Chapter 4 reflection

After reading this chapter, I felt well informed about the 5E method of teaching. It was very detailed about the different stages of this process, what to do and what to expect from both teacher and student. One of the things that was mentioned about the second phase , Explore,was the I wonder/I notice chart for students to have as they were working on their project. This would be a good tool to have for students with special needs so they could write down their thoughts and then proceed from there. I also thought that this was an excellent tool and could be used as a general stimulus in the classroom. By taking this chart and putting a large one up in the front of the classroom, students could see what others were "wondering and noticing". It could stimulate students to make additional discoveries that they had not thought to make and encourage different approaches to the same problem, thus encouraging a "community" thought process among the students.

I found the references and examples given in the chapter extremely helpful. I was able to reference the experiment on electricity as I read and found this very helpful. It gave me a comprehensive understanding of the experiment. I also like how the authors have taken the time to provide charts for the 5E Instructional models for teacher/student and what each should do and NOT do. I find that so much of the what NOT to do is the method of teaching that I was exposed to. (yuk!)

Although each of the five steps is very important in teaching a concept and giving the students the tools that they need to apply these concepts to their live and what is around them, I thought the most valuable step in the process was elaboration. The ability to take a concept that you have just learned and apply it further in the same situation or apply it to a new situation is invaluable and a skill that is so important for everyone. Elaboration allows additional opportunities for a basic concept and discovery.

Finally, I realize that I will probably apply this teaching method to anything that I teach. The steps that are taken give opportunity for the student to be engaged in all phases of learning and incorporate a lot of the strategies that we have already learned such as scaffolding and recall of prior knowledge. I appreciated the fact that the authors took the time to talk about the most common teaching methods that have been used to date, explaining each and noting positive aspects of each. They did not discourage any particular method; instead it mentioned that there was a time and place for each, which after reading the chapter I agree with. I am happy to say that I am glad that there is a new way of teaching being taught in schools as I never had the opportunity to "discover" much of anything. I am a product of direct instruction and textbook approaches. It was pretty boring. I vow to never do that to my students.