John Laird

This rubric can be quickly and easily used to assess any type of task related to any NGSS Cross-Cuttting Concept or Science and Engineering Practice. It is designed to be used with any Performance Expectation task as well. Also well suited for assessing Common Core writing and reading tasks in science. With the implementation of the NGSS (Next Gen Science Standards) happening across the United States, it is essential to find ways to assess students according to these new standards. I wanted to

This organizer is designed to help students develop higher level thinking skills by creating questions about a single idea or topic. This is the form I use when first introducing writing higher order questions. Once students get the hang of it, you can use the Higher Order Question Web (w/o starters).

This sheet is designed for both short-term and ongoing inquiry projects in Science. Students are given an opportunity to write about their Science inquiry using a variety of writing genre which is one of the objectives of Common Core. This form includes a section for vocabulary and a place to create illustrations or graphs.

This printable activity is designed to teach and assess students' understanding of the Learner Profile. (The Learner Profile is list of the top ten qualities that students should possess as a well-rounded citizen of the world.) This activity involves observation, critical thinking, application of knowledge to a new situation (the scenario presented in the video or movie clip shown). If done in cooperative groups this activity can also be a very powerful tool to help create a positive culture in

This document contains 36 engaging writing prompts designed to allow students to practice and increase their writing skills in many of the Common Core focus areas, including persuasive writing, technical writing, citing textual evidence, writing accurate summaries, and comparing and contrasting ideas. These prompts are also crafted to be high interest and appeal to a wide variety of learners.

Science students need to demonstrate their understanding of the concepts they are studying and exploring through labs. The standard 2 - 3 page Lab Report format can be quite daunting for students, especially English Language Learners. This form allows students to write less, but more often. It still includes all the official components of a full lab report, just in an abbreviated format. You can also incorporate your Common Core goals into this format quite easily. My philosophy is that student

This is a list of related words and ideas for each of the IB Areas of Interaction. It is essential that students understand Areas of Interaction. All students connect strongly with certain words, but find little meaning in others. By supplying a diverse range of related words and ideas for each of the Areas of Interaction, students can quickly make connections to prior knowledge. With the use of the AOI Word Bank, subject matter will come alive as it is viewed through the lenses of the Areas of

This is a great little form to provide students with a way to record data from one-time or long-term observations of the sun using a small telescope or binoculars fitted with inexpensive solar filter paper available online. You'll be thrilled at your students' amazement at seeing the sun and dark sunspots which indicate levels of solar activity. You won't find a better Solar Graph any where online. I designed this one using Google Layout because I was so disappointed in the other online resource

This is hand's down the best solar graph that exists online. I know this because I did an exhaustive search and came up all but empty-handed. NASA has a free download, but it is a poorly scanned image of a copy of a copy of a copy. Use it if you like, but if you want to put something high quality into your students hands, then my designed-from-scratch solar graph is for you. Enjoy!

This is a positive behavior/character incentive designed to encourage students to develop the habit of making good choices in the classroom. The IB stands for International Baccalaureate which is an organization of World Schools. This form will work whether your school is IB or not.

One of the most effective Cooperative Learning strategies is the use of Team roles. I have created a fun and engaging twist on team roles by tailoring this idea to the Science classroom.

This is an organizer designed to promote higher order thinking by encouraging students to create questions about a topic or an idea.

This form is useful for tracking attendance to clubs, groups, after-school teams, etc.