The 5E lesson Cycle

Creating Freedom and Opportunities to Learn!

The 5E cycle is considered to be the most successfully implemented inquiry-based strategy within science and math classes. As its name indicated, it is divided into 5 order stages: Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaboration, and Evaluation. 

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!

Inquiry-based Learning: An Educational Trend

Let them ask, investigate, reflect, discuss, and create!

The inquiry-based method focuses on students' drawing on their own experiences and findings to develop inferences and make sense of phenomena. It strengthens students' engagement, elicits their thinking and fosters their achievements. In contrary to traditional learning, the students' ideas are at the centre of the learning process as knowing the correct answer is no longer the most valuable trait. Instead, students need to be prepared to the world outside the classroom, they need to become skilled in the way they ask questions, use their knowledge to think of answers to their everyday problems, be inventive and creative, and discover the outside world. 

As educators, it is our role to be the guide moving all around the classroom, not the person who is just standing in front of the board, talking and talking and talking all the time, asking them to repeat, and celebrating their high grades for rote learning; but forgetting about the zero they will take when they face life while we are not there for them. 

The Change from Adopting a Passive Learning Process into an Active One!

 What is a thing that you are able to do now and wasn't able to do it a year ago!

Self improvement: A better version of yourself!

During my first year of teaching, I used to be the only active part in the classroom as my teachers used to do. All I wanted was to finish the lessons in lesser number of sessions as much as possible and cover the book. I used to explain the concept or idea, solve exercises in front of the class, and ask them to memorize and solve similar exercises in the same way I've done. Little had been the students who participated or asked questions in the class. So, kind of it was a very direct and passive, teacher-centred approach that was followed and this had made my sessions boring. 

It was up until I've done a 4 months training the following academic year about teaching strategies and started to follow the inquiry-based method where I introduce a question about the topic and relate it to the students' life experiences, use visuals and animations, present PowerPoints with videos, do easy experiments in class or at home when materials are available. They started to figure out the answer themselves through relating ideas together, analysing, making discussions in class guided by me, and hence reaching final conclusions. I realized that engaging students in the learning process rendered learning fun and meaningful for both of us, their participation in asking or solving questions and giving them the chance to discover the concept allowed them to better retain the required information and do better in assessments. Now, they truly enjoy the sessions, not shy to ask or express their thoughts, and always wait for more.

It was not easy at all. I was left to work on my own without having any experience and without any supervision or guidance. To make that move is one of the things that I feel so proud about. My desire to seek the best for the learners and make my sessions much more interesting and engaging was more than enough to think twice about the strategies I use in the class.  There is always one thing that should come into our minds while preparing a lesson: If you and the students didn't enjoy the learning process and the activities done, then you are not teaching appropriately. It is such an amazing feeling when you and your students are working genuinely, all your senses are involved, all your thoughts are organized and focused to reach and master the required outcomes and hence the ultimate goal of enjoying learning and always waiting for the next session. Improving my educator self on a daily basis is what I always seek which in turn makes me feel that I belong here and I can make a difference as long as I am trying and welling to give more, and learn more!