Teacher Helping Teachers Teach Science Inquiry: The "Just ASK" Project

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"Teachers Helping Teachers Teach Science Inquiry: The 'Just ASK' Project" develops and evaluates a new generation of adapted science kit (ASK) resources and distance delivery strategies. The goals of the project are to form communities of practice among rural science teachers using web-based resources that allow audio and video connections in real time and to conduct research that examines the impact of these communities of practice on school programs, teaching practices, and student achievement. The project develops and tests teacher adaptations of FOSS, Insights, and STS lessons to make them more appropriate for students in rural schools. The project also develops and tests web-based distance education strategies that enable video, audio, and print interactions among participating teachers and with professional development specialists as well as teacher-to-teacher exchange of lesson plans and other instructional materials over the web. The target audience is elementary teachers, grades K6, in nine rural schools located in Iowa and Missouri. The products of the project will be a vetted set of Adapting Science Kits lessons and accompanying classroom videos specific to FOSS, Insights, and STS kits to be posted on the web and easily accessible by teachers; the formation of a web-based community of practice facilitated by an Elluminate Live portal where ASK activities and classroom videos can be accessed and posted and where teachers can interact with expert ASK teachers and, eventually, with other teachers nation wide; and empirical evidence addressing the impact of ASK communities of practice on school district programs, teachers' classroom practices and student achievement in nine field test school districts.