Next Generation Science Standards in a Historical Context - Part I:

Beginning immediately, educators and administrators throughout the country will undertake one of the most challenging reform efforts in the history of science education in America. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are built around Three-Dimensional (“3-D”) Learning and incorporate major conceptual shifts in how science instruction will be delivered. The 3-D learning strategy includes Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs: what students should know), Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs: what students should be able to do with what they know), and the Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs: how we transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries to make cognitive connections as we learn how to think like a scientist and an engineer).

Science standards are nothing new. Since the 1890s, an infinite number of them have been crafted and refined specifically for American students. However, the conceptual shifts proposed by the NGSS call for the following:

·        learning the practices of science and engineering (one of the most important departures from past standards) through rich content experiences rather than merely identifying appropriate science content,

·        performance expectations (not multiple choice answers) that will inform the basis of curriculum, instruction, and assessment,

·        investigating science phenomena collaboratively, not reading content in solitude and memorizing science factoids,

·        a deeper understanding of key science ideas, rather than shallow exposure to simple easy-to-assess science topics,

·        a strategic alignment with the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English/Language Arts (E/LA), since digesting informational texts in the fields of science requires a working knowledge of how to deploy the critical language skills traditionally taught in E/LA (reading, writing, listening, speaking, note-booking, asking questions, engaging in discourse, dialogue, and presenting arguments with evidence) in realistic science contexts. The CCSS Mathematics standards are also aligned to the NGSS, recognizing that “number sense,” computational thinking, and understanding how to collect, calculate, analyze, and interpret data are among the most critical skills applied in research and scientific investigations, and

·        an integration of science and engineering,

 

The mantras for the new standards (both the NGSS and the CCSS) are “Synergies not silos” and “Where are the connections?”   

Using Science Activities for Developing Academic Language (part 2)

Most children have had countless first-hand experiences with objects, toys, and the outdoors by the time they arrive at school for their first day of Kindergarten. The greatest number of high utility words can be mastered through these events. However, the quantity of pre-Kindergarten first-hand experiences has decreased significantly in the last decade with the advent of handheld technology.

More children today have a greater involvement with "in silico" experiences (not of the real world). Classroom practitioners have noticed a sharp decline in linguistic ability as a result of children spending more time playing with technology toys rather than having the normal "serve-and-receive" language exchanges with caregivers and older more language-capable children. 

Research tells us that of the most common language interactions used, 400 to 600 high frequency words are used most often out of the nearly 90,000 most widely-used English words (actual figure = 86,741): 

1. Children's books contain 627 of the high utility words
2. Primetime children's TV shows use 543 of the high utility words
3. Conversations among non-college graduates typically deploy only 496 of the high utility words 
4. However, science reading use 4389 of the high utility words rendering science the richest source for developing academic vocabulary (and it simultaneously teaches students how to think scientifically).

 

It is through discourse during active experiences with others that children learn syntax and vocabulary usage. When they are engaged in science activities and investigation, children have a opportunity to practice and further develop their proficiency in syntax and vocabulary. The chart below summarizes how such experiences can enhance language competency.

Vocabulary	Content-specific terms (atom, germ, osmosis, photosynthesis) Polysemous words (multiple meanings) Morphology (prefixes, suffixes, root words and other parts of words) General academic terms (analysis, argument, connotation, resolution, aspect, etc.) Everyday vocab., specialized vocab (life cycle, metamorphosis, pupa, chrysalis, larva), and technical academic words and expressions   Understand and use abstract words/concepts (chaos, energy, fragile, principle) Functional language (making requests; giving advice, etc. - “If I were you, I would…) Figurative speech ("So hungry I could eat a bear.")
Syntax	Sentence structure (simple, compound, complex) and length Transitions/connectives (e.g., however, because, therefore,) Complex verb tenses (imperative verbs: preheat, combine, mix, etc.) Passive voice (“Magnetism is one of the four major forces in our universe.”)
Discourse	Posing arguments using claims and evidence Drawing conclusions High amount and density of speech/written text Using discipline-specific language Understanding that voice, perspective and audience can change Clarity and cohesion of ideas across longer sentences/paragraphs Transitions of thoughts Variety of sentence types

No offense intended towards English majors, but the purpose of developing competencies in language is to understand how to use them in disciplines/contexts like science and social science.

 

 

 

 

Developing Academic Language (part 1)

Many students struggle in school due so much to the difficulty in understanding complex concepts, but instead due to the unfamiliar and specialized language used when presenting the concept. As most parents and educators realize, everyday language skills do not translate into successful academic experiences.

Research from Jim Cummins is among the most comprehensible on this topic. Cummins divided language into to easily digestible categories.

The first is "Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills" (BICS), and the second is "Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency" or CALP.

•         BICS (also referred to as "communicative competence") is highly contextualized with lower cognitive demands to understand, and includes the listening and speaking skills that students tend to acquire quickly as they learn a language or as they learn a new language (within the first few years). The young learners master the language in order to communicate with others as they engage daily in ordinary social interactions, such as asking someone for his/her name, asking for directions, requesting food from a menu. BICS are often beneficiaries of non-verbal cues, gestures, facial expressions, and objects that can immediately be referred to (including pointing to them).

•        Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP): describes the academic language and the cognitively demanding language skills necessary for success in a formal classroom setting. CALP typically requires 5-7 years to develop, but longer for students with less native language proficiency. CALP is far less contextualized. Lectures, classroom conversations, teacher-student discussions, research projects and complex language skills such as summarizing, analyzing, extracting and interpreting meaning; evaluating evidence; composing; and editing are heavily dependent on a student's mastery of CALP, where one's language proficiency does the heavy lifting (listening or reading) without the assistance of environmental clues or cues.

 

 

The“Survival of the Fittest”? No: It Was the Survival of the Fastest Adapting Brains

Evolutionary biologists have estimated that 99.99% of the species that have ever lived on earth are extinct today. From devastating meteors and asteroids to natural environmental hazards, their survival was under constant threats and many of which spelled immediate doom. Human beings, on the other hand, became quite adept at avoiding danger partially by creating their own environment, rather than just adapting to it. They crafted ways to solve problems, and became the only animal on the planet (1) that looks for problems, (2) that even predicts future problems, and  (3) that invents “practice problems” to solve.  (The imaginary and practice problems were/are presented in a safe and controlled environment that we called “schools”).

 

With the capacity to think flexibly, and after amassing an incredibly robust repertoire of problem-solving strategies, human beings evolved as the only species that could run away from a problem, swim away from a problem, climb away from a problem, talk our way out of a problem, create vehicles (sometimes with cooperating domesticated animals) to take us away from a problem, and use technology to design remedies to our problems. Mastering a wide range of possible problem-solving strategies and passing them down from one generation to the next permitted the survival of our species. However, it was not as much governed by the “survival of the fittest” rules as it was the survival of the most innovative and fastest adapting brains.

8 Fascinating Things We Learned About the Mind in 2015

I recently came across an article from last year that is worth sharing. It describes “8 Fascinating Things We Learned About the Mind in 2015” written by Carolyn Gregoire. While a couple of items would certainly constitute “no-brainers,” several of them are quite startling.

1. Smartphones are wildly distracting (constantly looking at a screen is detrimental).

2. Psychedelics may be the next big thing in mental health care (there is a renaissance in psychedelic research  for psychiatric purposes).

3. Pollution is worse for the brain than we realized (exposure to air pollution is associated with neurodegenerative diseases.)

4. The brain and immune system are actually linked (there is a direct connection between the brain and the body's immune system)

5. Erasing memories could be the future of addiction treatment (mind hacking can help with permanent memory erasure)

6. Nature does the mind good (there are mental health benefits to spending time outdoors)

7. To boost your mood, boost your bacteria (increasing healthy bacteria in the stomach can improve health)

8. Good sleep is critical to a healthy emotional life (healthy amounts of sleep can improve emotional intelligence).

For more details on these discoveries, see the website below.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mind-brain-research-2015_us_5671ac66e4b0dfd4bcc03848

 

Is Dyslexia a Disorder Affecting Life or Just School?

While there is hardly an argument that dyslexia can interfere with learning to read, we must also acknowledge that reading is one of many cognitive artifacts and strategies by which we learn. Any experienced educator or child psychologist will gladly tell you from both training and experience that the manner is which children learn is wide-ranging.  

Over 55% of the astrophysicists are dyslexic. Dyslexia causes difficulties with language processing and thus language development, which is most noticeable in formal education settings. However, dyslexics become more adept at VST (visual-spatial-thinking or thinking in pictures) and visualizing a big broad picture of things that others can only envision from "inside the box."

The list of other individuals who had learning difficulties because of dyslexia includes Albert Einstein, Beethoven, Steve Jobs, John F. Kennedy, Leonardo da Vinci, Walt Disney, Picasso, Mozart, Steven Spielberg, Richard Branson, and Winston Churchill. While each of them may have struggled in school, they did not struggle with achievement in life. Consequently, those individuals struggling with dyslexia at four times more likely to become self-made millionaires than the rest of us.