The Crosscutting Concepts
This microcredential represents educators' ability to appropriately use crosscutting concepts to support student sensemaking. This stack of microcredentials fulfills one of the requirements of the pathway for the Secondary Science Endorsement.
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Utah Effective Teaching Standards > Standard 2: Instructional Design Clarity
Element 1: Content - Demonstrating a comprehensive understanding of Utah Core Standards, communicating relevance of content, communicating clear pathways to student mastery and designing learning experiences aligned to clear learning intentions and success criteria. -
Utah Effective Teaching Standards > Standard 2: Instructional Design Clarity
Element 3: Instructional Planning - Planning high quality, personalized instructional activities that are informed by student progress data, provide multiple opportunities for students to reflect upon and assess their own growth and allow multiple opportunities and means for demonstration of competency. -
Utah Effective Teaching Standards > Standard 3: Instructional Practice
Element 1: Instructional Strategies - Using appropriate academic language and evidence-based strategies to stimulate higher-level thinking, discourse and problem solving and to scaffold learning experiences to meet the needs of all students. -
Utah Effective Teaching Standards > Standard 3: Instructional Practice
Element 2: Assessment Practices - Critically analyzing evidence from both formative and summative assessments to inform and adjust instruction and provide feedback to students to support learning and growth.
To earn this microcredential you will collect and submit two sets of evidence demonstrating your effective and consistent instruction that engages learners with the Cross-Cutting Concepts of science. You will also complete a written or video reflective analysis.
Crosscutting Concepts are not taught in isolation. They are the tools that scientists use to make sense of natural phenomena. This microcredential will require educators to identify the CCC that they are using and how they relate to the DCI and/or SEP. Teachers should not have a lesson just on the Crosscutting Concepts but should be actively asking students to use these to understand diverse science phenomena.
The organizing structures that provide a framework for assembling pieces of scientific knowledge. They reach across disciplines and demonstrate how specific ideas are united into overarching principles. They include the following: patterns; cause and effect; scale, proportion, and quantity; systems and system models; energy and matter; structure and function; stability and change.
Patterns:Structures and events are often repeated
Stability & Change:Over Time, a system might stay the same or become different, depending on a variety of factors.
Cause and Effect:Events have causes, sometimes simple, sometimes multifaceted.
Scale, Proportion and Quantity:Different measures of size and time affect a system’s structure, performance and our ability to observe phenomena.
Matter & Energy:Tracking energy and matter flows into, out of , and within systems helps one understand their system’s behavior.
Systems:A set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole.
Structure & Function:The way an object is shaped or structured determines many of its properties and functions.
Research from A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (National Research Council, 2012), states that “to develop a thorough understanding of scientific explanations of the world, students need sustained opportunities to work with and develop the underlying ideas and to appreciate those ideas’ interconnections over a period of years rather than weeks or months” (p. 26). This document also asserts that “The framework focuses on a limited set of core ideas in order to avoid the coverage of multiple disconnected topics—the oft-mentioned mile wide and inch deep. This focus allows for deep exploration of important concepts, as well as time for students to develop meaningful understanding” (p. 25). This places the focus on students using the other two dimensions of science instruction identified in The Framework (NRC, 2012), crosscutting concepts and science and engineering practices, to deepen understanding of disciplinary core concepts.
The Framework (NRC, 2012) document is the foundational resource that informed the development of the current Utah Science with Engineering Education (SEEd) Standards (USBE, 2019). Within these standards, the concept of sensemaking of core ideas through crosscutting concepts and science and engineering practices is a foundational principle of science education.
For teachers to include appropriate sensemaking experiences into instruction, they must also understand how to develop it in students. This microcredential stack focuses on teacher understanding and implementation of student sensemaking as a foundation for building effective science instruction in Grades 6-12. Each microcredential in the stack is meant to provide evidence of the competencies necessary to demonstrate effective three-dimensional science and engineering teaching.
Reference: National Research Council. (2012). A framework for K-12 science education: Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. Committee on a Conceptual Framework for New K-12 Science Education Standards. Board on Science Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Category: Preparation and Planning
Submit the evidence listed below to demonstrate your effective and consistent preparation and planning for instruction using the Crosscutting Concepts.
Submit a well-developed lesson plan that provides evidence of your competency in using the crosscutting concepts to prepare and plan experiences that support student sensemaking. This should be a lesson plan that you developed and have used as a part of your science instruction. Be sure it includes the following:
A. A written introduction describing the use of and your understanding of a specific crosscutting concept and how it is integrated with the disciplinary core idea as it pertains to the grade level standard.
B. A plan (lesson, vignette, etc.) elaborating upon how ALL learners can engage with these ideas in your classroom. This must include a description of the support you are providing to students to allow them to draw connections between different contexts that illuminate the CCC(s) that are the focus of the lesson. You must also use and cite sources to support your rationale and instructional decisions. See the Resources section for sources to cite.
Category: Implementation
Submit ONE of the evidence options listed below to demonstrate your effective and consistent implementation of appropriate instruction using the Crosscutting Concepts.
Submit a 7-10 minute video of your instruction using the lesson plan you submitted as evidence of preparation and planning. This video should demonstrate students' sensemaking of of a specific crosscutting concept and how it is integrated with the disciplinary core idea as it pertains to the grade level standard.
This video may include edited scenes of instruction with different groups of students. Be sure to follow your district/charter policies for student privacy.
Submit student work generated during your instruction using the lesson plan you submitted as evidence of preparation and planning. This student work could include any of the following:
- Student writing
- Interactive notebooks This evidence should demonstrate students' sensemaking of of a specific crosscutting concept and how it is integrated with the disciplinary core idea as it pertains to the grade level standard. Be sure to follow your district/charter policies for student privacy.
Review Criteria
Criterion 1: The unit plan includes at least one crosscutting concept as defined by the Utah SEEd standards.
Criterion 2: The unit plan is student centered and involves students actively making sense of science phenomena in order to conceptualize the crosscutting concept.
Criterion 3: The evidence of implementation demonstrates students actively making sense of science phenomena in order to conceptualize the crosscutting concept.
How do crosscutting concepts fit into broader 3D Science teaching and learning in your classroom?
How has using crosscutting concepts in your instruction adjusted the teaching and learning in your classroom?
What effects are you seeing in student work from the use of crosscutting concepts?
Review Criteria
Criterion 1: Discussion of crosscutting concepts is clearly connected to both science and engineering practices (SEPs) and disciplinary core ideas (DCIs) as defined by the Utah SEEd standards.
Criterion 2: Implications for integrating crosscutting concepts must be clear and be connected to both course design and student learning.
https://www.nap.edu/read/13165/chapter/1
A teacher friendly research document that explains the three dimensions of science including science and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas. Each dimension as well as their specific progressions from grades K to 12 is explained in depth within its own chapter. The disciplinary core ideas are grouped into major disciplines (i.e., Physical Sciences; Life Sciences; Earth and Space Sciences; Engineering, Technology, and Applications of Science). Each discipline is explained in a separate chapter. The report also describes developmentally appropriate learning progressions. Additionally there are chapters on important topics such as integrating the three dimensions (Ch.9), Implementation into the classroom (Ch.10), Equity and Diversity (Ch.11).
Ambitious Science Teaching
This book explores how to support student sensemaking of science concepts. It includes specific vignettes, examples, and practical suggestions for implementing in the classroom.
Windschitl, M., Thompson, J., & Braaten, M. (2018). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press
STEM Teaching Tool 41 - Prompts for Integrating Crosscutting Concepts Into Assessment and Instruction
https://stemteachingtools.org/assets/landscapes/STEM-Teaching-Tool-41-Cross-Cutting-Concepts-Promptsv2.pdf
This set of prompts is intended to help teachers elicit student understanding of crosscutting concepts in the context of investigating phenomena or solving problems.
STEM Teaching Tool 75 - Using the crosscutting concepts to reflect on and refine your teaching
https://stemteachingtools.org/assets/landscapes/STEM-Teaching-Tool-75-CCCs-and-Teacher-Learning.pdf
A Framework for K-12 Science Education poses the idea that students are best positioned to figure out phenomena and solve problems by engaging in science and engineering practices and using the crosscutting concepts as thinking lenses. The crosscutting concepts are a broad set of useful themes that can be applied to any field, including education. By using the crosscutting concepts to approach their own problems and opportunities of practice, teachers can engage in deeper reflection and metacognition—and strengthen their ability to help students use the crosscutting concepts to explain phenomena and design solutions.
STEM Teaching Tool 91 - Why and how should I use crosscutting concepts to enhance my science instruction?
https://stemteachingtools.org/assets/landscapes/STEM-Teaching-Tool-91-Crosscutting-Concepts-in-Science-Ed.pdf
In the NRC Framework vision for science education, the crosscutting concepts (CCCs) are a key component of three-dimensional learning, yet many educators and educational leaders remain unclear about their use in science instruction. The CCCs include: patterns; systems and system models; cause and effect; scale, proportion, and quantity; energy and matter; structure and function; stability and change. The CCCs are thinking tools that have applications across the sciences (and into other disciplines). Clarity on their instructional use is essential as the CCCs promote integrated understanding and are necessary for a coherent and scientifically based understanding of the universe
Danielle Brown
Shauna Chapa
Matthew Cottrell
Margaret Grindstaff
Britt Rohde
Elizabeth Stott
April Thompson
250 East 500 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84111-3204
Phone: 801.538.7807