Source: Journal of Computing in Teacher Education, Volume 26, No. 1
(Fall 2009).
The Lewis & Clark Rediscovery Project is a technology professional development program designed to help teachers restructure teaching and learning practices in the classroom. The project also help teachers to foster technology use in the schools.
The 5-year program (extended into a 6th) was funded in 1999 with a grant from the U.S. Department of Education: Technology Innovation Challenge Grant.
The Rediscovery Project's "touchstones" include the historic record of challenges and encounters of Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery on their epic expedition, community studies highlighting 200 years of change along the Lewis and Clark Trail, and the development of technology-infused inquiry in teaching and learning.
The program immersed 51 lead participant K–12 teachers in eight states along the Lewis and Clark Trail in activities designed to increase technology efficacy and facilitate the infusion of inquiry-based learning projects into their own classrooms. The participants are Lewis & Clark Rediscovery Project fellows who were successfully mentored through online courses and in summer workshops.
Fundamental to the success of the project was the development of a model to mentor teachers in the field and to help facilitate outreach and peer mentoring of technology infusion across many districts.
The authors have included in this review a description of the major Rediscovery professional development model strategies and activities, as well as lessons learned and emerging trends and movements in interactive online teaching and learning.