DOCUMENTING THE DESIGN AND IN-CLASSROOM SUCCESS OF AN ONLINE LEARNING MODULE COVERING THE ROCK CYCLE CREATED BY THE NSF-MSP FUNDED RITES PROJECT

The Rhode Island Technology Enhanced Science (RITES) program aims to increase the amount and quality of inquiry based learning in science classrooms statewide. Middle and high school teachers who join RITES enroll in a 2.5-day-long short course where science content and pedagogical materials are covered by a resource team composed of one higher education professional and one teacher. After the short course, the teachers are able to make use of online learning modules provided by RITES in their own classrooms. These online modules, called “Investigations,” are a collection of interactive tools that allow graphing and interpretation of images through short answer questions, with ancillary pages of teacher notes and additional concept exploration for students in each content area.

In this work, we follow one Investigation in particular, “Sleuthing through the Rock Cycle”. We discuss the design and creation of the investigation as well as its classroom implementation by documenting classroom observations, with data including modified RTOP results, engagement counts, and notes on teacher choices in planning and presenting the Investigation. By observing the Investigation in the classroom in different Rhode Island middle and high schools we begin to constrain the effectiveness of the Investigation as a teaching tool and guided inquiry resource for RITES teacher-participants and their students.