Helping Administrators Understand the NGSS

It is critically important that building and district administrators in K-12 education have a solid understanding of the Next Generation Science Standards. If administrators have a limited understanding of NGSS then they are more likely to design NGSS implementation plans via professional development, curriculum adoption, assessment writing, etc in a shallow way.

Here are some key resources for guiding administrators to understand the vision behind and shifts required by NGSS:

1. A powerful Practice Brief (What school building administrators should know about the new vision for K-12 science education)
   from stemteachingtools.org designed specifically for administrators. This is a “slick” 2 sided pdf with intentional hyperlinks to key resources.
2. Document on the overlaps between NGSS and Common Core Math and ELA
3. New Vision for Science Education Document (A 1-pager of shifts)
4. Key resources on the NSTA NGSS site for NGSS Professional Learning
5. Video: A New Vision for Science Education
6. All Standards, All Students Case Studies from NGSS (These provide a snapshot of what NGSS instruction looks like with a focus on Equity)
7. Guide to Implementing NGSS (This is a must read for anyone who is guiding NGSS implementation work… lots of great guidance here. Even skimming the Table of Contents will give you lots to consider…)
8. Designing Professional Development for Teachers of Science and Mathematics 3rd Edition (This is the “Bible” for designing thoughtful science professional development)
9. The Logan Center for Education at the Institute for Systems Biology has a great series of 3 Case Studies with a facilitation guide that tell the story of how science education has shifted over the last few decades of reform.

What other resources might be useful for building and district administrators who are just starting to learn about NGSS? What might be the important entry points for working with administrators who are juggling multiple initiatives with limited resources?