June 2012

This month AERA, in collaboration with the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences, the American Psychological Association, and the Society for Research in Child Development, submitted a joint statement responding to a call from Achieve for comments on the first draft of its Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for K–12 education. Achieve had been tasked with leading the development of the standards to implement a framework released in July 2011 by the National Research Council’s Board on Science Education (A Framework for K–12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas). 

In its call for comments, Achieve sought specific guidance on the performance expectations and examples in four content areas of science and engineering/technology that are the focus of the standards. AERA and its partners in the joint statement made recommendations on human and social processes that would enhance K–12 learning in the four content areas  and  would, if incorporated, contribute to educating students about the connections among all areas of science, including social and behavioral fields such as education, learning, human development, and psychology.