplest things our field test teachers have done is to have posters up around their room with the CCC as the header. As they work through the unit (and throughout the year after they finish with the Disruptions unit) they have students offer up examples where they see the specific CCCs in what they are learning. Our teachers say it's been very helpful both for their students and for them.

Hi Brian, We're glad you enjoyed the video. The level of learning for our teachers really varied, but I think overall they would agree that the hardest thing for them in terms of content, and indeed the toughest thing for their middle school students to learn, is matter and energy. That's most deeply addressed in Chapter 2 of the unit, and our field test teachers agree that they have a much better understanding of it than they did before teaching the unit, and that many of their students do as well, although we still haven't found the magic bullet...those are tough concepts with a lot of misconceptions to conquer!

Hi Anushree, Thank you for your thoughtful questions! I've asked a few of my colleagues to chime in on some of them, but I'll respond to your questions about the BSCS 5E model. The field test teachers responded well to the 5E model. Many of them had heard of it, and a number of them had some initial misconceptions about the original intent that Bybee and BSCS proposed with the model, but they were open to learning more about it and implementing it with the curriculum. Overall their feedback was that the model worked very well in the classroom and many of the teachers expressed an interest in - or had already begun to - revamping some of their other units to reflect the 5E model. I would add that the most challenging part of the model for teachers was to trust that by the end of the 5Es their students would "get it." It took some faith on their part to follow the way the curriculum develops student understanding and resist the urge to front load a lot of information. A few teachers admitted they were nervous about it from the outset, and several more expressed at the end of the field test that they hadn't voiced their reservations, but were pleased to report that everything worked out even better than we had promised.

Chiming in here from AMNH - regarding the formative assessment, the teachers guide for the curriculum provides support for administering, analyzing (scoring) and using data from formative assessments. Teachers identified the "assessment chart" at the start of each chapter as a particularly helpful tool for them - the chart identifies formative assessment opportunities and how they address the standards. In the professional learning sessions, we used student examples from field test classrooms (de-identified) to engage teachers in discussions about what they saw in student work. They collaboratively scored examples in two separate sessions and wrote hypothetical feedback to students. We discussed as a group how one might act on formative assessment findings, without "re-teaching" or "reviewing" what the students seemed to be missing. We talked about how the curriculum spirals and where the next opportunity would be to address SEPs, CCCs and DCIs. 

The PD included 12 days of face-to-face professional learning activities. The PD began in the summer, and continued into the school year. We always incorporated an introduction to the NGSS and deepening understanding of the three dimensions, and we used the SIMPL model so that teachers always had an opportunity to engage in the activities as learners and then reflect on the activities as educators. As teachers engaged in each of the five chapter of the unit, we built PL around assessment and literacy into the activities. We also reflected regularly with the teachers on their role in supporting students around the three dimensions of NGSS.The final day of PD always focused on feedback and questions from the teachers to the project. Some of the feedback was face-to-face feedback with the curriculum and professional developers, and some was provided through focus groups led by the project's external evaluator. The external evaluator observed much of the PD, and reported observations and the results of the focus groups to the project team.

One of the things we struggled with was how to balance the need to familiarize teachers with the complete scope and sequence of the unit before they began teaching with opportunities to share experiences and reflect on their teaching during follow-up sessions during the school year.

Hi Lisa, Thanks for your interest in the project. The 12 days of PD was definitely an ideal scenario, and we know it's not entirely realistic for everyone to have that amount of PD time at their disposal (although we wish they did!). I think teachers can successfully do the curriculum with less PD, provided they are somewhat familiar with the NGSS and pay close attention to the teacher materials which include a *ton* of information on how to successfully teach the unit and bring out all three of the dimensions. We look forward to seeing what happens as teachers use the materials outside of the arena of our field tests.

Thanks, Dora! Good to see you!