Proficiency Goals
Student Proficiency Goals (PGs) help you interpret performance expectations derived from A Framework for K-12 Science Education.
Scroll down to browse PGs by grade band.
More About Proficiency Goals
Proficiency Goals (PGs) help you interpret performance expectations derived from A Framework for K-12 Science Education.
- Performance expectations describe what students should know and be able to do. This includes both science knowledge and process.
- The NGSS and similar standards tie knowledge and process together as content, practices, and concepts.
- Each standard should thus be built from a Science and Engineering Practice (SEP), a Crosscutting Concept (CCC), and one or more Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI).
It can be hard to see what these standards really ask of students.
- Our PGs parse each one into student actions and content, describing a path to proficiency. PGs are expectations for proficient students; they are not performance level descriptors. Contact us for help in developing descriptors or proficiency scales.
- PGs involve the entire standard. They are broader than the alignment maps we include with library phenomena, which suggest student actions for individual classroom activities.
- Contact us if you have questions.
The NGSS omits SEP and CCC elements.
This matrix shows which standards include which SEP elements and elements that are not addressed.
This matrix shows which standards include which CCC elements and elements that are not addressed.
PG Template
We offer a template and examples for writing your own goals for state-specific two or three-dimensional standards that depart significantly from the NGSS.
Contact us if you have questions.