School districts and charter schools retain the responsibility under state law to ensure TEKS are covered in ways deemed most appropriate by the local school system. Prior to publication, materials go through a rigorous third-party review based on an approved rubric. Review criteria include TEKS alignment, support for all learners (including students with disabilities) progress monitoring, implementation supports, age appropriateness, and more. Materials also are subject to a focus group of Texas educators. For most OER materials, TEA operates a continuous improvement process to update the content of the instructional materials to ensure is of the highest quality, based on feedback from districts, teachers, and parents.
These core materials are designed to cover 100% of the TEKS in the indicated grade level/band. They will be freely accessible for a limited time by school districts. If schools wish to continue using them locally after the access term, they will be available for purchase from the vendor.
The following OER supplemental materials for secondary math and science remain available; however, since they were released before COVID, they have not yet been reviewed by a third party and are not currently updated by TEA.
IQWST engages all students with shared phenomena, investigations, and opportunities to draw upon and connect their everyday life experiences with science content. Students experience phenomena firsthand through hands-on investigations manipulating science materials whenever possible to understand and explain the phenomena.
I love using IQWST online for 7th grade science!! Both me and my students use the digital platform. The storyline for 7th grade is clear and builds upon previous learning. The labs are engaging, the digital platform makes lesson planning easy, and each lesson seems to flow into the next seamlessly.
Each module in our grades 6-8 second edition curriculum consists of a 45-minute block of content-based literacy instruction. Built to the needs of middle school learners, our new block teaches and assesses all of the Language Arts standards for each grade level.
This unit was developed by the Science And Integrated Language (SAIL) team at New York University. The goal of the SAIL project is to develop a yearlong fifth-grade NGSS-aligned curriculum with a specific focus on English learners (ELs). Based on a conceptual framework for science and language integration (Lee, Goggins, Haas, Januszyk, Llosa, & Grapin, 2019; Lee, Llosa, Grapin, Haas, & Goggins, 2019; Lee, Quinn, & Valdés, 2013), the curriculum aims to promote both science learning and language learning for all students, including ELs. The research team, comprised of NGSS writers, science content experts, and applied linguists, developed the SAIL curriculum in collaboration with classroom teachers in New Jersey public schools. The SAIL project is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF DRL-1503330). Currently, the team is developing an enhanced version of the SAIL curriculum that integrates computational thinking and modeling (NSF DRL-1742138).
This unit was developed with a specific focus on English learners by using an engaging, local phenomenon and design principles that capitalize on the mutually supportive nature of science and language learning.
Our science curriculum is designed for the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Students investigate the world and beyond with the guidance of phenomena-anchored lessons that promote literacy through three-dimensional instruction. Explore embedded assessments, easy-to-use teacher resources, and student-friendly print and digital materials that support inquiry-based science mastery.
Students are immersed in hands-on activities, projects, and problems that build upon each other and relate to the real world. They experience integrated learning that blends computer science, engineering, biomedical science, and more. Throughout the modules, even the youngest learners apply their math and English Language Arts (ELA) skills, learn science to standards, and adopt skills that are foundational across disciplines.
Instructional accommodations are changes to the delivery of classroom instruction or the accompanying materials. Instructional accommodations change how students learn but do not change what they learn. In other words, they do not alter the scope or range of the grade-level academic content standards, nor do they change the complexity of the knowledge students are expected to learn. Students with disabilities who use instructional accommodations are required to learn the same content at the same level of proficiency as their peers who do not use instructional accommodations.
OpenSciEd is constantly developing new ways to support teachers as they use our materials with students. This page contains resources and community connections, including recorded webinars, teacher handbooks, approaches to grading, support for multilingual learners, and more.
The vision set forth by the NGSS calls for major shifts in the teaching and learning of science, where students learn in the context of puzzling phenomena and engage in authentic science and engineering practices (SEPs) as they seek to make meaning of these phenomena. To meaningfully engage in these SEPs, students must use language in increasingly complex ways. This type of learning presents opportunities for EMLs to tap into their language resources and assets, but could also bring about potential challenges if certain English language needs go unaddressed. This page shares the supports and resources built into our materials for Multilingual Learners and provides insights from teachers using the materials.
Mrs. Shell has been teaching eighth grade math for twelve years. She has deep content area knowledge and wants to provide all of her students with authentic activities and tasks to relate the significance of the mathematical concepts that she teaches to their lives. Mrs. Shell has always felt successful at teaching her classes but this year has been different. Her sections include students with more diverse backgrounds than previous years, particularly more English learners.
Additional resources to consult, especially if a state is a member of the WIDA consortium, are the Model Proficiency Indicators (MPIs) outlined in their ELP standards. The MPIs outline what an English learner at a specific level of English language proficiency can do in a language domain (e.g., listening) by addressing the language functions embedded in an example topic for that content area with appropriate scaffolds or support (Gottlieb, Cranley, & Cammileri, 2007). Classroom texts and other materials (e.g., science investigations, primary source documents) are other good sources to consult when preparing a lesson.
Mr. Zhang's 7th grade science students have been working on the cell cycle. The content standards for 7th grade science indicate that students must be able to investigate and understand that all living things are composed of cells, with a key concept being cell division. The content objective for this lesson asks the students to compare and contrast the cycle of a normal cell with a cancer cell.
It is also useful for content area and ESL/bilingual teachers to plan lessons together, as we saw with the 7th grade science lesson scenario involving Mr. Zhang and Mr. Lewis. In this co-planning scenario, each teacher used his expertise to better integrate content and language instruction for the language learners. This type of collaboration can help a teacher like Mr. Zhang learn more about the second language acquisition process of his students and can help a teacher like Mr. Lewis become more familiar with the grade-level content expectations that his English learners encounter in content area classes.
How this happens may differ according to the grade level and content area of the class. Some teachers like to have the students choral read the objectives, while teachers of older students sometimes have them record the language objectives in their journal in addition to asking an individual student to read them aloud. Some teachers, such as those who teach science, like to reveal the objectives later in the lesson, perhaps after the warm up or exploratory activity, so that they can maintain an inquiry-based approach (Echevarria & Colburn, 2006).
Echevarria, J., & Colburn, A. (2006). Designing lessons: Inquiry approach to science using the SIOP Model. In A. Lathman & D. Crowther (Eds.), Science for English language learners (pp.95-108). Arlington, VA: National Science Teachers Association Press.
Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs) are the key ideas in science that have broad importance within or across multiple science or engineering disciplines. These core ideas build on each other as students progress through grade levels and are grouped into the following four domains: Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science, and Engineering.
i-Ready Learning is a collection of high-quality instructional resources that help students learn and grow by accessing grade-level materials. Grounded in best-practice instructional design, these tools provide rigorous and motivating reading and mathematics instruction that:
The program will provide students with opportunities to investigate various aspects of materials science and engineering, which includes the processing, structure and properties of materials through computational modeling and/or experimental studies.
A first grade science curriculum should quench that thirst for knowledge as students learn foundational science skills, take part in hands-on activities, and make real world connections. Introducing students to science during the early elementary years helps prepare them for more advanced science concepts that they will learn in the years to follow.
First graders should be learning fundamentals skills in topics like physical science, life science, and Earth science. Students should also learn the importance of observation, note taking, and communicating information, all essential skills that they will put to use as they continue to learn more advanced science concepts throughout the years.
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