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2004 NSF K-12 Math, Science, and Technology Curriculum Developers Conference

Teachers’ Implementation of the Constructing Ideas in Physical Science (CIPS) Curriculum*

Fred Goldberg
Robert Poel

CIPS is a one-year physical science course for middle school, whose core is designed to help students develop a deep understanding of national Standards and Benchmarks. Each CIPS core activity focuses on helping students develop the knowledge to answer a key question. A typical core activity begins with a We Think… section, where students share their background knowledge relevant to the key question. Then students gather experimental evidence to test their ideas in the Explore our Ideas section. The Make Sense of Our Ideas section provides guiding questions to help students make connections between their observational evidence and the target ideas. The last section, Our Consensus Ideas, is aimed at helping the class reach a consensus on the answer to the key question (which is typically the learning goal for the activity).

During each of these four sections the teacher’s role is to circulate through the class, helping groups with their work, and then facilitating whole group discussions. To help teachers implement CIPS with high fidelity we have designed a two-year professional development plan incorporating both face-to-face workshops and internet-based tools: the first year focuses on a mechanical implementation of the pedagogy and the second year focuses on learning management.

To guide these PD efforts project staff have made extensive classroom observations of both first and second year teachers who are field testing the curriculum in San Diego. We have identified aspects of the pedagogy that first year teachers seem to be able to implement successfully and aspects that are most challenging. For example, we have found that most teachers do a reasonably good job: implementing all sections and activities within the curriculum; eliciting students’ responses to the We Think questions; encouraging students to show respect for each other; and facilitating discussions instead of just giving information. Aspects of mechanical implementation that seem more difficult for teachers to implement include: promoting good discussions and collaboration within small groups; having many students (not just the same few) share their ideas in whole class discussions; assisting students in articulating their thoughts (by asking clarifying questions); and requiring students to support their claims with experimental evidence, and to explain their reasoning.

We have also identified aspects of learning management that seem most challenging for second year teachers. In particular, teachers have difficulty during the Making Sense of Our Ideas discussions helping students who still harbor alternative ideas. Instead of trying to identify the origins of the students’ ideas, and referring back to the experimental evidence to challenge those alternative ideas, some teachers tend to call on other students until the ‘correct’ answer emerges. The teachers then fail to refer back to the alternative answer(s), seemingly guided by the belief that the students with these alternative ideas will eventually “get it.”

In the poster we will summarize the findings from this research and outline how they have informed our PD plans.

*Supported by NSF Grants ESI-9812299 and ESI-0138900

This project is supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. ESI-0352345). Any opinion, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.