Science Reflection by Ashleigh Thoits

In order to teach science effectively in an elementary school classroom, teachers need to

study and learn the NGSS standards, including the concepts and information that will be taught
to students. The NGSS standards have three dimensions that educators are required to
implement in their classroom. These dimensions include crosscutting concepts, disciplinary core
ideas, and scientific and engineering practices. In addition to understanding and incorporating
these dimensions, teachers need to know how to engage their students. According to the NGSS
standards website, the best way to initiate student engagement is to teach them how to read,
write, and visually represent as they develop models and construct explanations. By doing this,
we are integrating multiple subjects into the science instruction. The crosscutting concept
method is beneficial to students because it provides them with connections and intellectual tools
that are related across the differing areas of disciplinary content and can enrich their application
of practices and their understanding of core ideas (NGSS standards). A great way for educators
to gather ideas about how they can go about including the NGSS standard dimensions is to
collaborate and share their knowledge with each other.
Through participating in elementary school classrooms, I have gathered a lot of
information about how educators implement the science standards into their lessons just by
asking them to share their methods. Most of the teachers I have talked to said that they share
ideas with fellow teachers as well to learn effective ways to incorporate multiple subjects into the
science lesson. I observed a great example of how a fourth grade teacher implemented the
crosscutting concepts method that included the students working together to measure, describe,
and represent physical quantities in a science activity. With all of the information I have
collected in the field and in my classes, I feel prepared to integrate multiple concepts in my

classroom. The NGSS standards website provides me with a lot of helpful and useful information
such as the disciplinary core idea progression charts that map out the main key concepts to teach
students. The only area I feel less prepared to teach and need a little brushing up on biological
evolution because I havent taken biology in years. I will use my biology class notes and essays
to help refresh my memory. I plan to share a science lesson I wrote to teach students about the
atmosphere and light waves as well as a research paper I wrote about how to combat climate
change. These demonstrate my knowledge of different aspects of science and how I can share
this knowledge with my future students.