history

History

Chèche Konnen started as a research project in 1987 with three teachers in two classrooms in the Cambridge, MA Public Schools. Center staff collaborated with teachers in the Haitian Creole Transitional Bilingual Program (grades 7-8) and the Bilingual Basic Skills Program (grades 9 - 12) to design and explore innovative ways to create classroom communities of scientific practice for students whose first language is not English.

The goal was to engage students in posing and investigating questions, constructing and arguing evidence-based claims, and theorizing about the phenomena they were investigating. Center staff studied how classroom practices and student discourse evolved over the course of students’ scientific investigations, and documented what students learned about scientific ideas, knowledge-making practices, and themselves as learners and thinkers. The Water Taste Test, among other investigations, happened at this time.

Our original focus on student learning expanded over the years to include research on teacher professional development. Center staff developed an approach to professional development called "teaching as inquiry," which integrates teacher inquiry into science, children's ideas and discourse, and language and culture. This work formed the basis for partnerships with school districts in several states (Arizona, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Texas) to adapt a "teaching as inquiry" approach to their local needs and interests. For more information, see our list of Publications.