Pogil - Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning

Activity Writing: 

Assistance with writing activities is one way The POGIL Project supports its implementers.

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Download any of our writing documents.

Writing Content Learning Objectives

Writing Process Skill Goals

Basic POGIL Classroom Implementation

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To Request Feedback

More to come in Summer 2010 as we develop this new process!

Writing Documents

Many participants leave our workshops with the desire to begin writing materials for their courses.  To assist with these efforts, The POGIL Project is currently documenting many of the fundamentals faculty need to consider when writing a POGIL activity and facilitating a POGIL classroom.

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Writing Content Learning Objectives for POGIL Activities

POGIL activities have specific content learning objectives.  Content learning objectives are statements of what students will be able to “do” as a result of completing the activity.  Authors should focus on these goals when writing a classroom activity.  The following are some example statements detailing various content objectives.

• Students can identify the components of the learning cycle in a POGIL activity. (A Guided Exploration of POGIL)
• Students can articulate that the number of protons determines the identity of an atom or ion, that this quantity is labeled “atomic number”, and that this number is indicated as the whole number under each element symbol in the periodic table.  (ChemActivity 1)
• Students can describe in words and in a diagram how the valves in the heart control the one-way flow of blood.  (Circulatory System Activity)
• Students can provide a verbal and diagrammatic description of credit default swaps (CDS) and can articulate how an unregulated speculative CDS market contributed to the 2008 banking crisis. (EconActivity)

An effective activity can have either a single learning goal or multiple learning goals.  However, from experience, we have discovered that activities written to achieve more than three content objectives will overwhelm students in terms of their cognitive processing and take longer than the typical class time of 40 or 50 minutes.  Hence, an activity designed for use in a typical one-hour class meeting will normally have no more than three content learning objectives.

Language is important when writing these statements.  The word “understand” is not an appropriate verb in a content learning objective statement, because it does not indicate what the student is able to “do.”  An appropriate alternative is to write the statement to reflect the student’s actions when demonstrating the understanding.  For example:

• Students understand the concept of “sunk costs.”  (Incorrect)
• Students can provide a written definition of “sunk costs” and can provide at least two examples of personal experiences or situations in which this concept might be appropriately applied.  (Correct)

While an instructor may or may not choose to explicitly state the content learning objectives within the activity, clearly written goals must be included in supplemental teachers' materials and are required upon application for activity feedback from The POGIL Project.

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Writing Process Skill Goals for POGIL Activities

One of the principles that characterize POGIL as a teaching strategy and philosophy is the explicit emphasis on the development of process skills as an important component of the student learning experience.  The process skills that we refer to here include both cognitive and affective processes that students use to acquire, interpret, and apply knowledge.  At its outset, The POGIL Project identified seven process skills as those that would be the focus of development in a POGIL classroom:

• Teamwork
• Management
• Information Processing
• Critical Thinking       
• Oral and Written Communication
• Problem Solving
• Assessment

However, many other process skills are important and valuable.  For example, the ability to make order of magnitude estimates is a valid and worthwhile process skill even though it is not one of the seven listed above. (Some might consider this to be a useful skill to employ in problem solving, but making estimates is not the same as problem solving.)  In an effective POGIL activity, the author has explicitly considered what process skill (or skills) is particularly well suited for development in that context, and has designed the activity to promote the development of the chosen process skill.

In any well-designed POGIL activity that follows the Learning Cycle structure and is implemented using the Basic POGIL Implementation Structure (see relevant documents for description), the first five listed process skills (Teamwork, Management, Information Processing, Critical Thinking, Communication) will be used and practiced by the students.  Although this is the case, such an activity should be designed to specifically emphasize the development of one or two of these five (e.g. interpreting graphs is a specific example of Information Processing).  Alternatively, an activity may be written with process goals other than those listed above.  In both cases, an author should consciously choose which process skills to be the focus.

Being explicit about process skills is generally a less familiar task for faculty than identifying content goals.  Also, in contrast to content goals for which the student is expected to be able to “do” something, the outcome for a process skill goal is improvement in the use of that skill.  Below are examples of appropriate descriptions of process skill goals for an activity.  Note that in some cases, the place in the activity where the process skill is developed is stated.  This can be helpful, as it is an additional way for authors to focus on how the intended process skill goals are being achieved.  It also helps others to better assess the extent to which an activity is likely to improve the designated process skill.

• Self-assessment and metacognition are emphasized (see Models 5a and 5b in A Guided Exploration of POGIL)
• Problem solving (see Critical Thinking Question 10 in ChemActivity 1)
• Interpreting diagrams (a specific component of Information Processing).  (Circulatory System Activity)
• Translating between representations (pictorial representation and verbal representation).  (EconActivity)

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Basic POGIL Classroom Implementation

There is no single way to implement POGIL.  Every classroom implementation of POGIL has unique characteristics that can influence how and whether particular goals are achieved.  However, there are four core characteristics that must be present in order for a classroom environment to be considered a POGIL implementation:

1.  Students are expected to work collaboratively, generally in groups of 3 or 4.
2.  The activities that the students use are POGIL activities, specifically designed for POGIL implementation.
3.  The students work on the activity during class time with a facilitator present.
4.  The dominant mode of instruction is not lecture or instructor-centered; the instructor serves predominantly as a facilitator of student learning.

In addition, there are some common attributes of many POGIL classroom implementations and facilitation strategies that, when combined with the required characteristics above, provide a good starting point for any POGIL implementation:

5.  Students have assigned roles within their groups.
6.  The activity is designed to be the first introduction to the topic or specific content.
7.  The students are not expected to have worked on any part of the activity prior to class meeting time.
8.  Groups are expected to complete all of the Critical Thinking Questions (or equivalently designated questions) during class (in no more than about 40 minutes of actual working time), but they are not expected to work on any of the Exercises or Problems.

The eight characteristics listed above define the Basic POGIL Classroom Implementation.

One of the main purposes for this definition is to provide a “baseline” for describing an individual’s unique implementation to others in the POGIL community.  It is very important to reiterate that every POGIL implementation is unique and is customized to best serve the goals of the instructor in the context of the specific collection of students and institutional circumstances that are present.  Many effective POGIL implementations do not adhere to all of points 5 – 8 mentioned above.  However, this combination of attributes has been found to be effective in a wide range of settings.  Implementers should consider the Basic POGIL Classroom Implementation structure as a starting point for their analysis of how they will decide to implement POGIL materials in the classroom.

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POGIL Rubrics

Rubrics have been developed to assess POGIL activities.  The rubrics below are designed to assess content learning objectives and process skill goals.