oklahoma academic standards science

oklahoma academic standards science

Analyzing and Understanding the Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science

1. Introduction to the Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science

The Oklahoma State Department of Education describes the Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science as a way to “ensure that students across the state are engaged in the content and practices of science and engineering.” It provides an inventory of the Science and Engineering Practices, Disciplinary Core Ideas, and Crosscutting Concepts that students should explore throughout the grade levels. Three dimensions play an essential role in the development of understanding about bodies of knowledge within the science disciplines: science content, scientific and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts. The combination of three dimensions aims to capture the scope and the outcome of the state’s science standards.

The national and state standards are neither a curriculum nor a prescribed series of curriculum documents. The standards function as the framework for assessment and instruction, giving legitimacy to the state science test and building public confidence in the schools. OAS Science standards serve to guide decisions about instruction, content, methodologies, and assessments. Teachers, pupils, and parents in the state can expect that standards provide a fair and transparent share of the power to make other crucial educational judgments such as course design. The Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science, K-12 are the result of a year-long Oklahoma State Department of Education technically sound and evidence-driven process of development. The new OASS was adopted on March 25, 2014, by the Oklahoma State Board of Education.

2. Key Components and Framework of the Standards

The Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science represent the continuing evolution of science education in Oklahoma, while adopting the bold and far-reaching mission expressed in A Framework for K-12 Science Education, the foundation for the Next Generation Science Standards. Implementation, evaluation, and further refinement of the Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science will foster the next generation of inspired scientists, who will take risks to explore the unexplored and to push the boundaries of our current understanding. By engaging in activities and accumulating knowledge, the next generation will use skills and strategies to invent and test new theories and solutions to complex and continually changing challenges. As educators of future citizens of the Earth, we must ensure the intellectual, social, and emotional development of our K-12 students. Their understanding of the natural world and their relationships to others within the built and natural environment is critical to their personal well-being, and to the social and economic well-being of our nation.

The focus is no longer on the details and the core concepts of the individual science disciplines, but rather on the common ground that inherently links the four sets of standards, incorporating Earth and Space Sciences, Life Sciences, and Physical Sciences. Our state’s standards both overlay and are embedded within A Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards. Scaffolded structures additionally define components of the Engineering and Technology Standards and serve lessons teachers might consider when incorporating the nature of science into the study of the sciences. For example, for students considering engineering projects or who might borrow and adapt an engineering idea to personalize their design, “Develop a Technology Plan” is an introduction to essential knowledge the students need to be able to make appropriate choices and build skills to safely and professionally use/operate a variety of tools, resources, and materials. The effect is to allow logical access to the structure of the individual standards within their disciplines, but with maintained emphasis on the practices of science.

3. Implementation Strategies and Best Practices

Despite the design efforts invested in developing a focused, aligned, and rigorous set of science standards, the ultimate success of the Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science will be determined by the quality and consistency of their implementation. The standards alone, irrespective of how they are developed, are insufficient to ensure the improvement of science education. While maximized performance levels on a common set of science standards are the desired outcome for which to aspire, success is in reality achieved in the day-to-day efforts of many individual science educators. Implementation of the standards will influence the teaching, learning, assessment, curriculum development, and professional development of Oklahoma’s science classrooms.

The purpose of this document is to provide support to science educators at both the state and local level charged with the instructional expectations delineated in the Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science. The intention is for the power and rigor of the standards to be realized in the very important and challenging day-to-day and year-to-year practice of providing a meaningful science instructional experience that will foster knowledge and skills necessary for students to be empowered participants in our ever-changing, globally-connected society. These resources provide a variety of implementation strategies and best-timing recommendations for using the Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science.

4. Assessment and Evaluation of Student Learning

A formative assessment in the form of a pre-test can give the teacher a broad insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the students on 5th grade material and reveal preconceptions that may need to be addressed. Unit tests can be used as a summative assessment for the completion of a unit. This type of test can provide the teacher with data to identify individual student needs as well as help monitor student progress. A unit test can assess important science practices in addition to key content. The summative EOI test taken by 8th graders throughout the state allows for accountability and comparability of the performance of Oklahoma students with the performance of students across the U.S.

The Oklahoma EOI has been revised to reflect the level of the Oklahoma Academic Standards in Science and in response to the research conducted that indicates the language items and prompts were contributing significantly to the test scores. All unique words, word count, term count, and phrase count are indicators of variable capability within the test literacy. Data collected has indicated that students whose first language is not English were “predicted” to fall short of achieving EOI benchmarks even when content difficulty was managed. Improved test design has allowed Oklahoma to recognize “potential”, not “deficits,” in students when Spanish is the language spoken at home and then to stipulate professional development linked to the Oklahoma Academic Standards in Science in the delivery of Science curricular materials for each child.

5. Conclusion and Future Implications

The paradigm shift offered by the standards has the potential to provide students with an education that focuses on critical thinking and using a set of Physical, Earth, and Life Sciences applications. The focus on the practices of science, as outlined in the standards, provides powerful, relevant, and meaningful science learning experiences. Science educators must take seriously the implications for the necessary changes in teacher practice, in terms of not only classroom science experiences for all students, but also student learning through active engagement with these experiences. The standards shift control from classroom activities designed by teachers and done by students, to site-based investigations facilitated by teachers and designed and implemented by students. According to the standards, students “use appropriate tools” to explore, manipulate, and represent. Students will “ask observations, predict, generate experimentation, and interpret data.” Data is not “collected” but “generated.” Fair testing criteria are implemented as students debug their investigations. Then, students will share concepts and ideas, show evidence that is bigger than one-word answers, and link evidence to scientific understandings. When standards are fully implemented, expectations for student product changes. There will be “a sustained focus on the reasoning that supports students’ ideas, implications of the scientific concepts, and criteria to evaluate the quality of scientific information” within the student-written explanations of experiments that have been engaged in by students.