Methodology 8

Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Lessons (POGIL)

Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Lessons are part of a learning strategy that has both a constructivist and social component. In other words, it focuses on using the real life experiences of the learner to create knowledge and considers how students relates to the environment where they are taught.

When engaging in POGIL’s, the teacher assigns text to students, and then poses a set of questions that they can only answer by exploring the text that was given. In this process, the teacher has to fight the urge to give students any answers or facts to memorize. Their main role is to pose questions that provoke the students to look more deeply at the text they are given. In a POGIL classroom, students develop conclusions about the text they are interrogating that will increase their knowledge. As students answer questions, teachers “guide the inquiry” by asking supplemental questions that will eventually move the students towards thinking deeply and drawing more complex conclusions. This approach has resulted in increased student interest in the subject being taught and increased mastery of content in the science classes where it is mostly used.