Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning or POGIL is a student-centered instructional approach. In a typical POGIL classroom or laboratory, students work in small teams with the instructor acting as a facilitator. The student teams use specially designed activities that guide them through the three phases of the learning cycle.
During this phase, students work on finding trends or patterns of regularity in the environment or data provided by the instructor. This could be achieved through a combination of readings, models, graphs, equations, pictures, experiments, or demonstrations. During this phase, students generate hypotheses, test their hypotheses and develop an explanation of their observation.
In this phase, students define or “invent” a new concept using the trends that emerged.
During this phase, students apply the newly discovered concept to new situations, thus deepening their understanding.
In a POGIL classroom or lab, individual students within a team are assigned specific roles such as manager, presenter, reflector, timekeeper, and recorder.
To sum up, POGIL allows students to explore and use discipline content to construct understanding and develop content mastery, while also developing important cognitive and affective process skills, including higher-level thinking, problem-solving, and communication through cooperation and reflection
Read
The following video is a brief introduction to POGIL.
What is POGIL? from The POGIL Project on Vimeo.
To learn more about POGIL visit the official POGIL website or contact OTL for more in-depth information.
