I teach biology to students who didn’t pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test the first time they took it in 10th grade. This is the first time we’ve had this class at Boston Green Academy, and instead of giving them a crash course in the MCAS, we gave them a full biology sequence, going into some depth while ensuring we covered all the MCAS standards.
Several of the 13 students in the class have attendance challenges, so while we don’t want to encourage students to work remotely because we are an in-person school, we did see an advantage in providing these students with an online curriculum that would allow them to keep up on their own if they missed significant amounts of class time. Here’s how it has gone so far.
Identifying the challenge
Some of our students may not pass MCAS the first time for multiple reasons. Most struggle with attendance, many have been diagnosed with specific learning disabilities and some are multilingual learners. These factors compound and make standardized testing challenging, even if students pass a class.
This biology class is during the first block of the day. Many of our students struggle to arrive at school on time, which is made worse by their travel distances. One idea behind adopting a computer-based curriculum was that it would allow students to complete work at home if they missed class. While this has helped some students complete work, it may have also enabled other students to miss class without suffering consequences.
Choosing an NGSS-aligned curriculum
We chose to adopt Kognity as the primary curriculum for the class because it is phenomena-based, students can access it online and it is designed to meet the Next Generation Science Standards, which Massachusetts has been using since 2016. I supplement it with MCAS-specific materials, and I provide scaffolds such as graphic organizers and lessons on background knowledge.
What I like about the phenomena-based science approach is that it draws students in. The storylines, the crosscutting concepts and the skills we’re talking about all focus on scientific literacy so that even students who don’t think of themselves as math and science people can find entry points. Instead of a lecture, I give a quick introduction and then move into a storyline that includes the phenomena at the start of each unit or module and returns to it repeatedly as students progress.
I assign performance tasks at the end of each module that each uses a new phenomenon parallel to the one we’ve used throughout and ask students to apply the concepts they’ve learned to that new phenomenon. This prevents them from getting too caught up in a single storyline and pushes them to apply what they’ve learned to new circumstances.
Assessing the impact of a phenomena-based curriculum
While I can’t say that our science curriculum improves student attendance, having a digital textbook so that students can complete assignments from home has somewhat improved work completion. The built-in scaffolds and accessibility tools are very useful for all students, especially students with specific learning disabilities. The glossaries and vocabulary sections are great for multilingual learners, as is having access to the internet while they complete their work.
I’ve been assessing my students in this class in several ways. For daily formative assessments, I might ask for a reflection on the lesson or give them a short quiz of five to seven questions to get them to directly tie what they’ve been learning to the phenomenon we’re working on. I lean heavily on those in this class and treat MCAS prep tests more as practice than assessments. (It’s worth noting that all of my multilingual learners and students with specific learning disabilities increased their biology MCAS test scores from June 2023 to February 2024.)
My biggest success with this phenomena-based curriculum has been exposing students to new concepts that I may not have otherwise covered in a biology class. For example, my students are working through Biology Unit 3 and learning about radioactive decay, carbon and uranium dating. This is a topic I cover in chemistry, focusing more on nuclear chemistry than practical application, but it’s not a topic most biology courses cover. The curriculum has also helped me cut down on prep time at home. Having more than one class to prepare for can be overwhelming, especially when it’s your first time teaching the course, so Kognity has saved me some stress.
Lessons learned
Most of my students have been working at their own pace on assignments, so it is tough to do a turn-and-talk or a group activity. Attendance problems exacerbate this. However, for the four or five students who usually arrive within the first 10 minutes of class, I wish I had stuck to specific stop-start marks and more group work to keep everyone more aligned.
I’ve also learned that going through a practice test is important. The types of questions on the new MCAS tests, especially the new computer-based ones, are often not the same questions we give on tests, so it’s good to give students some practice answering them. Along the same lines, I’ve found that it’s helpful to have students practice their writing skills and utilize the claim-evidence-reasoning format. Finally, I have found that it’s more important to focus on depth than breadth. Covering everything at a breakneck pace will not be as helpful as covering 75% of the content well.
Some students face challenges that make the simple act of coming to school every day difficult. To support them, a curriculum that engages them and meets them where they are, both academically and physically, is a good start.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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