Increasing Collaboration Among Science Teachers

Increasing Collaboration Among Science Teachers

Knowles Senior fellow John Maddux was awarded a Knowles Seed Grant to support his district’s need for more collaboration among science teachers in different buildings and grade levels. They used Seed Grant funds to bring the Knowles Academy Course, Promote Sensemaking with Science & Math Practices, to his school for a multi-day professional learning series for science teachers in the district. The professional learning days supported a shared vision for successful practice-based science instruction. This work kicked off an informal teacher work group to build shared teaching tools and expectations across buildings and grade levels.

The ultimate vision was to create an ongoing space for vertically-aligned collaboration that would improve students’ skills and learning outcomes. The course was considered a positive and impactful experience by attendees and continues to serve as a valuable touchstone for conversations around curriculum and instruction. As they move into the 2024/2025 academic year, the high school teachers plan to continue their work to align physical science (9th grade) and biology (10th grade) work in meaningful ways. In particular, they plan to create shared rubrics for practice-based tasks like CERS, modeling, and data analysis. The teachers also plan to push some of this “upward” to the higher level classes (e.g. adding rebuttal to CERS). They will also continue our push for meaningful vertical alignment among science teachers in our district.