Are you looking for resources that support the development of three-dimensional sense making experiences for your students? Do you wonder how to elicit student thinking related to the science and engineering practices and crosscutting concepts? If so, visit the STEM Teaching Tools website. 

STEM Teaching Tools, developed as part of the National Science Foundation-funded Research+Practice Collaboratory, features professional learning tools called practice briefs. The briefs are designed to help educators understand a specific problem of educational practice, reflect on it, and access resources and instructional tools that will enable them to teach more effectively. 

Currently, there are 51 briefs that address topics ranging from productive talk to promoting equity in science education. Two specific STEM Teaching Tools are being used by Kentucky teachers as they develop through course tasks. The tools include:

  • STEM Teaching Tool No. 41: “Prompts for Integrating Crosscutting Concepts into Assessment and Instruction.” 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 No. 30: “Integrating Science Practices into Assessment Tasks.” This detailed and flexible tool suggests activity formats to help teachers create three-dimensional assessments based on real-world science and engineering practices.