Inquiry and the 5 E Model
This peice taken from David Crowther's Electronic Journal of Science Education
http://unr.edu/homepage/crowther/ejse/crowedit4.html
Inquiry:
The NSES (1996) define inquiry as:
Inquiry is a set of
interrelated processes by which scientists and students pose questions about
the natural world
and investigate phenomena;
in doing so, students acquire knowledge and develop a rich understanding
of
concepts, principles,
models, and theories. Inquiry is a critical component of a science program
at all grade
levels and in every
domain of science, and designers of curricula and programs must be sure that
the approach
to content, as well
as the teaching and assessment strategies, reflect the acquisition of scientific
understanding
through inquiry. Students
then will learn science in a way that reflects how science actually works
(p 214).
Inquiry & The Learning Cycle:
The Learning Cycle originally credited to Karplus & Thier (1967), who
published it in the Science Teacher, has been used in
science education from its conception. Probably one of the earliest and foremost
supporters of the Learning Cycle was the
SCIS (Science Curriculum Improvement Study) program which adapted it and
included it in its science curriculum. Although
there are several "E" versions (e.g. 3E, 4 E, 5E, and other modifications)
the basic premise is that children have an experience
with the phenomena in the learning of the concept / topic. In other words,
the Learning Cycle applied the inquiry approach to
teaching into a series of planning strategies. Versions of the Learning Cycle
are present in the major science curricula today
(FOSS, STC, BSCS, etc.) As well as introduced and used as a science lesson
planning strategy in most current Science
Methods texts. The BSCS approach to the Learning Cycle is credited to Roger
Bybee who developed the 5 E model which
will be used in the Applications of Research & Model Inquiry Lessons
section of EJSE. Bybee’s 5 E model is as follows:
The Lesson Plan Format - 5E Learning Cycle (BSCS / Bybee)
ENGAGEMENT (Introducing a Lesson)
Whether you begin in a very directed or less directed manner will depend
on the complexity of the concept and the
background of the children. Sometimes you will want to use a hands-on experience
to create interest and arouse questions,
then lead children into a exploration to develop a concept for which they
have some background knowledge. Sometimes,
because you feel that children lack the background knowledge, you will begin
in a very guided manner to carefully introduce
the concept and later, when children have become familiar, move to a more
exploratory activity. The direction that you take
should come from the decisions that you make during preplanning.
Regardless of the direction that you take, your introduction should engage
children, arouse curiosity, and set a direction for
the lesson. The children should, by the end of your introduction have an
idea about the focus of the lesson and what they will
be doing. The introductory activity should also help you reaffirm your thinking
about your student's background knowledge
and readiness for the experience.
EXPLORATION
This is the bulk of the lesson where children are immersed in exploration
of topics or concepts. This is the primary activity of
the lesson. Students work with one another to explore ideas through hands-on
activities. The teacher is the facilitator and
observes and listens to students as they interact. The teacher asks probing
questions of the students so that they clarify their
own understanding of major concepts. Additional questions may be asked to
redirect students’ investigations when
necessary. Adequate time for thorough investigation is critical at this time.
EXPLANATION
This is the meat of the lesson. Here is where you will carefully develop
a specific questioning sequence that relates to the new
knowledge that you identified as your purpose of the lesson. The sequence
of questions in this portion of the lesson is most
important. Here is where your knowledge of children development and learning
theory really becomes important. This is the
place to reflect on stages of learning, moving from concrete to abstract,
from the known to the new. You will also want to
refer to people who support inquiry and carefully guide children's exploration
of a topic or concept while you probe their
thinking and provide feedback.
During lesson development you are the one who is responsible for knowing
the content well enough that you can flexibly
respond to what children do and say during the lesson development. Your knowledge
of various ways to teach will be
needed to decide if you must revise your lesson plan in midstream. Your knowledge
of management will be needed to help
you redirect children who do not follow the "group" as you expected, yet
need to be engaged for learning. All of these
possibilities make teaching complex and often difficult to do well.
ELABORATION
Depending upon the time that you have allocated for the lesson and the manner
in which the lesson development proceeds,
you will eventually need to bring the lesson to closure. If you completed
the lesson development as you planned. then closure
is really an elaboration of what was done and learned during the lesson.
It is most helpful here if students are the ones who
verbalize what was learned. It is also appropriate here to move students
toward possible applications for what was learned. If
the lesson development did not go as planned, then closure may merely be
a temporary stopping point, with less elaboration,
until you can resume tomorrow.
Learning theorists tell us that it helps us to retain new knowledge if we
can link it to what is already known and can chunk it in
related pieces. This is the purpose that closure serves. We must help children
make "chunks" out of the new information and
relate it to what they already know so that the new knowledge can successfully
stored, then retrieved at a later time.
Closure is important to retention of information and concepts. It is important,
then, to watch the timing of the lesson so that
ample time will be reserved for the closure. Remember, you will always have
tomorrow. What you try to stuff into children's
heads in the fleeting moments of a lesson probably won't be retained anyway.
The time would be better spent in a good
closure, saving other new information for another lesson.
EVALUATION
Evaluation should not wait until the lesson is over. You should be evaluating
all along. You will have a sense of how the lesson
is proceeding. As you gain experience, you should find it easier to watch
the responses of children. In the initial stages it may
be difficult for you to do this with much accuracy. But still, you will have
a sense of the lesson, which is part of evaluation.
If you planned your lesson to carefully reflect your stated purpose or objective,
then evaluation should follow naturally. The
type of activities that you plan should allow you to answer the question,
"What did children learn about my objective and how
did they demonstrate that learning?"
The value of evaluation comes in the closeness of match between your purpose
and the activities in which you engage
children. One of the most frequent problems that inexperienced teachers have
is selecting developmentally appropriate
activities that match the proposed objective. This again takes us back to
careful preplanning and really knowing what is to be
taught and how it might be best learned.
Evaluation of the children's learning should also lead you into evaluating
your planning and presentation of the lesson. Here is
where objectivity on your part is needed. Every lesson that you teach will
not be wonderful and you will need to be objective
about your inexperience and what you still need to learn and/or practice.
It is hard to move what we know in our heads into
our behavior, especially teaching behavior that is so new to us.
Initially, it may be hard for you to be critical of yourself. Perhaps you
will need to remind yourself that you are a learner, that
you are just beginning, and should not expect that after a few lessons that
you will reach perfection. What Lucy Calkins says
of writers may also be true for evaluating our teaching, that we should be
"passion hot and critic cold." We should revel in
what we do well, but we should also be our own critics, striving to find
a more informed way to work with children. As we
gain experience, we also need to be open to the evaluation of others who
have more and varied experiences in teaching.
At the close of a lesson, you should take time to step back and look objectively
as you reflect upon your lesson. The
reflecting that you will do should help you go back and hear yourself as
"teacher," to revisit the lesson as you presented it to
inform your evaluation of yourself. One of your goals this semester should
be to become a more objective evaluator of
yourself.