Posted in: Aha! Blog > PhD Science > Implementation Support High-Quality Curriculum > What's New in PhD Science
At Great Minds®, we are committed to crafting high-quality instructional materials that help every child develop deep, enduring knowledge, essential skills, and real-world understanding. As we continue to refine all our materials, including our PhD Science® curriculum, we consistently listen to feedback from educators and leaders to ensure we continue to deliver materials that inspire and engage all learners.
Below, we explore some recent revisions and additions to PhD Science and some enduring principles that have remained.
Supportive Pedagogical Shifts
Our focus on authentic, real-world phenomena remains at the heart of PhD Science. Students continue to build enduring knowledge through the exploration of anchor phenomena and visuals that are tightly woven into lessons.
To help students build knowledge in a coherent way, we have made the following changes:
- We have centered some modules around engineering-based problems that students investigate, driving learning forward.
- We have reframed Essential Questions as Driving Questions for a tighter connection to the Driving Question Board.
- We now provide preparation videos through the digital experience to assist educators in setting up some hands-on investigations.
Streamlined Lesson Design
PhD Science continues to utilize the familiar Launch-Learn-Land lesson structure. To enable teachers to better maximize instructional time, we have also made the following changes:
- Launches are now more intentionally centered around phenomena to help prepare students for upcoming instruction.
- To simplify implementation, groups of lessons now include lessons and lesson parts instead of lesson sets. Lesson parts represent daily instruction and provide all the elements needed to communicate the connected focus for those days of instruction.
- We have shifted from specific allotted times per lesson to time ranges to provide teachers with additional flexibility and ownership over instructional delivery.
- At Levels K–2, the recommended daily instruction length ranges from 20–45 minutes.
- At Levels 3–5, the recommended daily instruction length ranges from 30–60 minutes.
Enhanced Digital Experience
We know that digital access to curriculum materials and resources empowers teachers to facilitate impactful instruction and increase student engagement. We will continue to support PhD Science through our digital experience and have made the following adjustments:
- We have added digital features to the digital Teach books to enhance instruction.
- To further engage students during instruction, we have made lesson slides downloadable and customizable.
Improved Print and Digital Assessments
To provide educators with better visibility into student understanding and progress, we have made the following enhancements to our print and digital assessments:
- We have more clearly aligned the three-dimensional objectives at the lesson and module level in formative and summative assessments.
- The Assessments and Scoring Guides (formerly referred to as Rubrics) are now more robust and provide more meaningful insights that help educators see how student knowledge and proficiency are developing across lessons and modules.
- Engineering or Science Challenges now contain summative assessment opportunities through Performance Checkpoints.
- We now provide Remediation and Next Steps strategies to assist students who need additional support.
- Educators can assign assessments in the digital experience (Levels 2–5) to maximize time. Educators can now also assign assessments to individual students, groups, or the entire class.
- The digital experience now includes enhanced reporting features, including information on the three-dimensional standards and student progression toward mastery.
- The digital experience will also include an assessment bank that provides additional flexibility in assessing students.
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Great Minds
Great Minds PBC is a public benefit corporation and a subsidiary of Great Minds, a nonprofit organization. A group of education leaders founded Great Minds® in 2007 to advocate for a more content-rich, comprehensive education for all children. In pursuit of that mission, Great Minds brings together teachers and scholars to create exemplary instructional materials that provide joyful rigor to learning, spark and reward curiosity, and impart knowledge with equal parts delight.
Topics: Featured Implementation Support High-Quality Curriculum