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SF Bay Integrated Middle School Science Project
The Integrated Middle School Science Project (IMSS) Targeted Math-Science Partnership is a partnership - between California State University, East Bay, the Alameda County Office of Education, and seven school districts - that is developing and studying a comprehensive teacher professional development model designed to transform science teaching and learning.


The project is developing a comprehensive professional development model that is situated in practice and focused on student learning (Borko, 2010). The project is designed to improve middle school science achievement and integration of science content and practices.

The professional development focus is to build capacity at multiple levels of partner institutions, building on theories of networked learning and distributed leadership (Wenger, 1998; Spillane, 2004; Jackson & Temperley, 2007).

In addition to the teacher professional development, each of the seven school districts have established a STEM Leadership Team that convenes at CSU quarterly and is involved in systems change process to support improvements in K-12 science education.

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Project Contributions

Measuring Science Instructional Practice: A Survey Tool for the Age of NGSS
"Ambitious efforts are taking place to implement a new vision for science education in the United States, in both Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)- adopted states and those states creating…
A Coding Tool For Examining The Substance Of Teacher Professional Learning And Change With Example Cases From Middle School Science Lesson Study
"Although lesson study is increasingly adopted in the United States (U.S.), the impact of lesson study on teacher learning is uncertain. This study presents a theoretically grounded set of codes…
Integrating NGSS Science Practices in Middle School Science Classrooms: Examining the Process of Two Lesson Study Teams
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) necessitate significant instructional shifts toward engaging diverse groups of students in science practices in support of content understanding (NRC, 2012, 2013). The theoretical and…
Understanding Motivational Structures That Differentially Predict Engagement And Achievement In Middle School Science
"Middle school has been documented as the period in which a drop in students' science interest and achievement occurs. This trend indicates a lack of motivation for learning science; however,…
White Paper: Measuring Science Instructional Practice: A Survey Tool for the Age of NGSS
"Ambitious efforts are taking place to implement a new vision for science education in the United States, in both Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) adopted states and those states creating…
SIPS Survey and Scoring Sheet
SIPS Survey and Scoring Sheet See related articles: Journal Article: Measuring Science Instructional Practice: A Survey Tool for the Age of NGSS White Paper: Measuring Science Instructional Practice: A Survey…
Collaborative Logic Modeling: A Tool for Developing a Shared Vision across Diverse Partner Perspectives
"NSF requires articulating theories of change and/or logic models (LM) for MSP proposal submission. Situated in three MSP targeted partnership programs, a panel of PI's, project directors, district leaders, and…
Building a Distributed Leadership Model for Systemic Change and Sustainability in an MSP Middle School Science Project
"This session will explore a model for building distributed leadership capacity to support scaling and sustaining of middle school science MSP project. We will share structures and processes developed for…
IMSS Common Core Video Series
The San Francisco Bay Integrated Middle School Science Project (IMSS) Targeted Math-Science Partnership produced a seven part video series on the Common Core State Standards.…
Collections Of Student-Centered Science Lessons
"IMSS is pleased to provide a series of instructional cases (IC's) for middle school science teachers. Each IC is a series of lessons that are focused on a key science…
Video: The San Francisco Bay Integrated Middle School Science (IMSS) Partnership Project Overview
The San Francisco Bay Integrated Middle School Science (IMSS) Partnership is a collaborative project that is developing, implementing, and studying a comprehensive middle school science teacher professional development (PD) model.…
Learning Progression-based Teaching Strategies for Environmental Science Literacy
Posted by: Alan Berkowitz . The Culturally Relevant Ecology: Learning Progressions and Environmental Literacy project works with hundreds of teachers and thousands of middle and high school students at four Long Term Ecological Research sites…
SF Bay Integrated Middle School Science (IMSS) Partnership
Posted by: Robert Curtis . This poster describes the projects progress towards defining and studying effective STEM teaching and learning at the middle school level. The San Francisco Bay Integrated Middle School Science (IMSS) Partnership…