Core Learning Cycle
Our core learning cycle is based on the 5E instructional model. This model is flexibly used and adjusted depending on the age of the child and the scientific problem being studied. The 5Es are a stepwise teaching and learning strategy: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate.
The 5 stages are:
- Engage – promotes interest and connections to past understandings
- Explore – involvement with phenomena and materials to encourage new understandings
- Explain – communicate what has been learned
- Elaborate – teachers and students determine how much learning has taken place
- Evaluate – teachers check student understanding of knowledge and concepts by using rubrics, teacher observation, student interviews, projects, science notebooks, and portfolios
The advantage of an inquiry model is that it allows students to be in charge of their learning and use their teachers as guides. In collaboration with the STEM theme coach, teachers introduce, implement and evaluate students’ progress in scientific knowledge and skills. At home, parents can support the STEM theme by listening to, discovering with, and seeing the world through the eyes of their child.