Table 1. The four EarthX project goals and associated objectives.
Goal 1. Build and nurture a strong Research-Practice Partnership to achieve Goals 2-4, employing best practices of partner engagement and empowerment, collaboration, evidence-based improvement, and productivity.
Goal 2. Develop and test disciplinary and cross-disciplinary professional development (PD) strategies for supporting effective Earth science teaching in high school Biology, Chemistry, and Physics classes.
Objective 2.1 - Develop intensive and then extensive PD strategies through several cycles of implementation and improvement.
Objective 2.2 - Collect data on teachers’ practices and classroom discourse that can serve the multiple purposes of: 1) use in PD, 2) assessing the impact of PD on teacher practice for improving PD, and 3) scale-up and sustainability at the City Schools district level.
Objective 2.3 - Address our teacher research questions, including: How does teacher practice related to three-dimensional, rigorous and responsive teaching change over time through intensive multi-year or more extensive, district-wide professional learning and support?
Goal 3. Develop learning progression-aligned, embedded, and summative 3D assessments of student performance that can support rigorous and responsive teaching about phenomena in the local-to-global environment at the interfaces between Earth science and Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.
Objective 3.1 - Develop assessments through several cycles of implementation and improvement.
Objective 3.2 - Support use of assessments for informing 1) rigorous and responsive instruction, 2) PD strategies and supports, and 3) scale-up and sustainability of District student assessment.
Objective 3.3 - Address our student research questions, notably: How do students’ 3D, Earth science performances improve over the course of a year and over the Biology, Chemistry, Physics sequence in response to teachers’ repeated use of 3D assessments to guide their instruction?
Goal 4. Bring EarthX strategies to scale, resulting in transformative, phenomena-based 3D instruction across the District.
Objective 4.1 - Document how data on student performance, teacher practice, and PD outcomes are used by the District for district-wide adoption of the EarthX PD strategies, assessments, and supporting resources.
Objective 4.2 – Document what supports are needed at the teacher, school, and District level to implement EarthX effectively across the District
Objective 4.3 - Examine sustainability of implementation of the EarthX innovations.