FCAT Science

The final ver­sion of the Next Gen­er­a­tion Sci­ence Stan­dards (NGSS) were released Tues­day, April 9th. The NGSS dif­fer from the exist­ing sci­ence stan­dards in that they blend core sci­ence knowl­edge with sci­en­tific prac­tices. To find out more about the final ver­sion of the Next Gen­er­a­tion Sci­ence Stan­dards (NGSS) check it out here. If your school is seek­ing qual­ity, inquiry-based sci­ence teacher train­ing work­shops to help tran­si­tion to the NGSS check out the sci­ence teacher train­ing work­shops I offer nation and world­wide at http://www.drdianateachertraining.com.

Karen Ostlund, PhD. pro­vides an infor­ma­tive read regard­ing the Next Gen­er­a­tion Sci­ence Stan­dards (NGSS), and the con­cep­tual shifts in the NGSS. The NGSS are quite dif­fer­ent than the exist­ing national sci­ence stan­dards. The NGSS reflect how sci­ence is done in the real world by inter­con­nect­ing three dimensions:

• Sci­en­tific and Engi­neer­ing Practices,
• Cros­cut­ting Con­cepts, and
• Dis­ci­pli­nary Core Ideas.

For the past 25 years I’ve been con­duct­ing hands-on-minds-on teacher train­ing work­shops through­out the nation and world to all grade level teach­ers. I can hon­estly state that I view the soon to be NGSS as a pos­i­tive move­ment to assure sci­en­tific lit­er­acy for our nation. I espe­cially like the addi­tion of the sci­en­tific and engi­neer­ing prac­tices, and the empha­sis on mak­ing con­nec­tions among the dis­ci­plines. Quite often teach­ers end up teach­ing a “bunch of” of iso­lated, dis­con­nected facts as the sci­ence les­son. This type of instruc­tion results in the low­est level of learn­ing and com­pre­hen­sion. It’s all about mak­ing the con­nec­tions, how do we apply what we have learned in the class­room to the real-world? If you are look­ing for qual­ity hands-on-minds-on teacher train­ing that aligns with the NGSS check out my teacher train­ing web­site here.

To read the entire arti­cle check out the fol­low­ing link at NSTA

The math and read­ing sec­tions of Florida Com­pre­hen­sive Assess­ment Test (FCAT) will be retired in the 2014–2015 school year. It will be replaced with the Part­ner­ship for Assess­ment of Readi­ness for Col­lege and Careers, or PARCC test. The PARCC test will help edu­ca­tors align test results with the bench­marks set from what is known as the Com­mon Core State Stan­dards. The PARCC is tied to the Com­mon Core, new, national aca­d­e­mic stan­dards that Florida and most other states have adopted. Even though the math how­ever many Florida school dis­tricts will likely con­tinue using the FCAT to test stu­dents in science.

To read more details about the changes that will take place in the FCAT in 2014–15 school year check out the fol­low­ing arti­cle by Khristo­pher J. Brooks in The Times-Union.

Florida Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion has released the 2011 FCAT and FCAT 2.0 results for read­ing, math­e­mat­ics, and sci­ence. The results vary widely amongst the school dis­tricts in all areas. In review­ing the FCAT sci­ence scores many of the schools that improved in sci­ence scores attribute the gain to the imple­men­ta­tion of sci­ence, tech­nol­ogy, engi­neer­ing, and math (STEM) cur­ricu­lum. STEM prac­tices and con­tent are based on problem-based inves­ti­ga­tions, which neces­si­tates a team approach to solv­ing a prob­lem. This type of learn­ing envi­ron­ment pro­motes the devel­op­ment and strength­en­ing of crit­i­cal think­ing and problem-solving skills in stu­dents. I encour­age all school dis­tricts and schools that have not yet jumped on the STEM train to hop on now. Check out the 2011 FCAT and FCAT 2.0 results for read­ing, math­e­mat­ics, and sci­ence at the Florida Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion site here.

Florida Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion released the FCAT writ­ing scores a day ago, and school dis­tricts through­out Florida are search­ing for answers for why the writ­ing scores were sig­nif­i­cantly lower than last year. In fact so low that only about 1/3 of stu­dents who took the FCAT would have passed. Why the dra­matic change in scores? Sev­eral pos­si­ble rea­sons follow:

• A new set of stan­dards for how Florida Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion mea­sures stu­dents’ progress was made in the mid­dle of the school year.
•  Two indi­vid­u­als grade the FCAT now ver­sus one.
• School dis­tricts stated that teach­ers did not have enough time to pre­pare the stu­dents for the new writ­ing FCAT standards.

The Florida Board of Edu­ca­tion held an emer­gency meet­ing on May 15th, and voted to lower the pass­ing score from 4.0 to 3.0.  This will bring the pass­ing scores for this year close to the 80 per­cent or more from last years scores.

I have a dif­fi­cult time with stan­dards being low­ered whether it’s for test­ing pur­poses or indi­vid­ual courses. I believe we have to ask our­selves how writ­ing is being taught to the stu­dents. When school dis­tricts com­plain that there was not suf­fi­cient time for teach­ers to pro­vide instruc­tion for the writ­ing com­po­nent of FCAT we are back to teach­ing for the test.

Dur­ing my teacher train­ing work­shops I pro­mote the use of reflec­tive jour­nal­ing in all sci­ence classes K-12. One of the first ques­tions I ask teach­ers dur­ing my train­ing is how many of them imple­ment some type of sci­ence note­book in their class. Very few of the teach­ers raise their hands. In other-words, stu­dents are not being given the oppor­tu­nity to write in sci­ence. Teach­ers really enjoy and learn a great deal from the jour­nal­ing aspect of the teacher train­ings I con­duct, and many par­tic­i­pants state that they will begin imple­ment­ing jour­nal­ing in the sci­ence class­room after the training.

Daily jour­nal­ing in the sci­ence class­room allows the stu­dent to reflect upon what they have learned. The reflec­tive jour­nal is not your tra­di­tional stu­dent note­book with “ditto sheets” and lab sheets attached. Instead it con­sists pri­mar­ily of the indi­vid­ual stu­dents ideas, thoughts etc.. My sug­ges­tion to all the Florida school super­in­ten­dents and prin­ci­pals is to encour­age teach­ers to imple­ment reflec­tive jour­nal­ing in all sci­ence classes through­out the entire year. Reflec­tive jour­nal­ing allows stu­dents to develop and strengthen their inquiry skills, crit­i­cal think­ing skills, and  writ­ing skills.

For more detailed infor­ma­tion about the low FCAT writ­ing scores see the fol­low­ing arti­cle in Orlando Sentinel

The pho­tos below are from a recent Sci­ence, Tech­nol­ogy, Engi­neer­ing, and Math (STEM) teacher train­ing work­shop I conducted.

Day two of the 2012 FCAT test­ing in Florida, and low and behold there just might be some issues with the sci­ence sec­tion of the FCAT. Check out the fol­low­ing arti­cle by Robert Krampf aka The Happy Sci­en­tist. Quite a few com­ments have evolved from his article.

Teach­ers were actively engaged in the learn­ing process as they con­ducted hands-on-minds-on, inquiry-based inves­ti­ga­tions to explore FCAT sci­ence con­tent and con­cepts. I began the work­shop with hav­ing teach­ers dis­cuss how they help to develop and strengthen crit­i­cal think­ing skills in their stu­dents. Teach­ers con­ducted inves­ti­ga­tions to explore the nature of mat­ter, phys­i­cal sci­ence, earth and life sci­ence con­cepts. It was a great group of teach­ers, and fan­tas­tic Cen­tral Florida school. I expect great strides in the sci­ence class­room from this group of moti­vated teach­ers and their students.

Florida is fac­ing a crit­i­cal short­age of math and sci­ence teach­ers at the mid­dle and high school level. Florida plans on using Race to The Top funds to spur the edu­ca­tion of more of these  crit­i­cal instruc­tors, accord­ing to the Florida Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion. I’m hop­ing that the Florida Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion seeks out qual­ity edu­ca­tional expe­ri­ences and long-term pro­fes­sional staff devel­op­ment for the math and sci­ence teach­ers that will be head­ing into Florida’s mid­dle and high school sci­ence class­rooms. Also, of impor­tance is the need for teach­ers trained in STEM edu­ca­tion prac­tices. To read Leslie Postal’s arti­cle in Novem­ber 28th, 2011 Orlando Sen­tinel see the fol­low­ing link.

Florida Gov­er­nor Rick Scott wants to spend more dol­lars on Sci­ence, Tech­nol­ogy, Engi­neer­ing, and Math (STEM) majors at the uni­ver­sity level. “If a stu­dent wants to obtain a degree in Anthro­pol­ogy they bet­ter look else­where.” The state of Florida will begin to shift fund­ing away from cer­tain lib­eral arts majors at state uni­ver­si­ties to pro­mote STEM dis­ci­plines. Read fur­ther details in the Octo­ber 13th, 2011 US News Report by Jason Koe­bler. I have not agreed with all of Rick Scott’s ideas, but in this case the gov­er­nor is “spot-on” to pro­mote fund­ing STEM disciplines.

Just back from con­duct­ing 10 days of teacher train­ing work­shops through­out the state of Florida. As always it’s a plea­sure to share my exper­tise and enthu­si­asm for sci­ence with the teach­ers I meet. The 2011–2012 school year is no dif­fer­ent than the pre­vi­ous years, school dis­tricts and schools want for their stu­dents to do well on the FCAT. For stu­dents to do well on the sci­ence com­po­nent of the FCAT it’s essen­tial that the stu­dents have had the oppor­tu­nity to con­duct hands-on-minds-on, inquiry-based sci­ence inves­ti­ga­tions through­out the school year. The stu­dents must be able to com­pre­hend sci­ence con­cepts. If they have been taught sci­ence con­cepts through route mem­o­riza­tion and paper and pen­cil activ­i­ties, they are sure to do poorly on the FCAT. The FCAT requires stu­dents to be able to think crit­i­cally, includ­ing extrap­o­lat­ing infor­ma­tion from extended ques­tions, as well as inter­pret­ing data from graphs. Dur­ing two recent FCAT sci­ence teacher train­ing work­shops teach­ers explored a wide-array of sci­ence con­cepts from the Next Gen­er­a­tion Sun­shine State Stan­dards. Teach­ers con­ducted hands-on inves­ti­ga­tions to explore Nature of Sci­ence, Earth and Space Sci­ence, Phys­i­cal Sci­ence, and Life Sci­ence con­cepts. Con­duct­ing inves­ti­ga­tions that allow the stu­dent to see the con­nec­tions to the Big Ideas is essen­tial. The fol­low­ing pho­tos are from recent FCAT sci­ence teacher train­ing work­shops. I’m wish­ing all the Florida stu­dents and teach­ers a great year ahead, to ask ques­tions, develop crit­i­cal think­ing skills, as they actively explore all the won­ders of science.