ABSTRACT
What students are expected to learn and on what they are assessed is increasingly being conceptualized as complex. Complex thinking and learning is characterized by the integration of the practices, core concepts, and ideas of a discipline, and by the coordination of these practices, concepts, and ideas flexibly and effectively in the context of both familiar and new problems. The conceptualization of thinking and learning as complex is exemplified by standards in mathematics (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010a), English language arts (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010b), technology and engineering literacy (National Assessment Governing Board, 2013) and science (NGSS Lead States, 2013). For example, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) describes the kind of thinking that science education should foster as “three-dimensional”—the intertwining of the practices through which scientists and engineers do their work, the key crosscutting concepts that link the science disciplines, and the core ideas of the science disciplines. Learning is described in terms of progressively more-sophisticated understanding characterized by the application of interwoven practices, concepts, and ideas (NGSS Lead States, 2013).
