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Does the CAST weigh all standards and practices equally in their performance expectations?

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Does the CAST weigh all standards and practices equally in their performance expectations?

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Information about the California Science Test, or CAST, including the test format, testing window, standards tested, estimated testing time, and related resources.

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Practice and training tests are available to provide students experience with the testing interface and test content. Practice and training tests are publicly available for anyone to access.

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I liked how the reading described the role of the teacher to help direct the conversation about phenomena so it can be a grade appropriate and related to the class objectives.

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Answers the question 'why are we learning this'? Moves from learning about to figuring out a problem. Is used for all types of learners including ELLs.

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Answers the question 'why are we learning this'? Moves from learning about to figuring out a problem. Is used for all types of learners including ELLs.

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A lesson in which students engage with phenomena is one in which they are empowered to act as scientists. This is especially valuable as students will not necessarily have the same observations as one another.

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A lesson in which students engage with phenomena is one in which they are empowered to act as scientists. This is especially valuable as students will not necessarily have the same observations as one another.

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NGSS suggest that classroom activities revolve around the 3 spheres of activity for scientists and engineers: Investigation, Evaluation, and Developing Explanations and Solutions. These activities should focus on real world questions, observations, experiments, and measurements. Teaching students to collect and test data is important for this first sphere of activity: Investigation. Next, how do the existing theories and models relate to the student's investigation. Lastly, formulating hypotheses and proposing solution. At the core of these activities should be to critique and analyze. Here knowing how wrong answers are wrong is just as important as the right answers.

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Cross cutting concepts are basic foundation for understanding the connection between science and engineering. It is important for curriculum developers and assessment designers that support stakeholders who select educational materials for teachers implementation in the classroom. Its main essential components are "Cause and Effect" which is the wheel for all science fields at all grade level.

It helps students by serving as a bridge to connect DCI

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The DCIs are important for clarifying the scientific phenomena that students are meant to study.

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The DCIs are important for clarifying the scientific phenomena that students are meant to study.

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Life Sciences, Earth and Space Sciences, Engineering, Technology, and the Applications of Science are other DCIs

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Life Sciences, Earth and Space Sciences, Engineering, Technology, and the Applications of Science are other DCIs

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The 4 standards provide an overall connection between physics and chemistry and their respective systems for students to understand, and therefore, create and compete with the sophisticated technologies of the 20th century.

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Students' understanding of the CCC should be reinforced by their repeated use in instruction across the DCIs. 

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Students' understanding of the CCC should be reinforced by their repeated use in instruction across the DCIs. 

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The CCCs are essentially what the NGSS uses to bridge student content knowledge (DCIs) with student application (SEPs). For example, the two most essential CCCs are "Patterns" and "Cause and Effect" because they are essential to all fields of science, and are a great example of how CCCs are used to bridge SEPs and DCIs. For example, when students are working on their Science and Engineering Fair projects, they need to use knowledge gained from various DCIs in order to perform experiments (SEPs). Student recognition of patterns and the role of cause and effect is imperative when they are designing and testing their hypothesis.

The CCCs foster student learning by explicitly teaching students that the material that they may be learning in one class is not in a "bubble" but that concepts are often inter-connected between different subjects.

One example of this could be relating Biology and Chemistry concepts when discussing balancing equations and the process of photosynthesis or cellular respiration. Students may have a foundational knowledge of those processes from Biology, but that is further reinforced in Chemistry where we teach about balancing equations or even classifying types of chemical reactions.

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The DCI's represent the "what" and "how" of science by pointing out causal relationships observed in nature.

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The DCI's represent the "what" and "how" of science by pointing out causal relationships observed in nature.

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1. SEPs or science and engineering practices are focused on the processes of science and engineering over the knowledge of scientific content. The SEPs are more significantly linked to the day to day practices of scientists and engineers because they are used to plan and carry out the experiments or engineering projects needed to solve a problem or answer a question.

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The final addition to the physical science standards is PS4 which seeks to help students understand how scientific concepts inform our technology.

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The final addition to the physical science standards is PS4 which seeks to help students understand how scientific concepts inform our technology.

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DCIs - 4 core components that focus on the basic understanding of Matter & Energy's interaction with one another within applied systems.

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Physical Sciences PS1: Matter and Its Interactions, PS2: Motion and Stabililty: Forces and Interactions, and PS3: Energy, PS4: Waves and Their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer, ETS1: Engineering Design

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Physical Sciences PS1: Matter and Its Interactions, PS2: Motion and Stabililty: Forces and Interactions, and PS3: Energy, PS4: Waves and Their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer, ETS1: Engineering Design

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'An overarching goal for learning in the physical sciences, therefore, is to help students see that there are mechanism of cause and effect in all systems and processes that can be understood through a common set of physical and chemical principles.'

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'An overarching goal for learning in the physical sciences, therefore, is to help students see that there are mechanism of cause and effect in all systems and processes that can be understood through a common set of physical and chemical principles.'

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What do the results on the CAST mean to students?

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What do the results on the CAST mean to students?

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Natural events or occurrence that takes place that can accounted for due to observation

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There is a heavier focus on PS1, LS1, LS2, and ESS2.

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I noticed that the EDP was present for every section. I wonder what type of EDP ?'s will appear in each section.

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Its interesting to see how many items they assign to each DCI

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Its interesting to see how many items they assign to each DCI

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What I see:

Earth and Space Sciences (ESS) though only addressing 3 DCI's has the same weight as Physical Sciences (PS) and Life Sciences (LS) with 4 DCI's. Our site, and perhaps others, do not explicitly teach Earth Science, meaning that they are potentially missing out on ~33% of the material. I know that for the Chemistry department, we discuss Ocean Acidification topics (ESS3), but am not sure where the other two DCI's are covered in our current three-course model.

What I wonder:

How can we better incorporate Earth and Space Sciences into our curriculum.

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How are the standards chosen and do they change between years?

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How are the standards chosen and do they change between years?

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I didn’t know there are science standards in K-2.

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How can DCIs connect to real-world problems or phenomena?

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Science and Engineering Practices (SEP):

What are SEPs, and how do they relate to what scientists and engineers do?

How can incorporating SEPs help students think and work like scientists?

What classroom activities or strategies promote SEPs effectively?

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Improving Science Education Through Three-Dimensional Learning

Quick Search Next Generation Science Standards

THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF SCIENCE LEARNING

Within the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), there are three distinct and equally important dimensions to learning science. These dimensions are combined to form each standard-or performance expectation-and each dimension works with the other two to help students build a cohesive understanding of science over time.

Crosscutting Concepts help students explore connections across the four domains of science, including Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science, and Engineering Design.

When these concepts, such as "cause and effect", are made explicit for students, they can help students develop a coherent and scientifically-based view of the world around them.

Science and Engineering Practices describe what scientists do to investigate the natural world and what engineers do to design and build systems. The practices better explain and extend what is meant by "inquiry" in science and the range of cognitive, social, and physical practices that it requires. Students engage in practices to build, deepen, and apply their knowledge of core ideas and crosscutting concepts.

Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs) are the key ideas in science that have broad importance within or across multiple science or engineering disciplines. These core ideas build on each other as students progress through grade levels and are grouped into the following four domains: Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science, and Engineering.

More about 3D Learning

GET TO KNOW

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are K-12 science content standards. Standards set the expectations for what students should know and be able to do. The NGSS were developed by states to improve science education for all students.

A goal for developing the NGSS was to create a set of research-based, up-to-date K-12 science standards. These standards give local educators the flexibility to design classroom learning experiences that stimulate students' interests in science and prepares them for college, careers, and citizenship.

Get to Know the Standards

IMPLEMENT

The NGSS call for a three-dimensional approach to K-12 science instruction. This represents a significant transition from previous state standards. That's why effective implementation demands a great deal of collaboration and patience among states, districts, schools, teachers, and students.

Thoughtful and coordinated approaches to implementation will enable educators to inspire future generations of scientifically literate students. That is the vision of the NGSS. This website provides a range of high-quality resources that empower educators, administrators, parents, and the general public to help bring this vision to life.

Find Tools and Resources

WHY

Science-and therefore science education-is central to the lives of all Americans.

A high-quality science education means that students will develop an in-depth understanding of content and develop key skills-communication, collaboration, inquiry, problem solving, and flexibility-that will serve them throughout their educational and professional lives.

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Home Page | Next Generation Science Standards

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Improving Science Education Through Three-Dimensional Learning Quick Search Next Generation Science Standards Within the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), there are three distinct and equally important dimensions to learning science. These dimensions are combined to form each standard-or performance expectation-and each dimension works with the other two to help students build a cohesive understanding of science over time.

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Found as part of the architecture of a standards page, these highlight some of the links between the listed PE and other NGSS PEs in the same and other grade bands as well as with CCSS ELA/Math standards.

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Found as part of the architecture of a standards page, these highlight some of the links between the listed PE and other NGSS PEs in the same and other grade bands as well as with CCSS ELA/Math standards.

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Crosscutting Concepts (CCC):

What are CCCs, and why are they critical for connecting scientific ideas across disciplines?

How do CCCs encourage students to recognize patterns or systems?

What examples of CCCs can you identify in lessons or real-world scenarios?

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Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI):

What are DCIs, and why are they important in NGSS?

How do they represent the "what" of science students need to understand?

How can DCIs connect to real-world problems or phenomena?

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CAST-Segments Contributing to Individual Scores—Assessed in Grades 5 and 8, and High School
Testing Time: 1 hour and 40 minutes

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CAST-Segments Contributing to Individual Scores—Assessed in Grades 5 and 8, and High School
Testing Time: 1 hour and 40 minutes