Call for Submissions of Lessons and Units EQuIP Peer Review Panel: Science In an effort to identify and shine a spotlight on emerging high quality lesson and unit plans designed for the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), Achieve launched and is facilitating an EQuIP Peer Review Panel for Science— a group of expert reviewers who will evaluate the quality and alignment of lessons and units to the standards. Lessons and units that are identified as “High Quality Examples” and “High Quality Examples if Improved”, based upon the EQuIP Rubric for Lessons & Units: Science, will be posted online and shared with educators across the country. Achieve will strive to raise awareness, visibility, and use of these lessons and units, including by encouraging our partners in states and districts to make them available in their repositories or other platforms. If you or your state, district, school, or organization has designed lessons or units for the NGSS, please consider submitting these instructional materials in order to provide educators across the country with various models and templates of high quality and NGSS-aligned lesson and unit plans.
All materials that are submitted for review must adhere to the following: 1. Texts that are intended to be used with the unit should include proper citation. 2. While submitted units can include elements from other openly licensed resources in the public domain (e.g. texts, student activities, etc.), the unit submitted must be an original work. 3. The unit should contain accurate content, free of bias or advertising. 4. If the lesson or unit is identified as “High Quality Example” or “High Quality Example if Improved”, the developers agree that it will be licensed using one of the following four licenses: The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License The Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License The Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License The Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License 5. If the lesson or unit is identified as “High Quality Example” or “High Quality Example if Improved,” the developers agree that the EQuIP feedback will be posted online together with the lesson or unit.
The Objective The objective of the EQuIP Peer Review Panel for Science is not to endorse a particular curriculum, product, or template, rather to identify lessons and units that best illustrate the cognitive demands of the NGSS as introduced in A Framework for K-12 Science Education. 1 www.achieve.org/equip
Who can submit lessons or units for review? The EQuIP Peer Review Panel for Science will consider materials submitted by educators, as well as by nonprofit and commercial developers, provided that they are able to be posted freely online by Achieve, partner organizations, as well as by states, districts, schools, and/or individual teachers.
How can materials be submitted for review? 1. The submitting individual or organization must complete a submission form here (https://goo.gl/forms/W3h5UFALKpMq1lTg1).
The submission form will collect necessary information about the submitting individual or organization and the material being submitted. After completing the form, send all submission materials, in the form of a Zip folder, to Jeremy Thomas at
[email protected]. Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis and evaluated on a first come, first serve basis. For individuals or organizations that have a large volume of lessons and units that they would like to be evaluated, please only submit a few lessons or units to start.
2. Achieve will assign the lesson or unit to at least three EQuIP peer reviewers for review using the following guidelines:
Peer reviewers will review material in their grade band and content area of expertise. Peer reviewers will not participate in review of material on which they might have some conflict of interest. The three peer reviewers for each lesson or unit will individually review before synthesizing their reviews into a consensus report. Achieve staff will convene peer reviewers if there is a need to gain greater accord among the three peer reviewers on a final overall rating.
3. Achieve will notify the submitting individual or organization of the final rating.
Achieve will return the lesson or unit to the submitting organization along with the feedback from the EQuIP Peer Review Panel. For lessons/units not determined to be ready for posting, the organization will have the opportunity to revise the instructional materials based on the feedback from the EQuIP Peer Review Panel. The materials can then be resubmitted to the EQuIP Peer Review Panel for a second review once the feedback has been incorporated and the submitting entity has conducted a quality review process on the revised materials.
4. Achieve will post lessons or units that are identified as a “High Quality Example” or “High Quality Example if Improved,” along with feedback from the EQuIP Peer Review Panel. 2 www.achieve.org/equip
Who reviews the submitted science lessons and units? The EQuIP Peer Review Panel for Science is made up of 39 educators and experts from across the country representing every grade band and a combined 447 years of teaching experience. These reviewers were identified following a rigorous blind selection process focusing on an applicant’s ability to apply the EQuIP Rubric for Science and revealing his or her understanding of A Framework for K-12 Science Education and the NGSS. Applicants were selected based on their ability to make consistent, criterion-based evaluations using the latest version of the EQuIP Rubric for Science. Review teams will be formed based on grade-band expertise. Reviewers will be recused from reviewing submissions that a) they developed in part or in whole, b) they have a financial or personal tie to, or c) directly compete for market share with materials they a financial or personal tie to.
Who can I contact for more information? For additional questions about the process of submitting instructional materials for review by the EQuIP Peer Review Panel for Science, please email Jeremy Thomas at
[email protected].
3 www.achieve.org/equip
