Making Sense of SCIENCE: Force & Motion for Teachers of Grades 6-8
Published in collaboration with NSTA Press.
This comprehensive professional development course for grades 6–8 science teachers provides all the necessary ingredients for building a scientific way of thinking in teachers and students, focusing on science content, inquiry, and literacy. Teachers who participate in this course learn to facilitate hands-on science lessons, support evidence-based discussions, and develop students’ academic language and reading and writing skills in science, along with the habits of mind necessary for sense making and scientific reasoning.
Force and Motion for Teachers of Grades 6–8 consists of five core sessions:
- Session 1: Motion
- Session 2: Change in Motion
- Session 3: Acceleration and Force
- Session 4: Force
- Session 5: Acceleration and Mass
The materials include everything needed to effectively lead this course with ease:
- Facilitator Guide with extensive support materials and detailed procedures that allow staff developers to successfully lead a course
- Teacher Book with teaching, science, and literacy investigations, along with a follow-up component, Looking at Student Work™, designed to support ongoing professional learning communities
- CD with black line masters of all handouts and charts to support group discussion and sense making, course participation certificates, student work samples, and other materials that can be reproduced for use with teachers
Charts that serve as a focal point for teacher learning during the course as well as additional Teacher Books can be purchased separately.
Also available are Facilitation Academies designed to prepare staff developers, district science leaders, and other teacher educators to effectively lead Making Sense of SCIENCE courses.
For more information about Making Sense of SCIENCE courses and Facilitation Academies, visit the Making Sense of SCIENCE website.
Making Sense of SCIENCE: Matter for Teachers of Grades 6-8, Charts
Wall charts serve as the focal point for teacher learning during Making Sense of SCIENCE courses.
This bundle includes 47 pre-made charts (24″ x 32″), making it easy to successfully lead a matter course for teachers, grades 6–8. For more information about Making Sense of SCIENCE Teacher Courses and Facilitation Academies, visit the Making Sense of SCIENCE website.
Moving Leadership Standards Into Everyday Work: Descriptions of Practice (eBook), Second Edition
What does effective leadership look like, not just in theory but in action?
Moving Leadership Standards Into Everyday Work: Descriptions of Practice enhances the usefulness of the California Professional Standards for Education Leaders (CPSEL) by illustrating key knowledge and actions reflected in leadership that supports all students to learn and thrive.
The recently updated descriptions of practice (DOP), derived from consensus-building among experts and practitioners, show what individual elements within each of the six CPSEL look like across a continuum of practice. Each continuum, ranging from practice directed toward the standard to practice exemplifying the standard, provides common concepts, language, and examples for a given leadership element.
The DOP, which are also useful with leadership standards in other states, can serve various and sometimes overlapping purposes, including as
- A starting point for developing credentialing criteria or assessments
- A guide for planning leadership preparation, induction, professional learning or coaching
- A basis for clarifying performance expectations
- A mirror for an administrator’s self-reflection and professional goal-setting
Today’s school administrators must assume multiple roles, from catalyst to manager, from expert to facilitator. This resource, which includes a tri-fold version of the CPSEL, offers a realistic view of how those shifts translate into effective leadership.
Download the recently updated California Professional Standards for Education Leaders (CPSEL).
Review of State Accountability Systems That Include a Student Growth Indicator
This report highlights states’ school accountability systems, with an eye on the states that include a measure of student growth in their accountability system.
For each state, the report includes:
- Proficiency measures
- Growth measures
- Additional measures such as graduation and dropout rates
The report also provides an overview of student growth indicators.
This report is one of several comprehensive reviews — produced by the Center on Standards & Assessment Implementation — focusing on states’ efforts surrounding teacher evaluation, standards, assessment, and accountability systems.
School Climate and Stakeholder Engagement Measures in States
Under the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), states are beginning to revisit and/or revise their accountability systems to include an additional indicator of school quality or success, and stakeholder engagement.
This report compiles information on how states are measuring the conditions of their schools and the engagement of stakeholders (e.g., parents, students, educators, communities).
The report covers:
- The definition of school climate
- School climate grant programs
- Findings on school measures and administration of surveys
- Stakeholder engagement
This report is one of several comprehensive reviews — produced by the Center on Standards & Assessment Implementation — highlighting states’ efforts surrounding teacher evaluation, standards, assessment, and accountability systems.
Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten Assessments
This report provides results from the most recent update of information about the early childhood assessment practices throughout the United States and its territories.
The report covers:
- Types of early childhood assessment tools
- Removal and addition of approved/recommended assessments (since September 2015)
- Preschool development grants
- Other updates
The report also touches upon the importance of early childhood education and the role of early childhood assessments.
This report is one of several comprehensive reviews — produced by the Center on Standards & Assessment Implementation — highlighting states’ efforts surrounding teacher evaluation, standards, assessment, and accountability systems.
Bridging Cultures in Our Schools: New Approaches That Work: Knowledge Brief
As classrooms around the United States continue to become more and more culturally and linguistically diverse, educators need to understand the deep value orientations underlying beliefs and behaviors of different cultures and see how their own cultural values operate in the classroom. This is a critical step in making schools places where all children can learn.
This widely read Knowledge Brief provides a useful, theoretical framework for understanding how teachers’ culturally driven—and often unconsciously held—values influence classroom practice and expectations, and, when in conflict with the values of immigrant and other parents from more collectivistic societies, can interfere with parent-teacher communication.
Teachers can use this framework to generate their own solutions to problems, develop methods for effective teaching, and work with parents as authentic partners.
The book, Bridging Cultures Between Home and School: A Guide for Teachers, is also available.
Nurturing the Nurturers: The Importance of Sound Relationships in Early Childhood Intervention
In the Marin City Families First early-intervention model, a home visitor plays a sweeping role in the life of the client family.
The job is particularly challenging for those working with families in which financial uncertainty, substance abuse, feelings of oppression, inadequate education, and other poverty-related factors can breed depression, anger, and hopelessness. To become and remain effective, home visitors need a high degree of support.
This report describes how home visitors support client families and how, in turn, home visitors receive support from the program supervisor. A case study introduces the reader to one family and their needs. It reveals the intensity of the home visitor’s challenge and demonstrates how home visitors and the program supervisor work together to move the family forward.
Infant and Toddler Spaces: Design for a Quality Classroom
This free guide, a collaboration between the Program for Infant/Toddler Care (PITC) at WestEd and Community Playthings, provides practical, research-based information on creating surroundings conducive to high quality infant/toddler care and education.
The guide focuses on the eight essential qualities needed for healthy development in group care environments. Four relate to the needs of infants and their caregivers: Safety, Health, Comfort, and Convenience. The second four support infant development: Child-Size Space, Flexibility, Movement, and Choice.
Leading Voices Podcast Series Episode 13: Preventing Gun Violence in the United States—A Conversation With Lori Toscano, Shaun Ali, and Kerwin Henderson
“What we felt like was the missing piece of the puzzle was, ‘How do we address what’s leading to violence in the first place?’ And so once we have all of this information, we’re able to recognize how systems have negatively impacted individuals and communities, the historic inequities that we’ve seen over time. When we’re able to identify those underlying factors, that’s when we can really get to this true systemic change.” — Lori Toscano, Director of Justice Technical Assistance at WestEd
Gun violence impacts families, first responders, and communities in profound and lasting ways. In 2023, more than 18,000 persons died by homicide in the United States. And on June 26th, 2024, the U.S. Surgeon General declared gun violence a public health crisis.
In this episode of the Leading Voices podcast, host Danny Torres talks with experts from WestEd’s Justice and Prevention Team and developers of the Violence Prevention Navigation Framework (VPNF): Lori Toscano, Shaun Ali, and Kerwin Henderson. Together, they help state and local leaders better understand the factors that contribute to or prevent violence within their communities—helping promote safe and equitable futures for all children, youth, and adults.
Their conversation covers the following topics:
- Identifying the underlying factors that give rise to or mitigate gun violence
- Leveraging big and local data to prioritize, assess, and develop appropriate strategies to reduce and prevent gun violence
- Working with community and state leaders to improve violence prevention efforts across systems
- Promoting equity and fostering growth
Resources Mentioned in this Episode
- Justice and Prevention Research Center at WestEd (Website)
- Violence Prevention Navigation Framework (VPNF) (Website)
- A Comprehensive, Data-Driven Approach to Reducing Gun Violence (Blog)
- Q&A With the JPRC Violence Prevention Team: Lori Toscano, Shaun Ali, and Kerwin Henderson (Blog)
- The Social-Ecological Model: A Framework for Prevention (Website)
- Gun Violence Disproportionately and Overwhelmingly Hurts Communities of Color (Fact Sheet)
- U.S. Surgeon General Issues Advisory on the Public Health Crisis of Firearm Violence in the United States (Press Release)
- Homicides Are Plummeting in American Cities (News Article)