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Guided Inquiry-Based Learning.
Guided Inquiry-Based learning prepares resourceful students who think analytically as valuable members of their communities and who can effectively communicate, with evidence, those issues that matter most to them. Roger Bybee of the Biogoloci Science Curriculum Study developed the constructivism-based 5E instructional model to facilitate inquiry in the science classroom. 5E's model for science education is a well-researched model for active learning that motivates students to learn, engages students in productive learning activities, and prepares students to organize and reinforce their learning beyond the classroom to explain new and related scientific phenomena. The 5E's break learning into different active tasks, Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Extension, and Evaluation. Lessons that utilize the 5E model prompt students to ponder everything they know about a topic and identify any misconceptions first. Then interact with relevant hands-on investigative tasks and connect prior learning to new learning to conclude investigations. Finally, students apply new knowledge to novel situations and use multiple forms of assessment for students to evaluate their learning process.
Vocabulary, Literacy, and Comprehension In Science Classrooms
Multilingual learners are not exempt from full access to science content. Here I share some of the tools I used to teach multilingual learners content that is not watered down but made accessible. To meet the content and language objectives in the classroom, I differentiated my instructions to provide accommodations and explicitly taught vocabulary and literacy.
Connecting new vocabulary terms to previous learning and funds of knowledge with the Frayer model and Morphemic Analysis were ways the student worked with vocabulary in meaningful ways. Activity Summary Boards and Vocabulary Walls provided the repetition needed to acquire new terms and trigger recall.
We used pre-reading strategies like picture prediction and KTQL Charts to build literacy skills before diving into challenging text. Advanced Organizers helped students make meaning of these readings and helped them find critical takeaways. Sentence Starters and Sentence frames modeled composition skills and allowed students to demonstrate what they learned.
All these strategies are research supported to keep my multilingual learners, struggling readers, and writers in the zone of proximal development by lowering the cognitive load of literacy and comprehension-based tasks. Therefore, students dedicate more cognitive bandwidth to utilizing academic language while making sense of conceptually challenging chemistry concepts and academic English.
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