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 * The 5E Approach to Constructivist Learning **

 The Biological Science Curriculum Study (BSCS), a team whose Principal Investigator is Roger Bybee developed an instructional model for constructivism, called the "Five Es". The 5Es represent five stages of a sequence for teaching and learning: **Engage, Explore, Explain, Extend ** (or **Elaborate ****),** and **Evaluate. The details are given below: ** ** Engage **  This stage should stimulate curiosity and activate prior knowledge of student. The activity should be a problem or an event that raises questions and motivates students to discover more about the concept. Specifically this stage helps in: ** Explore ** Students need the opportunity to actively explore the concept in a hands-on activity. This establishes a commonly shared classroom experience and allows students to share ideas about the concept. 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.
 * 1) Make connections between past and present learning experiences
 * 2) 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.
 * 3) Gives an opportunity for teacher to understand misconception of students

** 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. Teachers use questioning strategies to lead students’ discussion of information discovered during the Explore stage. This phase also provides opportunities for teachers to introduce formal terms, definitions, and explanations for concepts, processes, skills, or behaviors. ** 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. Students are encouraged to apply, extend, and enhance the new concept and related terms during interaction with the teacher and other students. ** 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. The teacher must create a quality assessment to gauge the learner's understanding of the topic. The students must also be able to reflect on their own understanding and progress. ** A Sample Web 2.0 Integrated Constructivist Learning Plan **

 Based on the discussions above, a sample constructivist learning plan is designed using the 5E model is given below. The unit is based on the content of NCERT science text book for class IX. The topic is poultry farming under the larger unit of animal husbandry and is suitable for any secondary school class level. There are many technology integrated activities suggested under each phase of the model and the facilitator can choose and direct the learning based on the available time and resources. The main purpose of learning this topic is to make the learner aware of the poultry farming practices and its importance. The learner is also encouraged to explore the poultry farming practices in different regions of the world and the current status of poultry farming in the country. This unit is also expected to give them many answers to the problem of bird flu which is very common in today’s context. The learning environment created through various phases of this model encourages the learner to use varieties of web 2.0 tools. The learning environment provides the information that learners need to understand poultry farming and related concepts through text documents, graphics, sound, video and animation resources which can be accessed through the World Wide Web. The learners are also provided with various collaborative tools such as e-mail, chat, forum, wiki, blog etc. to form learning communities to negotiate and co-construct meaning about the concepts through these tools.

** Web 2.0 Mediated Constructivist Learning Design ** ** Area: Animal Husbandry- Poultry Farming ** ** 5E Approach ** ** Class IX ** ** Engage ** ** Engaging Activities for the Topic ** · View the **online streaming** video on poultry farming from [] · Collaborative **digital concept map** on egg/poultry farming–mind map- use freemind (offline), bubbl(online) [] · Questions that you want to ask about egg and poultry farm- **online forum** (questions like the following will emerge) [] · Take a **online webquest** on Bird flu from []

** Explore **

** Exploration Activities for the topic ** · Take the following **virtual fieldtrip** 1. Online visit to an organic egg farm / virtual trip [] 2. Poultry virtual farm []

· Visit a Poultry Farm. Visit a nearby poultry farm. Take along all types of **digital recording** equipment. Audiotape farm sounds. Videotape farm activities. Photograph farm people, equipment, crops and animals. Show the world a unique farm in your area by adding your own farm website to the Internet. · Different poultry birds and stages/process of poultry farming –creating **digital album** – flicker/picasa · Understanding poultry farming and poultry birds in different country through: 1. **Online collaboration** through e-pal 2. viewing and discussion of various **streaming videos** from youtube [] 3. through **Google image** search · Ask an expert. Have your class **e-mail (or live chat if available)** an expert about question they have about the poultry farm [], specifically [] , [] · ask question on the following **forum sites** 1. [] 2. [] · View the **webcast** on egg []

** Explain **

** Explain Activities for the Topic ** · Students collaborate and develop a **wiki** on poultry farming using wiki space http://www.wikispaces.com/ · **E-News letter** on poultry farming – Microsoft publisher or equivalent open source software · Plan and design a **digital poultry farm** of your own in groups and share the design · Discuss the difference in poultry farming in different countries using **discussion board/forum/groups** · After the visit to the local poultry farm Show the world a unique farm in your area by adding your own farm **website to the Internet**. · Compare traditional poultry farming with modern poultry farming using **discussion board/forum/groups** · Collaborative **digital concept map** on poultry farming–mind map- use freemind (offline), bubbl(online) []

** Elaborate **

** Elaborate Activities for the Topic ** · Making art work using egg egg shell · They analyse and develop a **social bookmarking** of websites related poultry farming/animal husbandry · Take a **webquest** on the following 1. Bird flu [] 2. From egg to chick [] 3. adventures on aviculture [] · Write a review of a poultry farming website in your **blog** · Develop a collaborative **podcasts** on importance of poultry farms and host it in Gcast · Conduct a survey of poultry industry in india- **internet search and online survey** · Explore the poultry(duck) farming in kerala through **internet and e-mail** · searching the net and making a **database** of poultry related websites 1. The Coop is dedicated to all the folks around the world that raise, breed or show poultry, waterfowl, gamebirds and related species. []

** Evaluate **

** Evaluation Activities for the Topic ** · Create a **digital portfolio** on poultry farming – develop the portfolio using mahara [] o Portfolio artefacts § News letter § Project report § Blog posts etc. · **Online reflective journal** using [] · Peer Assessment · Create **digital rubrics** along with students for assessing the portfolio and other activities using rubistar [] · Develop **digital checklist** for all other activities they are involved in and products they have created using online free form creator -soho creator ( [] ) or googledocs- forms ( [] ) <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Develop and conduct a traditional multiple choice **online test** using Easy Test Maker []