Developing and Testing a Learning Progression for Middle School Physical Science incorporating Disciplinary Core Ideas, Science and Engineering Practices, and Crosscutting Concepts

This project will develop and test a learning progression for middle school physical science that incorporates the three dimensions identified in Next Generation of Science Standards (NGSS): the Disciplinary Core Ideas of matter, interaction, and energy; the Science and Engineering Practices of constructing explanations and developing and using models; and the Crosscutting Concepts of cause and effect and systems and system models. Bringing together all three NGSS dimensions is an innovation that allows for the project to explore the variety of learning pathways that students may follow as they apply scientific knowledge and practices to make sense of compelling phenomena or solve complex problems. This can help teachers, researchers, and curriculum developers improve how they support students. Middle school science teachers from various schools representing diverse communities will receive professional learning and guidelines using the learning progression to adapt their local curriculum and instruction materials. The project will examine students' learning growth over time and how teachers use the learning progression to support their students' learning. This project serves the national interest by exploring how to support teachers in creating equitable and coherent learning environments and promoting all students' development in problem-solving and sense-making in science. 

The complex real-world problems facing humans—today and in the future—challenge the science and policy communities to improve science education worldwide by shifting the goals of science education to knowledge-in-use (i.e., usable knowledge) rather than just knowing fragmented pieces of knowledge (Harris et al., 2019; National Research Council [NRC], 2017). That is, through learning science, all students should have the ability to make sense of complex real-world phenomena, solve complex problems, make informed decisions related to their daily life, know how to learn more when needed, and consider pursuing science-related careers (NRC, 2012; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM], 2019). Specifically, the complicated nature of phenomena and problems requires students to have the ability to selectively incorporate ideas from a range of knowledge domains and science practices and apply them to new contexts to solve problems. In other words, a single DCI is not sufficient. Students must synthesize ideas (e.g., matter, energy, interaction) across disciplines and science practices to apply them to new contexts. For students to reach knowledge-in-use learning goals (NRC, 2000), educators must consider what students should ultimately know and be able to do and what paths they can take to reach each goal. Furthermore, students’ development of knowledge-in-use proficiency takes time; it depends on experiences and education (NRC, 2007), where individuals can use their knowledge to explain phenomena or solve problems (NRC, 2012). To this end, three-dimensional (3D) learning incorporating DCIs, SEPs, and CCCs has been suggested as a potential mechanism to achieve student knowledge-in-use learning goals (NRC, 2012). With 3D learning, students can apply various ideas by engaging in multiple SEPs to make sense of compelling phenomena or solve complex problems. In terms of guiding students’ coherent knowledge-in-use development, researchers have proposed that learning progressions (LPs) can depict paths that students travel as they progress toward higher proficiency levels (Wilson & Berenthal, 2006; NRC, 2007). LPs offer a vehicle to align and make coherent curriculum materials, instruction, and assessments to promote deeper levels of understanding. As such, students can gain opportunities to develop their understanding of essential ideas (DCIs and CCCs) and SEPs (Krajcik & Shin, in press; NRC, 2007; Smith et al., 2006). However, the question remains about how to develop 3D LPs to support a broad diversity of students’ sustainable knowledge-in-use development. To our knowledge, little evidence exists in the literature about whether 3D LP can provide opportunities for diverse students to access sustained science learning, regardless of their ethnicity, gender, SES, and cultural and educational background. We will put efforts into developing a 3D LP.

This project advances research on learning progressions in two ways: by developing and testing a three-dimensional learning progression consistent with NGSS and by exploring various learning pathways within the proposed learning progression.

The project explores three research questions:

1. How does the theoretically grounded learning progression change as a result of empirical evidence from teachers and students and feedback from experts?
2. In what ways do teachers use the learning progression to adapt their curriculum materials, instruction, and assessments to improve student knowledge-in-use?
3. In what ways and how do students' knowledge-in-use develop in the learning progression-based adapted classrooms?

To address these questions, the project will design, revise, and finalize the learning progression iteratively using both qualitative and quantitative data sources across three years. The researchers will employ latent growth curve models to examine student knowledge-in-use development using data from students' responses to classroom-embedded assessment tasks. Using data from teacher and student interviews, classroom observations, and teacher and student artifacts, the researchers will develop a case study that explores teachers' use of the learning progressions and how they adapt the learning progression to their local curriculum, instruction, and assessment materials to support student learning. The case study will also explore whether and how teacher adaptation affects student development. The learning progression will contribute to teaching and learning in science by coherently guiding the development of curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional learning to provide all students with opportunities to learn in science and support teachers in improving their local science learning systems.

Findings from the project will expand the current knowledge and research on learning progression with multiple intermediate learning pathways for three-dimensional learning that allow all students to learn in science. The Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers through research and development of innovative resources, models, and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.

The 3DLP assessment tasks were designed, developed, tested, and revised by an interdisciplinary team from Michigan State University’s CREATE for STEM Institute. The National Science Foundation supports this work. The materials are freely available under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 license. Teachers and schools can use, copy, and modify them for classroom instruction.