Math

Check out this perspective-expanding and enjoyable talk with Dan Finkel, Founder and Director of Operations of Math for Love, who invites us to approach learning and teaching math with courage, curiosity, and a sense of play.

The 5 E approach is very essential to math and science. It ensures teachers are using inquiry-based and constructivist approaches to learning. The 5 E's are shown to the left. They are engage, explore, explain, extend, and elaborate. Each is summarized below:

1. Engage: This phase of the 5 E's starts the process. An "engage" activity should do the following:

• Make connections between past and present learning experiences
• Anticipate activities and focus students' thinking on the learning outcomes of current activities. Students should become mentally engaged in the concept, process, or skill to be learned.

2. Explore: This phase of the 5 E's provides students with a common base of experiences. They identify and develop concepts, processes, and skills. During this phase, students actively explore their environment or manipulate materials.

3. Explain: This phase of the 5 E's helps students explain the concepts they have been exploring. They have opportunities to verbalize their conceptual understanding or to demonstrate new skills or behaviors. This phase also provides opportunities for teachers to introduce formal terms, definitions, and explanations for concepts, processes, skills, or behaviors.

4. Elaborate: This phase of the 5 E's extends students' conceptual understanding and allows them to practice skills and behaviors. Through new experiences, the learners develop deeper and broader understanding of major concepts, obtain more information about areas of interest, and refine their skills.

5. Evaluate: This phase of the 5 E's encourages learners to assess their understanding and abilities and lets teachers evaluate students' understanding of key concepts and skill development.