Sarah thanks for your comment. Yes, we have been collecting data from participating teachers along a number of dimensions — shift in attitudes and beliefs related to NGSS pedagogy, ability to engage in modeling, explanation and argumentation in the area of matter themselves, and shifts in pedagogical content knowledge. You can find a recent paper from NARST from our group presenting an empirical study of teacher growth http://bit.ly/1MLVVLA

Jessica, thanks so much for your comment. And we are excited along with you as you step into your NGSX facilitator role in Michigan. Best wishes!

I too appreciate your testimonial, Jessica. It was a privilege to work with you in MI, and to learn from you. Part of what makes NGSX great is the people who have been through the pathway, and then become peer-leaders, as you are. Looking forward to hearing from you how leading your own NGSX study group goes this summer.

Rebecca, we’re aware of the fantastic work you’re doing with Kate McNeil, and we’d love to see more. I’m very impressed with your website and your Showcase video! I teach at Clark and live in the Boston area, so we should definitely set up a time to confer, share our respective work (and struggles), and think together.

Marian, this is a great question and a great issue to explore in depth. In the NGSX Teacher 3-D Learning Pathway, the final “Unit” (Unit 7) focuses on bringing NGSS and all that’s been learned in Units 1-6 back into one’s own classroom. Units 1-6 take approximately 30 hours of engaged face-to-face study group time, and Unit 7 is an additional 3-day unit (approximately 24 hours). In NGSX, we bring together K-12 teachers in the same face-to-face study groups. But unlike Units 1-6, where teachers collaborate across grade bands (with elementary, middle, and high school teachers working side-by-side in all activities), in Unit 7 teachers work in grade-band aligned design teams within their study group. In Unit 7, they begin the process of developing a “mini-unit” of curriculum that is appropriate for their own students, focusing on science content that they will actually teach, and is fully aligned with NGSS and the Framework. But it’s important to note that the goal of this “mini-unit” design work is not to create a “ready-to-use” unit of instruction (3 days is simply not long enough to accomplish this). Rather the goal is give participants a robust experience of “thinking like an NGSS curriculum designer” – so that they have very developed capacities, tools, and practical experience to draw on in thinking critically about ANY piece of curriculum they encounter, or adapt, or design with colleagues. In other words, the goal of Unit 7 is to help teachers develop their NGSS muscles so that they are very critical consumers of other people’s curricula, well-informed adapters of text-book or kit-based units of instruction, and effective colleagues in co-designing, adapting, and reflecting on the enactment of a unit of instruction, with other teachers. Having said all this, Unit 7 is new – still in the field test and revision stage – though we have implemented it (in beta form) in 3 states, with over 500 teachers. We haven’t systematically followed these teachers back into their own classrooms, so we don’t know if it’s been harder for some than others to implement or adapt curriculum (or even their own mini-units). We are, of course, very interested in finding out how these teachers fare, if they do further develop and implement their Unit 7 mini-unit, and how they approach other curriculum (whether they traditionally have used textbooks or kits or neither), and what factors might affect how easy or hard it is to adapt/use/design NGSS-aligned curricula. We are gathering anecdotal responses, and building toward more systematic research efforts on this issue. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more about the challenges teachers face in adapting/using/sharing curriculum after NGSX!

Thanks, Suzanna, for your encouraging words. We are working hard to do just that — expand the reaches of NGSX, by working with actors as change agents across the entire system — state leaders, K-12 science teachers (with our 3-D Learning Pathway) teacher leaders and PD providers (with our Facilitator Pathway), and now we are beginning to design an Instructional Leadership Awareness Course — to help building-based and district-based instructional leaders support teachers who are working hard to understand and enact the new vision of 3-D teaching and learning in science. We find that if we focus on only one or two levels of the system, the work is not sufficiently supported, and less sustainable. And of course, we have to work simultaneously on professional learning opportunities, NGSS-aligned curriculum for all grades or grade-bands, and both formative and high-stakes assessment practices. It’s a tall order, but the possibilities are amazing.

I want to convey my appreciation as well, Suzanna, for your post. Sarah has done a thorough job of detailing how we are “expanding the reaches” of NGSX. Our work with states is giving us good insight into the systemic challenges and opportunities for states to use NGSX as a model of PD in their scaling process. Also our work with building a national network of NGSX facilitators affords yet another “reaching out/expanding” opportunity. Thanks again.

Thank you, Pat, for your affirming comments. Our piloting and developmental work in VT has been central to working through the concept of educative video as a robust tool to support science educators. So a big thanks to you and all of your VT and VSI team!!