There is a Facilitation Guide for each of the integrated Science Units available at this Web site. Serving the same role as the teacher's guide for a traditional basal text series, the Facilitation Guides are vital components of the units. Accessible only to the teacher, the Facilitation Guide has everything needed to smoothly lead students through the unit. Following is a summary of the four main sections in the Facilitation Guide: Learning Outcomes; Setting Up The Unit; Motivational Strategies; Assessment Tools.

Learning Outcomes

This section of the Facilitation Guides lists the learning objectives for the curriculum subjects woven into the Integrated Science Unit, along with their corresponding from the Illinois Learning Standards, published on July 25, 1997. This information tells you exactly what is taught and will be assessed in the unit. (The assessment process is explained in greater detail in "Assessment Tools" section further on.) The learning outcomes help the facilitator to enhance the student's learning experience in at least three important ways:

• they can be restated as "learning goals" for students at the beginning of the unit, thus becoming expectations to be met. (Learning goals for students are further explained in item 5, Action Plan, below.)
• they can guide the facilitator in setting up additional learning activities to capitalize on what students have gained from the Integrated Science Unit
• They serve as a way to regularly monitor the student's progress toward meeting required IGAP learning standards.

Setting up the Unit

A few prerequisites are necessary to ensure that the Integrated Science Unit performs smoothly in the classroom. The six parts of this section of the Facilitation Guides provide instructions for setting up the various components of the unit so that students will be able to work independently without interruption.

1. Forming Teams: Each Integrated Science Unit requires students to spend part of their time working in teams, with team members assigned particular roles within the team. This section of the Facilitation Guides provides the information needed to set up the teams. It is recommended that the facilitator form the teams rather than allowing students to choose their own teams. Doing so will prevent cliques from forming, will control for possible exclusion of particular students based on ability level, physical characteristics, social traits, and will, across several units, help all students in the classroom achieve a higher level of social familiarity and sense of belonging. Allowing students to select their individual roles within the teams is up to the facilitator.                                                                                                                    
2. Special Unit Activities: Some of the Integrated Science Units require particular experiments, explorations, simulations, or other exercises that need to be arranged in advance by the facilitator. These special activities are described in detail in the "Special Unit Activities" section of the Facilitation Guides. Because the special unit activities may be referred to in the Student Activities, students must be informed of any deletions or substitutions. The facilitator can tell if the student will be expecting any of the special activities by perusing the "Team Activities" and "'On Your Own' Activities" in the Student Activities section of the Web page.                                                                                                                                            
3. Resources: Information resources of all kinds are vital to the student's success in the Integrated Science Unit. This part of the Facilitation Guide recommends media and other resources which developers believe are particularly valuable to students in their pursuit of the learning challenge. The recommendations may be for videos, printed materials, models, resource people, or any other means of gaining information on the subject. If the resources called for are available, the facilitator should make sure students have easy access to them, adding other resources in the school which are appropriate to the subject of the unit. If the prescribed resources are not available, then the facilitator should determine which information resources appropriate to the subject are available in the school (or, in the case of human resources, beyond the school) and make them readily accessible to students for their study of the unit.                                                                                                                                                      
4. Web Sites: The Internet is used in every Integrated Science Unit as a primary source of current information for pursuit of the Learning Challenge. World Wide Web addresses are shown with hypertext links in many of the student's learning activities. In many cases the activities are actually based on information from a web site. Web addresses which are particularly valuable to facilitators in gaining additional information about the topic of the unit, or additional web addresses of possible use to students pursuing particular aspects of the Learning Challenge, are included in hypertext in the Web Sites section of the Facilitation Guide for each unit.                                                                                                                            
5. Unit Activity Sheets and Action Plan: Some of the learning tasks in the "Student Activities" section of this web site require the use of special activity sheets. The activity directs students to ask the facilitator for the sheets. The worksheets are found in this section of the Facilitation Guide. The facilitator simply prints them out in the quantity needed, or prints one and makes photocopies for distribution to students as they ask.

There is also a standard form called an Action Plan, which is needed by all students. The Action Plan has the vitally important function of keeping the student and facilitator operating on the same wavelength during the course of the Integrated Science Unit. It has the additional benefits of helping students set personal goals and improving their time management and organizational skills. The Action Plan can be accessed from either the Facilitation Guide or the Student Activities section of this Web site. This two-way access gives the facilitator the option of either printing out the form for reproduction and distribution to students, or having students print the "Action Plan" from the computer. It is recommended that this sequence be followed by students and facilitator in filling out the Action Plan:

1. Working together as a whole class, the facilitator guides the students in rephrasing the language of the learning outcomes stated for the unit as "learning goals." The purpose is to state the outcomes as learning expectations the students can easily understand. All students write these goals in the blanks provided in the Action Plan.                                                                                                           
2. After the facilitator forms the teams, students meet to select the "Team Activities" from the Student Activities section of the Web page. Then they write their selections in the blanks and note their team meeting times in the "Team Activities" segment of the Action Plan.                                                                              
3. The facilitator quickly reviews the selection of Team Activities and the team meeting schedule, then guides the student in framing a question of personal relevance about the topic of the unit. (Some students may not need help with this step). Sample questions for leading the student to this sense of individual importance are included in the "Motivational Strategies" section of the Facilitation Guide.                            
4. Students individually make their choices from the "On My Own" Activities section of the Web page and fill in the titles of their selections. The facilitator again briefly reviews the student's choices and suggests adjustments as needed based on a knowledge of that student's particular learning characteristics. The student then proceeds with the study independently and as part of a team.                                                                                                                                                            
5. As the unit is concluding, each team selects from the "Presenting Team Findings" section of the Web page the method or methods they will use to present their team findings, and team members write their selections in the "Presenting Team Findings" section of the Action Plan. The facilitator meets with Team members individually or as a Team a final time to review those choices. This also provides an opportunity for students to "debrief" with the facilitator about what was learned during the unit of study.

6. Suggested time line: Some of the Integrated Science Units have a recommended schedule for their implementation and use. However, because the time allocated for particular subjects differs among school districts, the actual schedule for using the units must be established by the facilitator. Generally, the use of the unit in the classroom will depend upon the time you are able to devote to it. But please keep in mind that this is an interdisciplinary learning experience that has personal relevance to students, and the more time they spend in the unit, the deeper they will go in their exploration of the topic. The vital products of that in-depth study are a wider understanding of the relationship between science and life, and a greater the number of meaningful connections among all school subjects. And please consider also that there are certain "economies of scale" in spending as much time as possible on the unit each day, since there is always a little time lost "gearing up" for each new session.

Following are general time recommendations for the unit and suggested time allocations to its main parts.

Hours per week/number of weeks: If 4-6 hours per week: 4 weeks If 7-11 hours per week: 3 weeks If 13 or more hours per week: 2 weeks

Time allocations to main parts of the unit: Theme immersion strategies: 15% Special unit activities, Team Activities, and "On Your Own" Activities: 70% Presenting Team Findings (preparation and presentation): 15%

Motivational Strategies

Relevance of the learning experience to students is a key factor in the success of the Integrated Science Units. Three "points of personal relevance" were part of the development plan for the units:

• the first was the selection of topics for development which were naturally interesting to students;
• the second was imaginative "theme immersion"strategies for use by facilitators which would appeal to students' diverse learning styles, multiple intelligences, personal interests, and creative inclinations to stimulate genuine interest in the topics;
• the third was "personal relevance"questions for facilitators to use in guiding individual students to see the personal importance of studying the topic of the unit.

The "Motivational Strategies" section of the Facilitation Guide offers a variety of "theme immersion" suggestions and a list of "personal relevance" questions the facilitator can use in leading students individually to that coveted spot at which their genuine interest meets up with the topic of of study. The suggestions in this section of the Facilitation Guide are only starters. Creative strategies for generating students' interest in the topic are limited only by the facilitator's imagination.

Assessment Tools

This section of the Facilitation Guides contains a scoring rubric to measure the science performance outcomes of the unit and a criterion referenced test to measure the science knowledge outcomes. Both the rubric and the criterion referenced test are keyed to the Unit Learning Outcomes stated in the "Learning Outcomes" section of each Facilitation Guide. The outcomes in the scoring rubrics are followed by the number of the Revised, 1997 Illinois Learning Standards benchmarks to which they correspond.

Example: Predict outcomes and observe results of designated experiment and report conclusion.   (11.A.2b)

The Integrated Science Units thus offer the means to continuously keep track of the student's progress toward Illinois learning standards. This feature has the potential to make IGAP testing a natural part of the learning process rather than a once-a-year, potentially disruptive event.

Assessment should be both formative and summative. Formative assessment is conducted as the student progresses through the unit, a strategy which yields diagnostic information that can be used by the facilitator to provide enrichment or remediation as indicated by the student's work. The scoring rubric gives the facilitator a standard against which to check the student's progress in acquiring the skills prescribed for the unit. Summative assessment is done at the conclusion of the unit to evaluate the student's success in actually having achieved the Learning Outcomes. The scoring rubric is used to assess performance based on a review of the student's portfolio and other factors, some perhaps informal, related to the study of the unit. The criterion referenced test should be used at the conclusion of the unit to measure the student's grasp of knowledge reflected in the Learning Outcomes for the unit.

Please keep in mind that assessment, like instructional activities, can be adapted to individual learning strengths. Some students, for instance, may give the facilitator a more accurate representation of their knowledge orally than through a written test. Think about the testing methods from the perspective of students' preferred learning styles.

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Last updated: October 23, 2000