Designing Effective Science Instruction

The Designing Effective Science Instruction C-U-E instructional framework targets three essential components of lesson planning:

• choosing the most important content for integration of NS&T by identifying key concepts, developing essential questions, identifying common preconceptions and prior knowledge, aligning assessments to content, and building conceptual understanding [C];
• teaching for a high level of understanding by engaging students in inquiry, using formative assessments, addressing misconceptions, providing sense-making activities, and fostering the in-depth collaborative discourse that helps students refine one another's ideas and articulate their own [U]; and
• creating a learning environment where all students believe they have the ability to learn and are supported to think scientifically; feedback is timely; progress and effort is reinforced; and students are motivated and involved in assessing their own progress [E].

This work is supported by the National Science Foundation, Division of Research on Learning in
Formal and Informal Settings (DRL), #DRL-0822128.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those
of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.