Project CRISS (CReating Independence through Student-owned Strategies) was created to help students better organize, understand, and retain course information.

Through an Eisenhower Reading Grant (Title II) the Office of Federal Programs has offered Project CRISS training for interested Fairbanks School District educators since 1999. By the fall of 2000 four Fairbanks teachers had completed the training and requirements to become certified CRISS trainers. With the availability of local training, the Office of Federal Programs has been able to continue to fund CRISS training to interested individual educators, whole schools, and parents' groups. For more information on training, see the CRISS training schedule.

The CRISS program was developed in the Kalispell School District in Kalispell, Montana in 1979. The teachers wrote the program under the direction of Dr. Carol Santa, District Reading Coordinator. The program became a state validated demonstration site in 1982 and a nationally validated project for grades 10 through 12 in 1985. In 1993 the validation was expanded to include grades 4 - 12. The NATIONAL DIFFUSION NETWORK (NDN) provided funding for CRISS from 1985 through 1996, when NDN funding was eliminated by Congress. Many teachers in districts throughout the country have readily adapted ideas from CRISS in their classrooms.

Students learn to become strategic when teachers teach the process of learning directly through explanation and modeling. Most students do not know how to learn. Teachers have to show them how. When introducing a new strategy, teachers need to take the stage. They show, tell, model, demonstrate and explain not only the content, but the process of active learning. As the student learns, there is a gradual release of responsibility from the teacher to the student.