INCREASING SCIENCE INQUIRY IN RHODE ISLAND MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOMS: THE RITES MODEL

One of the central goals of the Rhode Island Technology-Enhanced Science project (RITES) is to promote the use and the development of inquiry-rich science experiences for middle and high school students in Rhode Island. To this end in each aspect of our program, from creating partnerships between higher education faculty and grade 6-12 teachers to developing professional development workshops for teachers and crafting on-line lessons, RITES emphasizes the importance of recognizing opportunities to use inquiry as a vehicle for teaching science.

RITES workshops and curriculum provide examples to teachers on how to empower students to construct their own understanding of science through guided inquiry. We apply the same philosophy when training teachers in RITES professional development (PD) sessions as we would when teaching students. We encourage teachers towards the realization that student-centered lessons are a powerful way to teach, and often result in deeper understanding.

Through the RITES project, teachers experience inquiry in the PD sessions and then see these methods embedded in our investigations or sample lessons. Our approach here is to model and then provide facilitated reflection. Teachers are asked to describe the components of the lessons shared with them, identify strategies used by the educator(s) and recognize the opportunities a lesson provides for students to think critically. Teachers are encouraged to debate the merits of different lesson designs and talk about the mechanics of carrying out the lesson with different populations of students. Through courses such as Thinking Like A Scientist, teachers are introduced to the inquiry constructs and see how different lessons can be created to introduce, practice and assess steps in the inquiry process.

RITES personnel work closely with core districts to support initiatives that increase science inquiry in the classroom. These district-wide initiatives include mapping RITES investigations to their curriculum, developing common assessments that test inquiry skills and creating the forums for sharing best practices in inquiry. Data collection initiatives such as classroom observations and teacher surveys seek to measure the effectiveness of the inquiry provided through the PD sessions.