CCSD Instructional Resources

Campbell County Secondary Science Instructional Framework

How should science be taught?

This is a big question in the education system today. The idea that students can memorize all the available information, or that they even should, is a hotly debated topic. The fact that students have computers in their pockets and access to an entire world of information instantly, has changed the focus of the science classroom. 

Students must be taught to think critically and with purpose. All science classrooms should be explicitly teaching these critical thinking skills within the content area of focus. More over, the students of science are engaged in scientific practices, plus engineering, plus 21st century skills daily. The demands on the teacher are enormous as the needs of this type of education fall into classrooms across the state. The instructional framework designed by Campbell County science teachers after two years of intense research and development, reflects the changing focus and delivers to the entire department stratgies that will make the instructional shifts smoother and more meaningful for the instructor and students alike. 

The focus is to get students "doing science". Therefore, the instructional design is a gradual release model with many instructional cycles centered on formative feedback loops. 

Gradual Release Planning Document

The Role of Cognition in the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model

Wyoming Content and Performance Standards: 

The Wyoming Content and Performance Standards for Science define that the scientifically proficient student has mastered the practices within any and all disciplines in science. Therefore, the scientifically proficient student can, in Physical Science, Life Science and Earth and Space Science:

• Ask questions and define problems. 

• Develop and use models.

• Plan and carry out investigations.

• Analyze and interpret data.

• Use mathematics and computational thinking.

• Construct explanations and design solutions. 

• Engage in argument from evidence.

• Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information.

Instruction and assessment methods must allow students to practice the three dimensions of the standards and should be obviously visible in every science classroom K-12.   

Increasing focus, rigor, and coherence requires attention to the potential for initial gaps in student learning, but ultimately across time the benefits reaped from curriculum designed around deep and rich content that is steeped in the three dimensions far outweigh the growing pains associated with the curricular shifts.  

As part of the movement to elevate the way science is taught in classrooms, the secondary science department is also working on implementing some researched models of instruction to help achieve this goal. As a collaborative team, the move to using a combination of phenomena based instruction (NGSS) with Conceptual Change Model (Stepans), and Storylining (Illinois State Ed). More will be posted as the work progresses and evolves. 

Paul Anderson on the "Best Way" to Teach Science: