Feb
12
2016

Thinking with Crosscutting Concepts

An article by Tiffany Neill

Have you ever learned about something from another teacher, a reading or through professional development that fundamentally caused you to rethink your teaching practice? That’s exactly how I feel about the crosscutting concepts that were recommended as a dimension of science teaching and learning in The Framework for K-12 Science Education.

The Framework outlines seven Crosscutting Concepts:

Patterns
Cause and effect
Scale, proportion, and quantity
Systems and system models
Energy and matter
Structure and function
Stability and change

Keep in mind; each of the Oklahoma Academic Standards for science integrates one of the crosscutting concepts.

At first glance, you might think as I did, “Oh yah… Those are apart of my classroom instruction.” But the truth is, for most of us that’s like saying, “Oh yah…I exercise. I walk to get to and from places each day.” Unless you make it a point to get your heart rate up on those walks, you’re probably not benefiting as much you would if you made exercise an intentional part of your daily life. And just as making exercise intentional and becoming a runner eight years ago transformed my health, making crosscutting concepts an intentional part of science instruction has transformed how I think about science teaching and learning.

To better understand how this happened, I’ll take you back to an experience I had two years ago.

I was participating in a professional development workshop where the presenter set out two cups of ice and asked us to place water in one and rubbing alcohol in the other. He then said to make observations and write down any questions you have about what you are observing.

My Observations:

My Questions:

What caused the ice to float in water and sink in alcohol?
Why was the pattern of liquid on the outside of the glasses different?
Does the air around the glasses cause the patterns of liquid on the outside of the glass to be different?
Does the difference in temperature of the two glasses cause the patterns of liquid on the outside of the glass to be different ?
Does what water and alcohol are made of cause the differences I observe?

We went on with the workshop and I was able to construct explanations for all of these questions, with the help of the other educators in the workshop, the presenter and trusty Google. But as the presenter talked about crosscutting concepts more, he suggested that they were really tools that scientists use to think with as they examine the world around them and they use them as thinking tools to construct explanations for phenomenon they encounter.

I began to truly contemplate that statement. So I looked back at the questions I generated from observing the ice in water and ice in alcohol. The questions I had naturally generated were structured around a few of the crosscutting concepts.

Crosscutting Concepts Embedded in My Questions:

What caused the ice to float in water and sink in alcohol?
Why was the pattern of liquid on the outside of the glasses different?
Does the air around (parts of the system) the glasses cause the patterns of liquid on the outside of the glass to be different?
Does the difference in temperature of the two glasses cause the patterns of liquid on the outside of the glass to be different ?
Does what water and alcohol are made of (structure) cause the differences I observe?

I realized in that moment, how powerful the crosscutting concepts really are! They are the way by which we think when we encounter a new or novel phenomenon. Just like our students, most of us have initial thoughts about causality when we encounter a novel phenomenon.

For example, I observed a third grade classroom this week in which the teacher placed a Ping-Pong ball and a golf ball on a ramp and released them from the same spot at the same time. The golf ball rolled farther than the Ping-Pong ball. Tiny hands went up all around the room as students wanted to share what they thought caused the difference. They almost couldn’t help themselves!

The golf ball rolled farther because it weighs more!

The teacher then gave students an opportunity to think about what would happen if they dropped the Ping-Pong ball and the golf ball from the same height instead of rolling it on the ramp. Nearly all of the students said,

The heavier golf ball will hit the ground before the Ping-Pong ball.

When the teacher dropped the Ping-Pong ball and the golf ball from the same height, they hit the ground at the same time!

The students were mystified! They noticed the patterns in both examples and they noticed that the same pattern didn’t hold true across the two situations. The heavier ball rolled farther, but didn’t hit the ground first when drooped. They struggled with trying to figure out why the pattern didn’t hold true, so the teacher prompted them with a few questions….

What changed about the setting or the system?
How is energy transferred in each setting or system?

It was apparent that the students had been introduced to thinking about systems before, so they immediately began to talk about the things that interacted with the Ping-Pong ball and golf ball on the ramp vs. what things they interacted with when they were dropped from the same height.

They also began to talk about energy transfer with pushes and pulls and forces, which lead to students thinking about previous experiences with pushes and pulls and what they already knew about forces. They then applied those understandings to explanations for what caused the differences in the two settings they observed.

It was obvious the students readily utilized crosscutting concepts like cause and effect and patterns to structure their thinking. However, once the teacher prompted students with questions around other crosscutting concepts that students didn’t readily structure their thinking around, the students began to think about other evidence they could use to explain the differences they observed. The moment students had those additional question constructs, they were able to extend their thinking and make connections to science ideas they were familiar with, collect additional evidence and information to explain the causality behind the differences they observed.

So, how do we begin to make crosscutting concepts a focus in classroom instruction and make them explicit for students so they can incorporate them into question constructs they readily access when they encounter a phenomenon? I think we begin by practicing ourselves.

Strategies for Developing Questions around Crosscutting Concepts:

Strategy 1:

Think about a science phenomenon and try to develop stem questions around crosscutting concepts. Focus on crosscutting concept based questions that will help students explain the causality of the phenomenon and/or gather more data to explain the causality. Here are a few phenomena to get you started:

Sample Phenomena:

Over time the paths of rivers change.
If I exercise my heart rate goes up.
When snow melts on the playground, there are certain spots that melt before others.
The moon looks different tonight than it did last night.

Strategy 2:

Try to develop a set of generic question stems using crosscutting concepts, that you can use with several phenomenon investigations in the classroom. Here are a few to get you started.