Join Math Solutions at NCSM 2020 in Chicago
March 30th – April 1st
Today’s science teachers are focusing on the science standards and how they impact teaching and learning. The new standards present an opportunity for teachers to combine their tried and true instructional practices with the latest research on student success in the science classroom.
Science Courses
Student-Centered Science: An NGSS Overview
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) open the door to more effective, student-centered science exploration. Explore Performance Expectations, Science and Engineering Practices, Disciplinary Core Ideas, and Crosscutting Concepts as they join forces to comprise the NGSS. Complete this session with an action plan that can be implemented in your classroom.
Develop Scientific Thinking: Claims, Evidence, and Reasoning
Explore the Claim-Evidence-Reasoning-Rebuttal (CER) process and how it ties into the Three Dimensions of Learning. Analyze each part of the process and identify examples and non-examples while building and refining the process. Discuss how to deepen student understanding in multiple curricular areas, find opportunities in your science curriculum for CER, and establish a plan for how to implement the process with your students.
Science Is All Around You: Phenomenon-Based Learning
Take part in learning experiences that introduce and explore the practice of phenomenon-based learning. Learn what constitutes phenomena, evaluate phenomena for alignment with your instructional goals, and incorporate anchor, investigative, and everyday phenomena in your instruction to engage and challenge student concept development.
Inspire Problem Solvers: Engineering Design Process
Explore the relationship between science and engineering, the roots of the Engineering Design Process (EDP), and how the EDP is used by many to design solutions to real-world problems. Relate the EDP to a growth mindset and consider its application within science classrooms.
Science Coaching
Our job-embedded coaching for teachers and teams of teachers drives innovation and instructional improvement. Our coaches will work with teachers side-by-side so they can immediately apply the skills they’ve learned into their classrooms. Use the HMH Coaching Studio to stay in touch with your coach and your colleagues.
Free Resources
Instructional Practices Inventory
Conceptual Connections
Teacher Best Practice |
Student Learning Practice |
| Connecting learning to real-world situations both inside and outside the classroom | Defining systems and developing models to test variables or claims |
| Implementing project- and phenomenonbased learning that represents a balance of conceptual understanding and procedural fluency | Identifying and utilizing a variety of information sources and approaches to explain phenomena |
| Integrating cross-curricular experiences for exploration and application of scientific content and concepts | Relating causes of events with their effects to predict outcomes and justify their reasoning using evidence |
| Reflecting on and revising their designs and claims based on evidence | |
| Reflecting on and revising their designs and claims based on evidence | |
| Using cross-curricular skills and knowledge to deepen their understanding of science concepts | |
| Applying and expanding their learning through the lens of appropriate crosscutting concepts | |
Scientific Reasoning and Processes
Teacher Best Practice |
Student Learning Practice |
| Addressing students’ initial understanding and preconceptions | Developing and arguing evidence-based claims using prior and newly acquired knowledge |
| Asking students to communicate their claims and provide evidence to support or refute the claims | Engaging in discourse that reflects an understanding of how to gather and evaluate information and evidence |
| Facilitating questioning and scientific discourse | Defining problems and generating testable questions leading to further study |
| Engaging students in the iterative engineering design process | Applying the engineering design process to solve problems involving real-world phenomena |
| Engaging students in the iterative engineering design process | Identifying and working within the confines of criteria and constraints as they experiment, develop models, and resolve explanations of phenomena |
Learning Environment
Teacher Best Practice |
Student Learning Practice |
| Understands the expectation of the standard to be taught and its connection to previous standards; aligns the lesson to grade level content and practice standards. | Connect their current learning to previously learned standards. |
| Differentiates instruction based on student needs. | Use math to contextualize and/or decontextualize problems. |
| Selects problems that provide opportunities for students to contextualize and/or decontextualize. | Apply the math they know to solve real-world problems. |
| Selects problems that provide opportunities for students to apply math to real-world situations. |
Formative Assessment
Teacher Best Practice |
Student Learning Practice |
| Uses data to make instructional decisions based on student need. | Take responsibility for their learning by monitoring their progress toward a learning target. |
| Provides feedback to students or structures opportunities for students to provide feedback to each other. | Evaluate the reasonableness of their results using feedback from the teacher or a peer. |
| Identifies and communicates the learning target(s) of the lesson. | Articulate what they are learning and why. |
| Implements a variety of strategies to monitor student learning. |
Free Poster
Fill out the form to download our free science professional learning resources, including our Instructional Practices Inventory.
