Crosscutting Concepts are often the neglected dimension of NGSS.
Don't forget about them by making them visible and interactive in your classroom.
Recently, the NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) vetted and recommended one of my resources. I was thrilled that experts looked at my lesson plan and worksheets and gave feedback on each of the three dimensions of the Performance Expectation. It came as no surprise to me that I had aligned my lesson very well to the Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs) and Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs), but had not done as well incorporating the Crosscutting Concepts (CCC). The core ideas and practices came naturally to me, but I struggled with how to incorporate the Crosscutting Concepts in an authentic way.
I have spent the last few months researching the CCCs and how to incorporate them regularly in my room. I found a lot of great resources, including this CCC Prompts from STEM Teaching Tools, to help with this process. In this blog, I’ll share how I will hold myself accountable to integrating them into my classroom by making them visible and interactive.
I designed a set of 7 Crosscutting Concepts posters in bright, rainbow colors, each with a description and an icon that represent that concept. Instead of just putting the posters up and forgetting them, I decided to make them interactive. Throughout the year when we study examples that fit into the concepts, we will post that example underneath the corresponding poster (of course, we will do this by putting up color-coded sticky notes). Here are some of the examples I came up with for each CCC:
While most units will have specific CCCs that we focus on, almost any unit will touch upon most of the concepts. It’s important to remember that you do not have to limit yourself to teaching only the CCC that is explicitly stated in the Performance Expectation. Here are some that I came up with for a body systems unit that includes 3 NGSS Performance Expectations:
In addition, I made my icons into clipart, so that I can actually put them into the classwork when we are focusing on each concept, either on the top of the classwork or next to specific questions.
CCC Clipart