As part of an ambitious effort to reshape the focus and delivery of science instruction in the United States, today an expert panel convened by the National Research Council issued a “conceptual framework” to guide the crafting of a brand-new set of national science standards. The hope of organizers is that states will choose to adopt these standards to replace their existing ones.
Key priorities in the NRC document include a focus on depth over breadth in learning science, as well as taking steps to ramp up students’ experience with the practices of scientific inquiry and engineering design.
The nonprofit organization Achieve will be taking the lead on crafting the standards in partnership with states and outside experts. The goal is to have those standards finalized by the fall of 2012.
For more details and analysis, see the EdWeek story we just published.