The National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) and Tuva have expanded their partnership to co-design and co-facilitate professional learning focused on strengthening data literacy as a component of scientific sensemaking across science and related disciplines. The collaboration will extend from conference-based professional learning institutes to district-based implementation while continuing to offer programmes at NSTA’s national conferences.
“Data has become an essential tool for making sense of the world and students need opportunities to engage with authentic data as part of their science learning,” said Tricia Shelton, Chief Learning Officer at NSTA. “Working with Tuva, we’re expanding opportunities for educators to build the knowledge, confidence and practical skills needed to integrate data literacy into everyday science instruction.”
The expanded partnership comes as a recent consensus study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine highlights the need for a co-ordinated approach to integrating data and computing across K–12 education, calling for alignment across curriculum, assessment, teacher preparation and professional learning rather than isolated efforts at the classroom or programme level.
The report also highlights a gap between expectations for students to engage in data analysis, modelling and computational thinking and the opportunities educators have had to build the instructional expertise needed to support those practices.
“For students to develop essential data skills, teachers must first be backed by sustained professional support and resources,” said Harshil Parikh, Founder and CEO of Tuva. “Our expanded partnership with NSTA focuses on building that long-term instructional capacity at the district level.”
A joint statement from five national education associations, including the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA), the National Council for the Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), urges schools to embed data literacy and data science across K–12 disciplines as components of student learning.
District implementation as a core expansion
A focus of the expanded partnership is district-based professional learning designed to support sustained instructional practice.
The first offering, Sensemaking and Place-Based Data, engages educators in using authentic, local data to investigate anchoring phenomena. Participants pose instructional questions, use Tuva tools to analyse and visualise authentic datasets and extend their work through a community science experience in which they collect and interpret their own data. The workshop emphasises strategies for helping students use data to identify patterns, develop explanations and engage in science and engineering practices grounded in local phenomena.
A second district workshop, focused on building teachers’ confidence in applying data practices to make sense of compelling phenomena, is in development and will debut following the NSTA National Conference in Indianapolis (NSTA Indy26).
NSTA will host informational webinars about its suite of new district offerings, including Sensemaking and Place-Based Data, on 9 July and 23 July.
Continued national professional learning
In addition to expanding district-based offerings, NSTA and Tuva will continue to co-facilitate professional learning institutes at national conferences, including Fueling Sensemaking: How Data Ignites Student Use of the Science and Engineering Practices at NSTA Indy26 this coming November. The full-day session will explore how data can be integrated across all eight Science and Engineering Practices through hands-on instructional tasks and grade-band breakout sessions.
