One popular method
used to teach science through inquiry is called the 5 E’s. The 5 E’s is an instructional model that is based on
the constructivist process of learning, which says that learners construct or build new knowledge on top of knowledge that
they already have. Therefore, learners use what they know and experiences that they have already had to learn and experience
new things.
The 5 E’s method
is described as having five learning phases, each of which begins with the letter “E”: Engage, Explore, Explain,
Elaborate and Evaluate. During the engage phase, the teacher must grab
the interest of the students by mentally attracting them to a task that connects their past and present learning experiences.
During the explore phase, the teacher acts as the facilitator to provide students with a common base of experiences.
Student should have the opportunity to get directly involved and “explore” their environment or manipulate materials.
During the explain phase, the teacher has the opportunity to introduce formal terms and definitions and explain concepts,
and processes while the students verbalize their theoretical understandings and show new skills. During the elaborate
phase, the students are allowed to further develop the concepts and practice the skills they have learned. This allows the
students to generate a deeper and broader understanding of the material. During the evaluate phase, students are assessed.
Research shows that
the 5 E’s is an effective science teaching method when introducing inquiry teaching and learning into a classroom. Like
other inquiry-based methods, it allows the students to learn science by being scientific.
In this experiment, we used the 5 E’s to compare
direct instruction to inquiry-based instruction when teaching the cell cycle to 9th grade biology students in a
Philadelphia public high school. Two 9th grade classes participated, each containing students of varying ability
levels, ethnicities and social and economic backgrounds. The teacher and students in these classes were both accustomed to
teaching and learning through direct instruction. Class A was categorized as the direct instruction class (our control group),
while Class B was categorized as the inquiry-based class (our experimental group). Each class was assessed exactly the same,
even though the instructional methods were different.
