Provide teachers with exemplar NGSS-aligned CBL units and templates to customize rather than requiring design from scratch¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The report recommends a hybrid approach in which teachers have examples of well-designed units and unit templates but engage in customizing the templates for their own students and curriculum. The authors state this "could reduce time requirements and teacher effort while still engendering a sense of ownership", addressing how difficult teachers found designing lessons from scratch. Published exemplar units and refined deeper learning rubrics from this project are offered as starting content for such efforts.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Teachers engage in customizing the unit templates for their own students and curriculum

Constraints¶

• Prior experience suggests giving students encouragement and access to existing units alone would be insufficient to support high-quality implementation by most teachers

Target Learners¶

• middle school science teachers

Target Learning Goals¶

• designing and implementing NGSS-aligned challenge based science lessons

Related Strategies¶

• Understanding By Design Unit Template
• Support teachers to customize curriculum for local relevance and cultural responsiveness
• Have teachers design at the lesson or course level rather than whole curricula

Examples¶

-

Key Sources¶

• Iwatani, E., Means, B., Romero, M. R., & Vang, M. C. (2020). Deepening Science Engagement with Challenge Based Learning: Research Report. San Mateo, CA: Digital Promise. https://digitalpromise.dspacedirect.org/items/f928a607-e645-49d6-abbf-3d9b42cf7383. doi:10.51388/20.500.12265/93