Michael Novak

Biography

Michael Novak holds both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Early in his career, he worked on research and development for autonomous vehicle controls and designed a virtual prototyping system for Caterpillar at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at UIUC.

Michael shifted to teaching in the mid-1990s, becoming a middle school mathematics and science teacher in Urbana and Champaign schools while also serving as a professional learning facilitator, helping K-16 teachers incorporate computational science into their classroom instruction.

In the fall of 2002, Michael moved to Grayslake and continued teaching middle school at Parkview School in Morton Grove, IL. Over the next 14 years, he collaborated with his science department colleagues Lisa Brody and Keetra Tipton on several NSF-funded science curriculum and assessment development projects. This included serving as field test teachers for Project-Based Inquiry Science and IQWST (Investigating and Questioning our World through Science and Technology), and developing assessment items for Project 2061 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In the spring of 2004, Michael began consulting for the Center for Connected Learning (CCL) at Northwestern University, where he designed high school chemistry and biology units that used NetLogo models to help support students in exploring scientific mechanisms and emergent behaviors through inquiry-based learning.
In 2013, he started his adjunct faculty work at Northwestern, teaching pre-service and in-service teachers about new approaches to science education. This work, as well as his current job, focuses on supporting colleagues and communities in developing and implementing instructional units and assessments aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

His work aims to:

• Elicit student questions in the context of explaining compelling phenomena and connect all subsequent classroom lessons to these questions.
• Foster deep engagement in scientific and engineering practices
• Help students build scientific understanding by interpreting evidence rather than simply learning about the ideas that others figured out.
• Create a collaborative classroom environment where students work together to answer their classes’ questions.

In 2016, Michael left the middle school classroom and joined the Next Generation Science Storylines project at Northwestern in his current position as a senior curriculum developer. In this role, he contributed to developing the storyline instructional model. He helped develop some of the nation's first NGSS units to earn the NGSS Design Badge. As a member of the OpenSciEd development consortium, Michael has led or contributed to the design of numerous field-tested and publicly released middle and high school science units.

Education

• MS, Mechanical Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1994
• BS, Mechanical Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1992

Awards and Honors

• 2015 - PAEMST Finalist for Illinois
• 2014 - Golden Apple Fellow
• 2013 - ISTA/ExxonMobil Outstanding Illinois Teacher of Science
• 2010 - National Board Certification - Teaching / Mathematics
• 1992 - Thiokol Award for Excellence in Engineering Design for Senior Design Project

Selected Publications

Brinza, G., Larson, K., McGreal, A., Novak, M. (2022). Supporting Three-Dimensional Learning From Students’ Questions About Water With a Storyline Unit. Science and Children, 59(4).

Reiser, B., Novak, M., McGill, T., Penuel, W. (2021). Storyline Units: An Instructional Model to Support Coherence From the Students’ Perspective. Journal of Science Teacher Education (JORST), 32(7), 805-829.

Edelson, D., Reiser, B. J., McNeill, K., Mohan, L., Novak, M., et al. (2021). Developing Research-Based Instructional Materials to Support Large-Scale Transformation of Science Teaching and Learning: The Approach of the

Openscied Middle School Program. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 32(7), 780-804.
Reiser, B., Novak, M., McGill, T., Passmore, C., Penuel, W. (2019). Supporting Purposeful Sensemaking in Science Classrooms. Paper Set Presented at National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST), Baltimore, MD.

Zivic, A., Smith, J., Reiser, B. J., Edwards, K., Novak, M, McGill, T. (2018). Negotiating Epistemic Agency and Target Learning Goals: Supporting Coherence from the Students’ Perspective. Proceeding for the International Conference for the Learning Sciences. (ICLS).

Reiser, B. J., Novak, M., & McGill, T.. (2017). Coherence from the students’ perspective: Why the vision of the framework for K-12 science requires more than simply “combining” three dimensions of science learning. Paper commissioned for the Board on Science Education Workshop Instructional Materials for the Next Generation Science Standards.

Reiser, B. J., Brody, L., Novak, M., Tipton, K., & Sutherland Adams, L. M. (2017). Asking questions. In C. V. Schwarz, C. M. Passmore & B. J. Reiser (Eds.), Helping students make sense of the world through next generation science and engineering practices (pp. 87-134). Arlington, VA: NSTA Press.

Reiser, B. J., Michaels, S., Moon, J., Bell, T., Dyer, E., Edwards, K., McGill, T. Novak, M., Park, A. (2017). Scaling Up Three-Dimensional Science Learning Through Teacher-Led Study Groups Across A State. Journal of Research in Science Teaching [Special Issue].

Buell, J., Krist, C., Novak, M., Stein, A., Suarez, E. (2016). Investigating Epistemic Agency: Creating Space For Students And Teachers To Actively Construct Scientific Knowledge. Paper presented at the NARST 2016 Annual International Conference. Baltimore MD.

Wagh, A., Novak, M., Soylu, F., Wilensky, U. (2016). Integrating Agent-based Modeling & Case Study to Learn about Population Dynamics: A design framework. Paper presented at the NARST Annual International Conference. Baltimore, MD.

Krist, C., Brody, L., Novak, M., Tipton, K. (2016). Cultivating a Next-Generation Classroom Culture. Science Scope. 39(5), 8-14

Brady, C., Holbert, N. Soylu, F., Novak, M., Wilensky, U. (2015). Sandboxes for model-based inquiry. Journal of Science Education and Technology. v24(2-3), 265-286.

Lo, A. S., Krist, C., Reiser, B. J., & Novak, M. (2014). Examining shifts in teachers' understanding of NGSS and their impact on planned instruction. NARST Annual International Conference. Pittsburgh, PA

Wilensky, U., Novak, M. (2010). Teaching and Learning Evolution as an Emergent Process: The BEAGLE project. R.S. Taylor & M. Ferrari (Eds.), Epistemology and Science Education: Understanding the Evolution vs. Intelligent Design Controversy. Chapter 10. New York: Routledge.

Levy, S.T., Novak, M., & Wilensky, U. (2006). Students' foraging through the complexities of the particulate world: Scaffolding for independent inquiry in the connected chemistry (MAC) curriculum. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.