Review by Amanda Bindel, Common Sense Education | Updated October 2013

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Next Generation Science Standards

Name: Next Generation Science Standards
Item: Next Generation Science Standards
Rating: 3
Author: Amanda Bindel

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Free resource puts Next Generation Science Standards at your fingertips

Grades This grade range is a recommendation by Common Sense Education and not the developer/publisher.

K–12

Great for:

Common Sense says (See details)

Teachers say (3 Reviews)

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5 images

Browse Next Generation Science Standards by several categories.

Each standard expands to show science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts.

Standards are browsable by concept or searchable by keyword.

Resource section includes full text of the report from the National Science Teachers Association.

Pros: Easy to navigate by browsing or searching.

Cons: Offers nothing that can't already be accessed online.

Bottom Line: Super-handy resource makes science standards easy to access anytime, anywhere.

How Can I Teach with This Tool?

Download the free app to get easy access to all the Next Generation Science Standards. Use the app when planning individually or with a team. You'll also be able to easily refer to the NGSS (and search for them quickly, if necessary) in parent and student conferences. Encourage students to review the standards for their grade level so they know what's expected of them.

What Is It?

The Next Generation Science Standards, describing what students should know about science and the process of science before high school graduation, are available online. Next Generation Science Standards puts the complete list of standards and supporting documents on a mobile device in an easily browsable and searchable format. Search standards by DCI (Disciplinary Core Idea) Arrangement (content) by grade level, by Topic, by Conceptual Progression (for middle school or high school courses), or by Domains Model (physical science, life science, earth and space science, biology, chemistry, or physics). Additional resources include the front matter of the publication introducing the NGSS project, the structure of the standards (which explains how to read and understand them), a link to the framework that preceded the development of the standards, the appendices for the standards, and National Science Teacher Association resources.

Is It Good for Learning?

Twenty-six states have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards for K-12 since April 2013. The Next Generation Science Standards app contains the full list of standards as well as supporting documentation to make understanding and implementing the standards easier for teachers. The NGSS were developed by the National Research Council, the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Achieve, and include three dimensions: disciplinary core ideas (content); scientific and engineering practices; and cross-cutting concepts, which help students connect ideas across disciplines and to prior learning.

Rating Details

Overall Rating

Engagement Is the product stimulating, entertaining, and engrossing? Will kids want to return?

Free teacher tool is easily accessible, easily navigated, and fully searchable, making planning and aligning with the Next Generation Science Standards convenient for teachers.

Pedagogy Is learning content seamlessly baked-in, and do kids build conceptual understanding? Is the product adaptable and empowering? Will skills transfer?

Depth of content is extensive. Pretty much any information available at Next Generation Science Standards is catalogued and easily searchable in the app.

Support Does the product take into account learners of varying abilities, skill levels, and learning styles? Does it address both struggling and advanced students?

No help or tutorial is necessary. Teachers can extend their productivity at MasteryConnect, a professional learning community for teachers to share assessments and track student progress.

Common Sense Reviewer

Amanda Bindel Classroom teacher

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Teacher Reviews

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Featured review by
Jonathan F. , Technology coordinator

Technology coordinator

St. Patrick's Episcopal Day School
Washington, United States

Not perfect, but still worth using.

Our overall opinion is that having important standards conveniently arranged in an app is a great thing and that the app is useful enough to deserve trying. Having said that, we certainly hope the app continues improving over time. When reviewing this app, I spent the majority of my time using the app on my Moto X Android phone while collaborating with a science teacher who installed the app on her Nexus 7 Android tablet. These Android versions of the app felt like a first draft. The “Resources” section of the app, which is one of the top choices from the main menu, provided curricular resources with imperfect formatting. Some words appeared larger than others, but not in a manner that seemed purposeful or intentional. Some documents looked like PDFs that someone had hastily uploaded without thinking about how difficult they would be to read on a phone or a seven-inch tablet. We found one bad link, too, when we were perusing the Resources section. We hoped to get a lot out of the app’s search feature, but we concluded that the search feature must only be able to search the titles of standards. How else could the terms “computer,” “electricity,” “nervous,” and “system,” when searched for separately, generate no results? Interestingly, when we searched for the word “motion,” we encountered a bug on my Moto X that we did not encounter on the Nexus 7. The Moto X displayed two search results but would not let me click on either. The Nexus 7 permitted us to click on and view both search results. Once the app team improves the readability of its Resources section and provides the app with a more robust search function, we’d love to see them take advantage of social and sharing capacities. It would be great to be able to quickly share a portion of the standards with a planning partner. Even better, why not let teachers upload curriculum and link it to standards?

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