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The challenges of alignment for the Next Generation Science Standards
Author(s) -
Fulmer Gavin W.,
Tanas Jamie,
Weiss Kathleen A.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of research in science teaching
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.067
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1098-2736
pISSN - 0022-4308
DOI - 10.1002/tea.21481
Subject(s) - next generation science standards , extant taxon , curriculum , interpretation (philosophy) , science education , mathematics education , engineering ethics , academic standards , work (physics) , computer science , pedagogy , sociology , engineering , political science , higher education , psychology , mechanical engineering , evolutionary biology , law , biology , programming language
Alignment to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) is essential in efforts to interpret the standards and to compare curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment efforts with respect to the standards. However, relatively little work has explored the alignment implications of NGSS. This article is a conceptual analysis that gives an overview of alignment definitions and methods, and then explores how alignment has been explicitly or implicitly described in extant work on interpretation of NGSS. The purpose is to highlight challenges that remain to be addressed for ensuring alignment for curriculum, assessment, and pedagogy under NGSS. Four challenges for alignment and interpretation research on NGSS are discussed: (1) What are the appropriate referents and comparands for judging alignment under NGSS? (2) How is alignment for integrated standards to be defined and judged? (3) What is the appropriate idea of focus in NGSS? (4) What role do learning progressions, and alignment with respect to them, play for interpreting NGSS?