Share this
by The Propello Crew on Jun 22, 2023 3:19:03 PM
As an educator, you know how time-consuming it can be to prepare and implement lesson plans. From scouring the internet for ideas and activities to sorting through curriculum that’s already available, it takes a lot of time. And it’s not just time consuming: ensuring the content meets the needs of your diverse learners requires a laser beam focus.
Once you’ve found content that you feel meets the needs of your learners, you also have to ask:
- Do they meet the standard you’re teaching?
- Will you need to accommodate them, and to what extent, to meet the needs of your students?
- How much time will the lesson actually take, and will it fit into the academic calendar?
Whether it’s planning lessons by the week, unit, marking period, or semester, it can sometimes feel like a scavenger hunt to find exactly what you need, when you need it. This is where the Propello Library can help.
What is the Propello Library?
Free to use for teachers, Propello’s curriculum library is a one-stop online science lesson resource hub. Chock-full of science lesson plans, suggested sequences, and teaching strategies, it has nearly 400 (and growing) lesson topics, research activities, inquiry lab activities, project-based assessments and formative assessment exercises encompassing life science, physical science, and earth and space science.
Because the platform is designed around the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), every unit of study starts with a phenomena-based inquiry lab, with supporting topics of study beneath the main units. All lessons within each topic are designed to help teachers align their teaching with the NGSS standards and strengthen the students' critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaborative skills.
So just like a regular library, it has the materials you need and when you need it.
Is the Propello Library Standards Based?
Propello’s curriculum is expertly designed around the Next Generation Science Standards. So for states that have adopted the NGSS, or an NGSS framework, the lessons and activities meet those three-dimensional learning standards.
For states that have not adopted the NGSS, the materials in the Propello Library can serve as supplemental materials where the standards align with the NGSS. For example, if both your state and the Next Generation Science Standards cover the structure of cells, then Propello’s curriculum can serve as a resource for that topic in your state.
Is the Propello Library Easy to Use?
With access to the lessons within the Propello library, teachers have the option to customize the resources to fit their own teaching styles and individual student needs. How does that work? Check out the example below.
The Phenomenon and Inquiry-Lab
Propello’s content is divided into units of study. Each unit is anchored by a phenomenon-based inquiry investigation based on a specific topic. The inquiry investigation serves as an anchor for the unit, where students ask questions and investigate a natural science phenomenon to discover answers to those questions.
As facilitators, teachers can steer the investigation towards the specific aspects their standards require. For example, in the Earth-Sun-Moon system inquiry-based investigation, if the standard requires students to be able to predict the sequence of the moon phases, teachers can guide student questioning towards that topic within that investigation.
Supporting Topics
Follow up activities to the initial inquiry investigation can then offer further exploration and elaboration on specific topics within the investigation. Teachers have the option to pick and choose topics to support the initial phenomenon.
For example, in the Earth-Sun-Moon phenomenon, further study covers moon phase, eclipses and seasons more in depth. Each topic has supplemental reading, hands-on and research activities, and formative assessments that reinforce both the topic and the initial phenomenon.
Within the topic, teachers can pick and choose (and assign) specific activities for their students that meet specific state standards.
The Propello Teacher Plan
We know that with so many options to choose from, especially if you’re new to teaching science, that it might feel a little daunting in knowing what to choose. So just like the library has a helpful librarian to point you in the right direction, the Propello library has easy-to-follow Teacher Plans with each unit and topic.
Each guide has suggestions and ideas for how to use the activities. Everything from standards specification to suggested sequences based on the 5E model to options for differentiation and extensions…it’s all highlighted in the guide. The example below is from the Moon Phases topic of the Earth-Sun-Moon system unit.
And remember - everything here is a suggestion. You can use all of the ideas…or none at all.
The only right way to do it is the way that’s right for you and your students.
Instead of spending countless hours creating lesson plans from scratch or scouring multiple resources, the Propello Library provides you with a simple, user-friendly interface where you can access standards-based, comprehensive science resources in a single location.
As a result, the free Propello Library gives you the tools to plan a comprehensive lesson with ease and efficiency, saving you valuable time you could use for other essential teaching activities.
To Sum It Up
Hunting for a curriculum takes time, patience and a lot of focus. Once you’ve found your instructional materials, you still have to figure out specifically what to do with those resources, which can take even more time—time that most teachers simply don’t have.
Propello’s free Library provides a one-stop shop for NGSS-designed, phenomena-based, differentiated learning that can save teachers time and build student knowledge, collaboration skills, and a love of science and discovery.
To access the Library and its resources, sign up for a free Propello account here.