Creating Freedom and Opportunities to Learn!
1. Engagement
Or what we call the 'magnet' or the 'hook' to grab your learner's attention towards the topic. It is the most important part that should make students too curious and excited to learn more about the concept. As a teacher, you need to make it as much personal as possible to them by bringing in something that they experience every day. Demonstrate experiments, ask questions, tell a story, show a riddle or a video to elicit their thinking, let them make predictions, identify misconceptions and start making connections to reach out an answer.
2. Exploration
Now, it's time to further explore the concept and develop ideas. It is time to make discoveries and try out their own ideas. Let them ask questions, make discussion activities, do some research, draw or write down their findings hence revising and refining their current ideas along with making connections to prior ones.
3. Explanation
It is not your turn now as a teacher, Nah! It's the learners' time to verbalize and share their findings and idea with the class using their own words. They are going to present their work and through whole class discussions, they are going to refine their thoughts as deeper understanding will take place hence heling them make meaning out from the previous two Es.
4. Elaboration
For concepts to be further refined and deeply understood, there is a need to extend and apply the knowledge to a new situation or a different scenario in order to tell if students have really grasped the desired ideas. It is time to provide new challenges! Real world applications or experiments, assigning group work, giving new questions can all add more details to move from simple into deep understanding.
5. Evaluation
At the end of the lesson, it is essential to give students an opportunity to reflect and demonstrate their understanding through creating a product and evaluating it. Rubrics and checklists are one of the ways that are used to provide students with guidelines or criteria for the self or peer assessment hey are going to provide.
As one could tell, the 5E model falls under the student-centred strategies as all its stages focus on the student as the ones responsible for their own learning. The teacher would be the facilitator of discussions, the monitor of work and the guide to provide help when needed.
Through inquiry, there is always an opportunity for students to try out their ideas and questions because it strengthens their engagement, elicits their thinking, and fosters their achievements!
