As a school that focuses on hands-on, inquiry science opportunities for our students, our teachers searched for a type of lesson design that accomplished this goal. The 5 E Instructional Model was developed for the purpose of helping teachers develop more hands-on, inquiry based learning experiences in science.
The 5 E's include: engage, explore, explain, extend, evaluate. One of the key components to this instructional model is that the students are doing the exploring and explaining. Instead of the traditional method of the teacher explaining the concept and how it works, the students are developing their own explanations as they explore and investigate.
Another key aspect is when vocabulary is introduced or shared with students. Teachers engage the students in learning about the content by doing some type of hands-on experiment or activity. Specific vocabulary is not introduced until the explain phase and should be used by the students first. Now, that being said, if you have a student who is perfectly describing a concept but does not have the specific word to label it, the teach can provide the word at that point. For example, let's say a group of students are sharing what they noticed during an experiment about soil and erosion (explain phase of this cycle). The students explain how they watched the soil be pushed aside by the water during their testing. They continue by adding the water left a large path in the dirt after flowing across the soil. As the teacher, I might say "do you know what scientists call that concept you are describing?" If the students say no, I might ask other groups if they know the term. If no one can help, I would say "a scientist would call that 'erosion'. That is what is happening when the soil is pushed away by the water." The most important difference between providing the vocabulary here and not in the beginning is the students have the background knowledge and context to connect that term to because of their exploration.
My teachers have found this instructional method to be very beneficial for students. While it does take some transition and reflection to implement for a teacher who is use to providing the information to the class, it helps students develop a deeper understanding in the end.
If you live in Missouri and would like to possibly learn more about the 5E Instructional Model, you can look in to participating in the QUEST (Quality Elementary Science Teaching) Program through the University of Missouri - Columbia. Several of my teachers have completed this professional development and found it very powerful and necessary to change how they teach science.
Here are a few links where you can learn more about the 5 E Instructional Model.
Click here for a general description
Click here for an explanation from NASA
Click here to see a 5E lesson plan example integrating reading, writing, engineering, and science.
Click here for a basic planning pageClick here to see a 5E lesson plan example integrating reading, writing, engineering, and science.
Nice job Heather!
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