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1. Using Students’ Conceptual Models to Represent Understanding of Crosscutting Concepts in an NGSS-Aligned Curriculum Unit About Urban Water Runoff

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-021-09911-6  

   Fick, Sarah J.; McAlister, Anne M.; Chiu, Jennifer L.; McElhaney, Kevin W. (March 2021, Journal of Science Education and Technology)

   null (Ed.)

   Recent science education reforms, as described in the Framework for K-12 Science Education (NRC, 2012), call for three-dimensional learning that engages students in scientific practices and the use of scientific lenses to learn science content. However, relatively little research at any grade level has focused on how students develop this kind of three-dimensional knowledge that includes crosscutting concepts. This paper aims to contribute to a growing knowledge base that describes how to engage students in three-dimensional learning by exploring to what extent elementary students represent the crosscutting concept systems and system models when engaged in the practice developing and using models as part of an NGSS-aligned curriculum unit. This paper answers the questions: How do students represent elements of crosscutting concepts in conceptual models of water systems? How do students’ representations of crosscutting concepts change related to different task-based scaffolds? To analyze students’ models, we developed and applied a descriptive coding scheme to describe how the students illustrated the flow of water. The results show important differences in how students represented system elements across models. Findings provide insight for the kinds of support that students might need in order to move towards the development of three-dimensional understandings of science content. 

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2. Promoting shifts in teachers’ understanding and use of phenomena in instruction and assessment

   Lo, Abraham S.; Glidewell, Loraine; O’Connor, Keelin; Allen, Anna-Ruth; Herrmann-Abell, Cari F.; Penuel, William R.; Wingert, Kerri; Lindsay, William (July 2022, Computersupported collaborative learning)

   Chinn, Clark; Tan, Edna; Chan, Carol K.; Kali, Yael (Ed.)

   This paper examines an online professional learning intervention to develop teachers’ pedagogical design capacity to develop five-dimensional (5D) learning and assessment opportunities, which involve integrated use of science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts in science to make sense of phenomena and problems that are interesting to students and support students as knowers, doers, and users of science. We present findings from our design study, which suggest both the promise of such an approach and some of the challenges and tensions experienced by teachers as they chose and used phenomena to support 5D learning opportunities for students. 

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3. Implementing NGSS-designed Curriculum Materials: Promising Results from an Efficacy Study

   Feng, Mingyu; Murphy, Robert; Harris, Christopher J.; Rutstein, Daisy; Loper, Suzanna (April 2022, Paper presented at 2022 AERA Annual Meeting)

   The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) reflect an ambitious vision for science education where students investigate phenomena or solve problems through using and applying disciplinary core ideas in concert with science and engineering practices and crosscutting concepts. Because the NGSS are so different from prior standards, the need for high-quality curriculum materials is especially great. As new curricula go to scale, it will be important to conduct evidence-based research on their efficacy. We conducted a randomized experiment to examine the efficacy of a widely available NGSS-designed middle school curriculum for improving seventh grade students’ learning in physical science. A hierarchical linear modeling approach was applied to analyze student learning outcomes as measured by an NGSS-aligned assessment. Initial findings demonstrate evidence of promise of the curriculum materials for supporting three-dimensional teaching and learning. The findings provide support for further research on NGSS-designed materials at other grade levels and within other science domains. 

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4. Bringing three-dimensional learning to undergraduate physics: Insight from an introductory physics laboratory course

   https://doi.org/10.1119/10.0009715  

   May, Jason M.; De Grandi, Claudia; Gerton, Jordan M.; Barth-Cohen, Lauren; Beehler, Adam; Montoya, Brianna (June 2022, American Journal of Physics)

   Three-dimensional learning (3DL) is an approach to science instruction that was developed for K-12 science education and that can provide guidance for improving undergraduate physics laboratories. In this paper, we describe efforts to comprehensively integrate 3DL into a sequence of undergraduate introductory physics for life sciences (IPLS) laboratory courses. This paper is tailored for introductory physics faculty interested in advancing their course's learning goals by simultaneously engaging students in experimental practices, scientific reasoning, and conceptual knowledge. We first review how several well-known laboratory curricula are already implicitly aligned with 3DL. We then describe our IPLS course sequence and show how each 3DL dimension—science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts—is integrated throughout the curriculum. To support implementation, we provide samples of our course documentation, a detailed account of our 3DL integration efforts, a guide to training and supporting teaching and learning assistants in a 3DL course, and a sample set of activities to guide students in participating in 3DL instruction in the supplementary material. 

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5. Exploring the impact of disciplinary context on students’ dynamic transfer of learning when addressing problems that apply the first law of thermodynamics

   https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2023.2167499  

   Parobek, Alexander P.; Chaffin, Patrick M.; Towns, Marcy H. (May 2023, International Journal of Science Education)

   Blonder, Ron; Jones, Gail (Ed.)

   A widespread call has been made to develop and support more integrated approaches to STEM education. The first law of thermodynamics serves as a guiding principle for the crosscutting concept of energy and matter. A qualitative interview study was undertaken to support integrated approaches to STEM education by exploring how chemistry, physics, and engineering students (n = 40) transfer first law concepts across disciplinary contexts. Acquired interview data were analysed through the lens of the dynamic transfer framework to reveal the underlying contextual elements students used to know with. Emergent trends across the disciplines revealed how these applied reasoning approaches and epistemologies were realised by each discipline. Productive transfer is shown to be facilitated by the coordination of different disciplinary epistemologies. Suggestions are made to practitioners on how to support students in applying different reasoning approaches when addressing first law problems. The applied methods also serve as a promising methodology for future investigation of students’ transfer of crosscutting concepts. 

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