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Are learning intentions and goals clear to students?
OpenSciEd units are designed using a form of “science storyline” approach. The goal of a science storyline approach is to provide students with a coherent experience that is motivated by the students’ own desire to explain something they don’t understand or to solve a problem (Reiser, Novak, & McGill, 2017). We use the metaphor of a storyline to capture the fact that learners should be motivated to work through the next step in a science unit just as they are motivated to see what happens next in an unfolding story. Guidance for helping teachers engage students in articulating the goal of each lesson, at both the start and end of each lesson, is provided as part of the embedded navigation routine in each lesson (see the storyline model below).
A key focus of the storyline approach is that students should always see the science work they are doing as addressing questions they have raised and problems they have identified. Every lesson is framed by the teacher, in discussions with students, as connecting to questions the students have raised. As they work in a lesson, students should be able to explain how the work they are doing will help address their questions.
Each lesson includes lesson-level performance expectations (LLPEs) and a lesson overview. The one-page overview highlights the 3D categories of question, phenomenon, practices and what students figure out. This provides a snapshot for the teacher that emphasizes not only what students should be able to know and do in the lesson (what they figure out), but how they are going to get there based on the students’ own questions that motivate the lesson.
The main focus of what students are doing in the lesson is identified as one or more lesson level performance expectations (LLPEs). The structure of every LLPE reflects three-dimensional learning, combining elements of science and engineering practices, pieces of disciplinary core ideas and crosscutting concepts. The summary of key ideas that students will figure out by the end of the lesson is included in typical words middle school students will use.
OpenSciEd Storyline with routines
