Process:

1. Anchoring Phenomenon Routine

Kicking off a Unit with an Experience to Motivate Investigation

Student Representation of this might include:

• Drawing or writing initial models, explanations, or design solutions in their science notebooks

• Discussing an initial model, explanation, or design solution with a classmate

• Creating a shared classroom representation of an initial class consensus model, a Driving Question Board, and ideas for potential investigations

2. Navigation Routine

Motivating the Next Step in an Investigation

The navigation connects each activity along a storyline to give purpose. Student representation might include:

• Revisiting their initial ideas and focus questions in their science notebooks

• Revisiting their individual models in their notebooks to add to or revise their thinking

• Recording a “consensus” model, using a Model Tracker, in their notebooks and publicly in the classroom

• Returning to the Driving Question Board to answer questions, add new questions, or refine their questions

3. Investigation Routine

Using Practices to Figure Out Science Ideas

The purpose of the Investigation routine is to use questions around a phenomenon that lead the class to engage in science practices to make sense of the phenomenon, and then develop the science ideas as part of the explanation. This is the basic structure of the work of three-dimensional learning. The Investigation routine is conducted throughout the unit, whenever students identify gaps in their understanding of the Anchoring Phenomenon.

Student representation might include:

• Developing a plan of action

• Recording observations and measurements

• Organizing evidence

• Articulating new ideas and comparing them to current models

• Revising models

• Revising the Driving Question Board

4. Putting Pieces Together Routine

Using the Science Ideas We’ve Built So Far

In the Putting Pieces Together routine, students take the ideas they have developed across multiple lessons and figure out how they can be connected to account for the phenomenon the class is working on.

The Putting Pieces Together routine is conducted at strategic moments when students have synthesized evidence from a range of situations to construct an important component of the explanatory model. This is often at the end of a lesson set and at the end of the unit.

Students typically represent their thinking through the following:

• A gotta-have-it checklist

• A class consensus model

Problematizing Routine

Motivating Learning through Each Part of a Unit

The purpose of the Problematizing routine is to reveal a potential problem with the current model or explanation in order to motivate students to extend or revise their models. The teacher seeds, cultivates, and capitalizes on an emerging disagreement that reveals the potential problem and gets students to focus on an important question that could extend their models. The Problematizing routine is often conducted after a Putting Pieces Together routine or at strategic locations where students need to recognize that there is more to figure out.