With classroom assessment radically shifted, the role of district based interim assessment expanding, and the status of state assessments in doubt, the landscape of educational assessment is experiencing a seismic shift. Although short term planning is needed to help wrap up the year, longer term planning is needed to consider what assessment – at multiple levels of the educational system – should look like in Fall 2021 and beyond. This two part session first defines factors along which assessment practice could change at the classroom, district and state level and then explores possible futures that take into account these factors. In addition, this session is meant to be participatory and interactive, in which participants can learn from one another as they think about problem solving for the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a widespread and ongoing impact on how the K–12 education system functions. In early September, 2020, the Board on Science Education at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released Teaching Science During the COVID-19 Pandemic, to offer guidance to science educators as they take on the challenge of adapting instruction to these challenging times. The guide aims to describe what high quality science and engineering education can look like in a time of great uncertainty and to support practitioners as they work toward their goals. This session will provide an overview of the key principles in the guide and engage participants in a discussion of how these principles can guide the difficult decisions they are making day-to-day as they navigate complex blends of virtual and in-person learning environments and grapple with decision making around learning recovery efforts.

Topics: Instructional Materials, Assessment/Systems of Assessment, Systems Leadership, Policy and Policy Levers, Learning Environments, Learning Experiences

Participants will use an interactive space to reflect on the “Planning for Effective Science Curriculum, Assessment, Instruction, and Well-Being”

documents created this summer. We will discuss how science education leaders can use these documents to bridge from Summer 2020 to the space we are in now and the space we are moving forward.

Topics: Instructional Materials, Assessment/Systems of Assessment, Systems Leadership, Policy and Policy Levers, Learning Environments, Learning Experiences

Online learning has been placed at the forefront of education due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During this session we will explore what we have learned in the past year about the potential of online learning for teachers and teacher-leaders. Presenters will discuss the process of creating a document called “Strategies for Online Professional Learning and the SPLS,” and discuss how we’ve leveraged those insights in the professional learning we have offered. We will also share instruments to help evaluate professional learning in connection with this document.

Topics: Professional Learning, Learning Environments, Instructional Materials

This interactive session will provide an opportunity to identify areas of inequities within the science educational system magnified by COVID-19. We will discuss what new information the COVID-19 pandemic has uncovered, policies being developed and implemented, and actionable next steps within our personal/professional spaces that utilize the Equity and Access Position Statement and the Racial Justice Commitments.

Topics: Racial Justice and Equity, Learning Environments, Learning Experiences

In 2020, Carnegie Corporation of New York released a challenge paper calling on school and system leaders, teachers and coaches, and all specialists in professional learning to transform teaching and learning through the elements and essentials of curriculum-based professional learning. Join us for an engaging panel discussion with OpenSciEd professional learning designers and facilitators around the recommendations in the paper and implications for supporting science teachers.

Topics: Professional Learning

COVID-19 has resulted in widespread change and disruptions to science education over the course of two consecutive school years. This has also disrupted, of course, the implementation efforts of 3D standards throughout

the country as schools have struggled to provide high-quality science teaching and learning for ALL. We have also done some things we’ve never done before. Teachers tapped into their creativity and passion for science education to provide students real opportunities to learn science relying on local phenomena, building community connections (including family science time) and engaging in virtual experiences. In this session, we will leverage the expertise of this community to think about how and where we pick up implementation efforts and what lessons we have learned during the pandemic should be added to those efforts. We will also engage in collective problem solving around barriers to, what for many will be a challenge to return fully to those implementation efforts.

Topics: Instructional Materials, Professional Learning, K-12 Science