OpenSciEd Developers Consortium

Northwestern University will serve as an OpenSciEd.org Development Center, Directed by PI Brian J. Reiser. The NU Development Center staff will participate in two strands of work 1. NU will assist the BSCS OpenSciEd development center in developing a Program Scope and Sequence for a 3-year Scope and Sequence for the OpenSciEd 3-year Middle School Program. The Program Scope and Sequence will describe a sequence of units in terms of the disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts that will be bundled into each. It will also provide tentative anchoring phenomena and central questions or design challenges for each unit. 2. NU will collaborate with BSCS OpenSciEd development center on the selection and development of three instructional units during this phase of the work, one unit for grade 6, 7, and 8. NU will lead the development effort of the 7th grade unit, and provide design and lesson writing support for the BSCS development center for the grades 6 and 8 units. The work will include these phases a. NU staff will conduct a thorough review and prepare a strengths and weaknesses analysis of the unit. b. A Unit Design Team will be created consisting of developers with expertise in the disciplinary content of the unit, in the focal practices and cross-cutting concepts in the unit, and in any areas that have been identified as weaknesses of the unit. Whenever possible, a member of the team that originally developed the unit will be included in the Design Team. All unit design teams will also include one or more educators from core partner states and the person who will lead the revision process at the Development Center. c. The Design Team will convene for a multi-day Design Conference where they will develop a detailed Revision Plan that describes modifications that are to be made to the unit as a whole and to specific lessons. NU will lead the design conference for the grade 7 unit, and participate in the design conferences for the grades 6 and 8 units. d. NU will revise the grade 7 unit in accordance with the Revision Plan, and will conduct final revisions by the Development Center staff in response to feedback. e. The unit will go through copy editing and layout prior to field testing.