Posted on November 20, 2025
Our team with our collaborators presented at the NSTA National Conference in Minneapolis! We offered a series of 13 sessions inspired by STEM Teaching Tools and designed to help educators engage...Posted on March 26, 2025
Our team with our collaborators presented at the NSTA National Conference in Philadelphia! We offered a series of 12 sessions inspired by STEM Teaching Tools and designed to help educators engage...
Posted on November 04, 2024
Join our team and our collaborators at the NSTA National Conference in New Orleans on November 6-9! We are offering a series of 13 sessions inspired by STEM Teaching Tools and designed to help...
Posted on August 18, 2024
Washington State’s ClimeTime Network is a large-scale effort to build systemic capacity for climate science learning and broader scientific literacy. The network has been collaborating over the...
Posted on March 11, 2024
Join our team and our collaborators at the NSTA National Conference in Denver, CO on March 20-23, 2024! We are offering a series of 18 sessions inspired by STEM Teaching Tools and designed to...
Posted on October 09, 2023
Join our team and our collaborators at the NSTA National Conference in Kansas City on October 25-28, 2023! We are offering a series of 16 sessions inspired by STEM Teaching Tools. We are offering...
Posted on January 14, 2022
One important way educators and students can respond to the climate emergency is to routinely talk about it with the people in their lives—in the classroom, at home, and in their communities. But...Posted on January 14, 2022
In 2016, we published STEM Teaching Tool #29, with steps to design three-dimensional assessments. This resource has been popular, as it offers a step-by-step process for groups of teachers to write...Posted on December 17, 2021
Investigating local ecological phenomena helps young people use the crosscutting concept of systems and systems models to better understand the complex interactions that shape the natural...Posted on November 22, 2021
As part of the STEM Teaching Tools initiative, we have curated a collection of Indigenous resources related to science and STEM education in support of the NGSS / Framework vision. The resources...Posted on October 21, 2021
Members of the STEM Teaching Tools team led a new special issue of the NSTA open-access journal Connected Science Learning that is focused on climate justice in science education. Science...Posted on August 18, 2021
Educators can collaborate with families to build science learning based on home experiences and interests. The Learning in Places project’s neighborhood walk activities for classrooms and families...Posted on August 18, 2021
Gender, sex, and sexuality are complex throughout the natural world. Our new suite of resources are designed to help educators teach about these topics in way that are not only more accurate, but...Posted on August 18, 2021
Our colleagues from the Institute for School Partnership at Washington University in St. Louis have created a new way to reflect on your teaching: using the crosscutting concepts. Crosscutting...Posted on May 22, 2021
Scientific phenomena are all around us which we can investigate. Community and citizen science efforts can be powerful arrangements for science learning, the coordination of multiple perspectives...Posted on May 22, 2021
How can science education become more accountable to the histories, interests, and desired futures of communities being served? This new resource highlights frameworks, practices, and examples...Posted on April 27, 2021
We just published a new STEM Teaching Tool that describes seven key, intersecting EQUITY PROJECTS that should guide science teaching. The approaches build directly from the vision in the NRC...Posted on February 12, 2021
We can no longer consider climate change a problem in the future; its impacts are already affecting people around the country and world. Those from marginalized communities are disproportionately...Posted on June 08, 2020
This June, our team is finding moments of hope by reading instructional accounts that show how to promote social justice through PK-12 science education. In particular, we have been reading...Posted on May 28, 2020
In the Framework vision, young people learn science and engineering by investigating phenomena. This puts greater importance on which phenomena educators select to guide investigations. Who does...Posted on March 26, 2020
In the new Framework vision for science education, science assessments should help educators better understand how learners are braiding together three dimensions of science learning —...Posted on March 18, 2020
It can make intuitive sense to pre-teach scientific terms before you would expect students to be in situations where those terms might be used. But, research shows that it is more productive to...Posted on March 17, 2020
During the COVID-19 crisis, many families are looking for helpful educational resources. There are many opportunities to engage in safe, meaningful science learning in your home and neighborhood....Posted on January 30, 2020
Interim assessment can be thought of existing between embedded formative assessments and larger summative assessments. These assessments can help assess student's ability to transfer knowledge to...Posted on December 11, 2019
The science and engineering practices become meaningful when students actively engage in them to address and manage uncertainties and make choices in the context of an investigation. In the context...Posted on December 10, 2019
The social and material practice of argumentation supports powerful learning processes and is central to the creation and application of knowledge generally. As the implementation of the vision...Posted on October 06, 2019
Cross-subject integration is a central implementation strategy. Learning and applying subject matter knowledge from science, history, and the arts in the context of literacy and math instruction...Posted on June 23, 2019
Science education should serve many purposes. It can importantly help us better understand our place in this world—and the responsibilities we should hold. This is increasingly important as...Posted on May 25, 2019
How should we support engagement in the science and engineering practices so that, from the first years of school, students experience them as meaningful for their current and personal activities,...Posted on March 23, 2019
To deliver on the noble goal of promoting "science for all" we need to support each and every student in meaningful science learning. This requires ongoing educator learning and systems-level...Posted on March 18, 2019
The NRC Framework highlights the importance of regularly focusing science instruction on learner interests. To help educators support this process, we have previously published a STEM Teaching Tool...Posted on March 10, 2019
In science education we often underestimate the importance of learning and relating scientific knowledge to specific places. Place-based education is a major strategy for promoting equity, but it...Posted on February 28, 2019
Cultural communities, including scientific ones, have historically developed diverse ways of making sense of the natural world and stylized ways of communicating with each other as they develop and...Posted on February 22, 2019
Computational thinking is a central element of the science and engineering practices in the NRC Framework—and cuts across them in specific ways. Although computational thinking is receiving a...Posted on October 08, 2018
There are many important reasons to represent the broad cultural diversity of STEM endeavors—both historically and presently—in instruction. Science educators should collectively...Posted on September 12, 2018
We just published our fifth open educational resource (OER) professional development session to the STEM Teaching Tools site! This PD session is focused on Selecting Anchoring Phenomena for...Posted on June 04, 2018
All significant learning involves sustained social processes focused on shared sensemaking, reflection, and the refinement of practice. In science classrooms, we therefore need to create equitable...Posted on February 26, 2018
The new vision for K-12 science education includes a central focus on understanding science learning as a cultural endeavor. This means that educators should be engaging — at least somewhat...Posted on February 21, 2018
Part of the core work of teacher education is to bring new educators into best-practice forms of subject matter instruction. The planning, development, and enactment demands of equitable 3D science...Posted on August 05, 2017
Science learning is fundamentally a social process where individuals engage in making their thinking visible to a group that collaborates to develop, refine, and apply ideas and models to explain...Posted on August 02, 2017
Our good colleague Carla Zembal-Saul and her collaborators have translated a couple of our tools into Spanish. Please check them out and share them through your networks in ways that make sense:...Posted on July 21, 2017
The implementation of an ambitous educational vision—like those described in recent educational standards and frameworks—is complicated work. That said, there is a lot that is known...Posted on July 13, 2017
It takes skill as a teacher to deeply hear and guide instruction based on student's ideas and ways of making sense of natural phenomena. It is an important formative assessment practice. Preservice...Posted on April 04, 2017
What are the best practices for bringing new teachers into the science education profession? What are the roles of mentor teachers and university educators in this process? The new vision for K-12...Posted on April 01, 2017
Many students are not familiar with how to talk with their peers in order to make sense of phenomena as they make their way through investigations. This new resource highlights the importance of...Posted on March 18, 2017
The shift to engaging students students in science and engineering practices in the new vision for K-12 science education can help surface productive parallels to the knowledge work of professional...Posted on March 10, 2017
Education is filled with many different practices and systems to support the work—some of which unfortunately conflict. Do you share daily learning targets with you students? Are you required...Posted on February 24, 2017
It can be unsettling and complicated to engage students with controversial topics in the classroom. Science topics like global climate change, evolution, genetically modified organisms, and stem...Posted on February 21, 2017
We recently published our second open educational resource (OER) professional development session to the STEM Teaching Tools site! This PD session is focused on How to Assess Three-Dimensional...Posted on February 04, 2017
In science education, the first decade of the 21st century will remembered for the dramatic reduction in the teaching of science in elementary schools across the U.S. as a result of national...Posted on December 20, 2016
We just posted our first STEM Teaching Tools open educational resource (OER) for a professional development session! Our STEM Teaching Tools have been used to support extended professional...Posted on November 14, 2016
Students should engage in engineering design projects each year as part of the new vision for K-12 science education. Students often bring relevant design-related experiences and expertise to those...Posted on November 05, 2016
Science education started to shift instruction to focus students on exploring and explaining natural phenomena when it shifted to inquiry-based science instruction starting in the 1960s. This focus...Posted on October 14, 2016
The new vision for K-12 science education includes a focus on helping students understand conceptual ideas that show up across the disciplines of science. These seven cross-cutting concepts hold...Posted on October 11, 2016
Tinkering and Making are long-standing, historical practices within all communities. These practices have recently become a core focus of STEM education programs—originally in out-of-school...Posted on August 02, 2016
Are you trying to get your students to talk more about the science phenomena they are investigating? Are you looking for ways to cultivate a learning culture in your classroom? This new STEM...Posted on June 10, 2016
There is a classic tension in science teaching—we have too many important topics to teach and not enough instructional time to help students conceptually understand those topics in deep ways. That...Posted on May 28, 2016
Formative assessment is a critical teaching practice for supporting student learning (see our short course on developing 3D formative assessments to learn more). However, written assessments can be...Posted on April 06, 2016
Instructional sequences are more coherent when students investigate compelling natural phenomena (in science) or work on meaningful design problems (in engineering) by engaging in the science and...Posted on April 05, 2016
This short course will help you learn how to implement the new vision for K-12 education through a curriculum adaptation strategy. The course links off to an extensive Curriculum Adaptation Toolkit...Posted on April 05, 2016
This short course will help you learn how to develop and use 3D formative assessments in the classroom. (Updated June 2022) Background Formative assessment in the classroom is crucial because...Posted on March 25, 2016
Students learn science best by engaging in science and engineering practices in sustained investigations as they learn and apply disciplinary and cross-cutting concepts. The practices described in...Posted on March 11, 2016
The learning of all complex knowledge benefits from timely and focused feedback from a more expert other. That is why using formative assessment practices in the classroom are so powerful....Posted on February 05, 2016
If you are a classroom teacher, the support and resources you get from any given educational improvement project tend to come and go over time as the project starts and stops. But, how can...Posted on January 26, 2016
Are you implementing the new vision for K-12 science education laid out in the NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education? Are you wondering if your instructional materials are up to the task -- or...Posted on January 09, 2016
Learning any complex subject matter or practice is aided when the learner receives timely, quality feedback about how they should refine their understanding. This is what makes formative assessment...Posted on November 25, 2015
We recently learned that people have been using some of our STEM Teaching Tools to orient groups of principals to the Next Generation Science Standards / NRC Framework vision. In October, I heard...Posted on November 13, 2015
The place where learning happens can matter a lot. The new vision for K-12 science education encourages learners to investigate and make sense of phenomena of the natural world. Sometimes in...Posted on November 05, 2015
The NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education calls for engaging students in the intellectual practices of science engineering as they learn and apply disciplinary core ideas and make connections...Posted on October 27, 2015
To promote educational equity, how a school organizes itself for improvement and collaboration matter. This research brief summarizes a study that analyzed how different school approaches for...Posted on May 21, 2015
Global climate change is arguably the leading environmental, social, cultural, and economic problem of the 21st century. The NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education frames it as a central...Posted on May 15, 2015
All learning of sophisticated ideas and practices benefits from feedback and guidance from a more expert other. Formative assessment is a powerful way to use student performances of understanding...Posted on April 29, 2015
In the new vision for K-12 science education, the science and engineering practices can be thought of as a platform for empirical investigation and knowledge-building. Students need to learn how...Posted on April 15, 2015
The new vision for K-12 science education highlights important changes for how science teaching should be practiced. This includes focusing teaching on a 3-D integrated perspective of learning...Posted on April 01, 2015
Some of the practices in the new vision for K-12 science education are new to many teachers and less common in existing science curriculum materials. Argumentation and causal explanation are two...Posted on March 27, 2015
Many of the deep challenges of education are the result of historical processes that have unfolded over decades and even centuries. Some of these issues are specific to science and science...Posted on February 27, 2015
According to Henry Petroski in The Essential Engineer: "Science is about knowing; engineering about doing." He argues that while scientific research can lay the foundation for new technology, it is...Posted on February 15, 2015
The Next Generation Science Standards demand new kinds of assessments and new assessment systems. The NRC research consensus report, Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science...Posted on February 05, 2015
STEM learning happens everywhere. Sometimes we talk like it only happens in the classroom. Leveraging the everyday STEM-related interests and knowledge of youth is a crucial educational equity...Posted on January 29, 2015
There is a basic tension between providing clear supports to students about disciplined inquiry (e.g., in science education) and the actual complexity of professional disciplined inquiry (e.g., in...Posted on January 22, 2015
Teachers routinely work to support all of students in learning complex science. It is hard and complicated work. The new vision for K-12 science education opens up specific opportunities to make...Posted on January 17, 2015
People have asked us if there was a way to easily grab the entire collection of tools. So we have made the entire collection—in the "pretty", ready-to-print PDF format—available in one easy...Posted on January 16, 2015
Scientific modeling is one of the eight core practices of science and engineering in the new vision for K-12 science education. Science curricula has routinely included descriptions of the accepted...Posted on December 17, 2014
Research and practice has repeatedly revealed that students learn and apply science concept best by routinely engaging in the science and engineering practices. This makes it an equity imperative...Posted on December 14, 2014
This site was in development by staff at the Institute for Science & Math Education for the better part of a year before we formally launched in October. We deeply appreciate all of the help...Posted on December 12, 2014
Are you teaching engineering design in the classroom? Do some of your students become overly frustrated and shut down during the design process? We have been working with teachers implementing...Posted on December 01, 2014
You might find yourself being responsible for implementing the new vision for K-12 science education outlined in NGSS and the NRC Framework in your school or across your district. There are...Posted on November 19, 2014
Across a number of curriculum projects, we have worked with teachers who have engaged students in investigations of current topics in science—from human influences on climate change to social...Posted on November 14, 2014
The NRC Framework and the Next Generation Science Standards call for routinely engaging students in the practices of science and engineering—so they can learn and apply scientific knowledge...Posted on November 06, 2014
The Next Generation Science Standards include a rich set of learner case studies that highlight how to differentiate instruction in order to support all students in science learning. Based on our...Posted on October 28, 2014
The new vision for K-12 science education in the NRC Framework and the resulting Next Generation Science Standards call for engaging all young people in meaningful forms of learning experiences...Posted on October 24, 2014
At this point in time, nearly one-third of all K-12 students in the U.S. live in states that have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). But, many teachers and school district staff...Posted on September 27, 2014
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) call for learning experiences for students that are significantly different than most existing science curricula and programs. At the same time,...Posted on September 26, 2014
Engaging students routinely in specific science and engineering practices is one of the signature elements of the new vision for science education in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)....Posted on September 22, 2014
The NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education called for engaging students in 8 practices of science and engineering as they learn, apply and make connections to scientific concepts. Engaging...Posted on September 03, 2014
We were working with the Seattle and Renton school districts to design a year of teacher professional development to support the implementation of the Next Gen Science Standards (NGSS), and we...Posted on September 01, 2014
We are happy to announce our new web site of tools to support the teaching of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The tools are designed to leverage the knowledge derived from...