I saw a presentation about this work at NARST and find it very exciting! The hybrid on-line and face-to-face seems like it has the potential to support scalability while also maintaining a high-quality experience for teachers. I look forward to seeing more.

Thanks, Suzanna. Sarah, Brian, and I appreciate your comments. From the very beginning the issue of scalability was among a number of issues in the forefront of our thinking and it continues to inform our design and development work. Our newest online pathway, the Facilitator Pathway, directly addresses the scalability issue. This Pathway is designed to build capacity among district and state science teacher leaders to facilitate NGSX study groups. At the moment we are piloting the Facilitator Pathway in Vermont and thus far quite pleased with what we are learning.

Looks like a great project. I’m curious if you include any media literacy training in your exemplars to assist educators understand how to use media in their teaching practice.

Thanks for sharing your work! I’m curious about the use of video analysis as part of the professional development experience. Do you use protocols or a particular approach to viewing, reflecting on, or discussing video? In what situations or for what kinds of things have you found video to be particularly effective?

This project looks very promising. The hybrid or blended learning approach to PD is great. I couldn’t tell from the video, but is there a facilitator for the online experience as well as the f2f sessions? If so, is it the same facilitator? If not, is the online work set up as self-paced modules or other resources?

Note to all: The NGSX Project and NGSX System has been co-led and co-designed by Jean Moon (Tidemark Institute), Brian Reiser (Northwestern University), and Cindy Passmore (U.C., Davis). Too bad only one person can be listed as presenter!

Hello! Very interesting to see concrete and specific solutions to provide teachers support on NGSS. Do you recommend teachers to apply specific curriculum as part of the training? If so, how do you select it? And if not, what are ways in which you encourage teachers to customize activities to their own settings?

Thanks, Mariana, for your questions. Providing teachers with experience in adapting existing curriculum or instructional units to reflect 3-dimensional science teaching and learning is the next step for NGSX. And under Brian Reiser’s leadership we are taking that step. We have been working with teams of teachers and preservice faculty in Connecticut in this adaptation process. Now the work ahead of us is to take what has been learned from the CT experience as well as work Brian has been doing with Illinois teachers and design units as part of an NGSX learning pathway to provide study group participants with experience in adapting an existing instructional unit. We believe this will be an important component in our NGSX blended PD model and look forward to moving forward with design and development. Stay tuned !

NGSX has been a wonderful professional development. I first took part in it at my district this past winter. There were about fifteen teachers. The group contained kindergarten through high school teachers. NGSX is a wonderful way to learn the shifts in teaching science along with content knowledge. I loved it so much that I then signed up to become a facilitator of NGSX. I have learned some tools on how to facilitate adult learners. These tools will be very important to me when I teach the NGSX pathway in my school district this fall.

Thank you for your note, Suzan! It has been a pleasure for the NGSX team to be a part of helping Vermont in their scaling process with the Framework and NGSS. And to have you be a member of both study groups is a treat for us and very helpful to current study group members. We look forward to more visits to Vermont and work with your initial group of NGSX facilitators.

This is an incredibly exciting project that really enables teachers to implement changes in practice required by NGSS. We are so fortunate to be collaborating on this work!

Thanks Pat! We are thrilled to be working with you and the educators we’ve met through our NGSX study groups and leadership cadre in Vermont, as well the remarkable “uber” facilitators (Deanna Bailey, Renee Affolter, and Dave White) who have helped us design and build the NGSX Facilitator Pathway. It’s an inspiring group and a privilege to be a part of this partnership.

The NGSX initiative is a step towards revolutionizing Professional Development in Science. Many appealing aspects of this program stand out for me:
- The accessible online platform
- A design, science content, and pedagogical content knowledge that is appropriate for K-12 teachers. (It’s been challenging to find H.S appropriate programs.)
- An approach that reaches teacher as adult learners, engaging them in the type of learning we wish to provide for our students
- An emphasis on the Science and Engineering Practices of modeling, argumentation, and explanation
- Availability of the background research and supporting resources is a click away

There’s so much more. The NGSX will allow us to reach the goals having teacher leaders knowledgeable of and conversant with the NGSS, and a focus and direction for local professional development in science to take, reaching all teachers in the state. We are so fortunate to be collaborating with NGSX here in VT.
Bravo NGSX!

Additionally, NGSS shows teachers how to facillitate meaningful discourse among students In order to build an understanding of science concepts. This is an essential skill for teachers to support science instruction as well as the Speaking and Listening Standards in CCSS.

Maura and Pat your comments are so affirming – for Vermont and NGSX!! Thank you. Our collaboration with VT has been so helpful to our work, our ability to pilot new Matter pathway revisions and, of course, the development of the Facilitator Pathway. The beneficial results for Vermont shared in your notes are instructive and reflect your strategic attention to scaling up efforts in VT, not only for the Framework/NGSS, but for components of CCSS as well. We look forward to more collaborative work! Thanks again for your comments.