Communication in Science Inquiry Project (CISIP) is a five-year project that creates and disseminates professional development materials for science and English faculty at middle level schools (grades 5-8), high schools and community colleges. The collaborators include faculty from Maricopa Community College, Arizona State University and an external evaluation team who will combine to work with public school districts to develop, pilot, field test, research and evaluate the materials. The science content that is the basis for the material at each level includes physics, chemistry, geology/earth and space sciences and life sciences.

The goal of CISIP is to create professional development materials in the context of science inquiry that equip faculty to integrate scientific writing, writing-to-learn processes and science language acquisition techniques into their instruction. Through the use of these materials science and English faculty will increase teacher and student understanding of scientific concepts and capacity to write scientifically with greater fluency and complexity, especially by students who are English Language Learners. In addition to the research findings, the deliverables include an integrated curriculum model, twenty-four exemplary lessons, writing-to-learn processes and scientific writing illustrations, sessions about language acquisition with defined applications for each level, facilitator materials and participant resources.

Project Report

is a two-year professional development program that helps teachers to increase students’ knowledge of science and improve their capacity to talk and write scientifically. CISIP is based on research from the cognitive sciences, theoretical perspectives, and classroom applications articulated in these publications: How People Learn, How Students Learn, Taking Science To School, Writing Science: Literacy and Discursive Power, and Talking Science. The CISIP professional development model fully integrates learning components of these publications into one professional development program. CISIP is for middle level, high school, and college teams composed of science and English faculty members. CISIP equips faculty with content knowledge and pedagogy to establish scientific classroom discourse communities that help students improve their abilities to communicate and learn science content at deeper levels of understanding. CISIP is a research-based program that increases student academic achievement through three interrelated classroom-focused innovations: (1) the creation of scientific classroom discourse communities, (2) the design and teaching of CISIP signature lessons focusing on argumentation, and (3) the integration of Common Core Standards into the CISIP program. Research about CISIP advanced the knowledge and understanding about how English and science professionals can collaborate through these interrelated innovations. CISIP targets learning within a classroom discourse community that focuses on argumentation. CISIP equips students with the speaking and writing skills to make an argument, how to present an idea, and back it up with evidence and logical reasoning. A major finding from the NSF CISIP program is that a teacher’s knowledge of the conceptual framework of the discipline and ability to task analyze how to translate it into a sequence of lessons impacted students’ ability to write quality explanations. Argumentation is a high leverage academic process to build these connections and develop a deep understanding about how principles and big ideas are connected within the discipline. The CISIP research team from Arizona State University developed and tested two reliable research products: (1) the Discourse in Inquiry Science Classroom (DiISC) and (2) a rubric for analysis of English and science arguments. The DiISC is an instrument for observing teachers, not students. It describes what teachers do and focuses on five sets of instructional strategies that form the scales of the DiISC. These scales are Inquiry, Oral Discourse, Writing, Academic Language Development and Learning Principles. The argumentation rubric is used to determine quality of student written arguments. The CISIP professional development program has applications for professional development of practicing faculty members in public schools, community colleges, and universities. CISIP may be used with pre-service teachers in methods courses, and as the basis for restructuring of undergraduate courses in STEM disciplines. CISIP addresses the Common Core State Standards and is a resource for states and school districts in Race To The Top national competition.

Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2004-07-01
Budget End
2010-12-31
Support Year
Fiscal Year
2003
Total Cost
$2,251,664
Indirect Cost
Name
Maricopa County Community College District
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Tempe
State
AZ
Country
United States
Zip Code
85281