Program Description Overview
The K–12 Alliance’s leadership development and inspiration totally affected my career. During the lean years in California science education, I informally did whatever I could to keep our district in contact with the K–12 Alliance and the cutting edge of science education. I would have never been a science program manager in my district, or probably never would have stepped out of the classroom or become a principal, if it wasn’t for the influence of them continuing to support my learning and saying “Hey, go for it . . . Don.” I know they did that with a lot of other people, too, that they’ve worked with. That’s the legacy. I think they developed science leaders up and down the state.
Don Whisman, Principal, SDUSD
We are a full-service professional learning organization strategically positioned to assist school districts, institutes of higher education, businesses, and state and federal departments of education and other partners such as the CA NGSS Collaborative to improve science and mathematics education in California and the nation. Our team has deep expertise in the Next Generation Science Standards and in launching, implementing, and scaling initiatives across school systems statewide (find out more here).
We develop and implement quality custom designed science or math professional learning programs. Our goal is to create professional learning communities where educators, professional learning providers, and scientists and/or mathematicians come together to support teaching and learning. The programs are designed to:
- Increase teachers' content knowledge
- Increase teachers' pedagogical content knowledge
- Increase student academic achievement in science or mathematics
- Increase student agency where students make meaningful change in their communities
- Build teacher and administrator leadership
- Assist districts in long term strategic planning for the implementation of the CA NGSS
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Programs
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Implementation of Science Instructional Materials
We have expertise in supporting planning for and implementation of a variety of teacher-created or adopted science programs including high quality instructional materials. Professional learning is tailored to meet context-driven needs and support individual teachers as well as implementation across a school or school system, including administrator professional learning and technical assistance. Participants deepen their understanding of the 3D learning with use of the instructional materials and work to augment and contextualize materials for supporting student sensemaking.
Transformative professional learning is critical for teacher success in implementing high quality science instructional materials. The K-12 Alliance has extensive experience with this through our role representing California as a partner state for OpenSciEd (serving on the State Steering Committee), and leading the California Field Test of OpenSciEd units (for grades K-12). This work involved supporting teachers in both early and ongoing implementation and allowed us to build our network of scientists and teacher leaders with expertise in the NGSS and OpenSciEd.
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Instructional Materials Review (National Version/CA Version)
•NextGen Toolkit for Instructional Materials Evaluation (TIME), face-to-face/virtual •CA NGSS TIME, face-to-face/virtual
TIME helps adoption committees analyze, evaluate, select and plan for implementation of science instructional materials. The evidence-based process works for all grade levels: K-5; 6-8; 9-12. Committee members participate in a prescreen to winnow potential materials; paperscreen for an in-depth analysis of the materials; pilot the materials (that make it through the paperscreen) in classrooms; analyze, interpret and select recommended materials for adoption with a report of findings. The process also includes preliminary planning for implementation. TIME is generally 15 days, but it is dependent on the number of programs for review and the number of reviewers.
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Professional Learning Opportunities
The K-12 Alliance provides the following NGSS professional learning opportunities that can be requested as designed or can be adapted to meet client needs, including virtual options:
Building Statewide Science Leadership Capacity
Partnering with states, we support the development and implementation of sustained statewide communities of practice which can include science leaders in school and district roles, instructional coaches, and teacher leaders whose focus is to improve science teaching, learning, and leadership. We deliver context-driven professional learning experiences and assist as thought partners to develop leadership capacity at all levels within a system to advance rigorous science education in all classrooms for all students. See an example of this with our partnership with the state of New Mexico and SCALE Science at WestEd here.
Building District Leadership Capacity
This program is 10 days long and is designed to build a district leadership team that: understands phenomenon-based, three-dimensional teaching required by the NGSS, and can design a 3-5 year strategic plan to guide the district’s implementation of the NGSS.
This professional learning program interweaves approximately 6 days of experiences to build understanding of the shifts required by NGSS (e.g., NGSS architecture, phenomenon, practices, crosscutting concepts, engineering, student-to student discourse and student sensemaking) with 4 days of planning that includes developing a shared vision, creating mission and core values statements, and constructing a Program Elements Matrix (PEM) to guide the work over time. This program is best scheduled for five 2-day meetings.
The leadership team should consist of teachers representing elementary, middle, and high schools and 3-5 administrators, including at least 2 site principals (elementary and secondary) and district administrators (e.g., TOSA, Director of Curriculum).
TLC Lesson Study
The Teaching Learning Collaborative (TLC) lesson study program is designed to help teachers develop a NGSS-aligned lesson using the 5Es Instructional model or to work with existing instructional materials in lesson augmentation to deepen pedagogical understanding and shift practice. In teams of 4 teachers at a grade level with facilitation from the K-12 Alliance, the teachers spend one day planning a lesson to teach and the second day teaching in two classrooms. In the first classroom, the lesson is taught as designed. Using the facilitator notes, and student work, teachers debrief the lesson and adjust to increase student understanding. Then teachers use the revised lesson in another classroom and debrief to see how changes in the teacher prompts/student work impacted student learning.
The TLC is a 4-day program, with a plan and teach session in the fall and another plan and teach day in the spring. More information can be found here.Administrator Academy
This is a 3-6 day program designed to help site principals experience an NGSS-aligned lesson and debrief the lesson in terms of what teachers need to be supported in this type of instruction. The sessions also include walkthrough tools that can be used on site; discussing barriers to implementation; ensuring high quality science instruction for all students; and beginning to develop a site-plan for NGSS.
NGSS Overview Awareness
This 3-day program is to deepen teachers’ understanding of the shifts required by the NGSS (e.g., NGSS architecture, phenomenon, practices, crosscutting concepts, engineering, student-to-student discourse and student sensemaking). This program is generic and serves as a foundation for further professional learning and can accommodate a variety of school settings, grades, and delivery format.
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Technical Assistance
The K-12 Alliance offers technical assistance to districts in the following ways: to help districts develop a systemic approach to the implementation of CA NGSS; targeted assistance for professional learning needs; and targeted assistance for identified needs while implementation is underway.
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Examples of Past Professional Learning Full Service Programs
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Examples of Past Technical Assistance Programs
The K-12 Alliance has a long history of offering technical assistance to districts to help develop a systemic approach to the implementation of CA NGSS; targeted assistance for professional learning needs; and targeted assistance for identified needs while implementation is underway.
Click here for examples of past Technical Assistance Programs.
Read more about our research-based professional learning design