Mountain View Middle School’s 8th grade Science teacher, Denise Magrini, co-presented at the 2025 NSTA National Conference in Philadelphia, “For the Love of Science Education,” with Wil van der Veen, Director of the Science Education Institute (RVCC). The workshop focused on how implementing recommendations from the NRC Framework and How People Learn can lead to impactful changes in teacher practice and student learning.
A 17-year veteran of the Mendham Borough School District, Mrs. Magrini has long been a leader in the Science department, spearheading the implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards and taking advantage of every professional development opportunity afforded to her, both through the support of the school district and her professional network.
Using examples of models and reflections completed by her 8th grade students, along with carefully designed structures and supports, Mrs. Magrini was able to provide educators from all over the country with a solid example of what reflective climate change instruction looks like in a middle school class.
“I want to give students the opportunity to engage their prior understandings about a phenomenon AND give them meaningful, well-designed performance tasks that allow them to understand how new factual knowledge and ideas fit (or does not fit) into their conceptual framework. That is why I developed a rubric specifically designed to include student reflection as well as evaluation.”
In the presentation, Mrs. Magrini also shared how establishing a culture for learning in the classroom and informing parents about instructional changes were key components of her practice.
“Science is being taught very differently than when many adults went to school. Therefore, it is important to address these differences with parents and explain how the 3 dimensions of the NGSS are designed to engage students more fully in investigating causes for observable phenomena. This type of learning takes time, especially if we want students to develop their own conceptual framework around science phenomenon, fit new learning into their own conceptual framework, or recognize that prior ideas they have do not fit anymore and need to be replaced with new learnings.”