Building Academic Literacy and Scientific Understanding through Science, English, and ESL Collaboration: The NSF Communication In Science Inquiry Project (CISIP)

Mar 2, 2007
Rio Salado College Conference Center
9:00am - 3:00pm
Continental breakfast and lunch provided

This workshop will share information about the professional development program created through the National Science Foundation-sponsored Communication In Science Inquiry Project (CISIP). The program focuses on enhancing student academic literacy and student learning in the sciences through the creation of a scientific classroom discourse community. CISIP approaches are grounded in the latest research in student learning and include embedding structured oral and written discourse and academic language acquisition techniques into an inquiry science framework. Participants will not only be presented with working classroom examples of a variety of effective teaching and learning strategies, they will also experience several of these strategies first-hand. In addition, participants will dialogue about the particular difficulties of implementing such an integrated framework in the college setting and work together to propose possible solutions. Participants will then be provided with the opportunity to participate more fully in the CISIP program.

Instructional Goals

During this workshop, participants will: 1. Learn the rationale and fundamental elements of the CISIP science literacy professional development project. While the focus of the project is science literacy, the learning principles upon which CISIP is founded are grounded in research and practice and can be applied to any discipline 2. Understand the power of the CISIP strategies in facilitating student learning 3. Identify barriers to implementation of CISIP project strategies at the college level and determine ways to eliminate those barriers 4. Apply CISIP strategies to their own classes

Facilitators

Mike Lang, MCCCD OPSP and CISIP Project Director; Kaatje Kraft, MCC Geology faculty; Beth Alsen, MCC Education/ESL faculty; and Diane Clark, English Faculty and Chair of CGCC's Writing Across the Curriculum committee, will serve as the primary facilitators for the day.

Presenter/small group facilitators will include faculty from a variety of disciplines representing a variety of institutions. All presenters are considered to be master teachers and have been participating in the CISIP professional development program for a minimum of two years. All have also presented their work with CISIP at local, state, and/or national workshops and conferences.

Agenda

9:00-9:10 Welcome and overview of agenda
9:10-10:40 CISIP professional development activity
10:40-11:00 Brief overview of CISIP project elements
11:00-11:10 Break
11:10-12:40 Presentations from science, English, and ESL faculty of college, high school, and middle school institutions
12:40-12:50 Begin lunch
12:50-1:30 Working lunch: Discussion of next steps for the college classroom
1:30-1:40 Break
1:40-2:45 Opportunity to form collaborative partnerships with CISIP project members and/or other participants
2:45-3:00 Wrap-up

Faculty Professional Growth

This Dialogue Day has been pre-approved for 5.5 clock hours Faculty Professional Growth non-academic advancement.