Biological Sciences Curriculum Study - Products

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To advance the teaching of science, BSCS developed a lesson structure they call the "5 E's", standing for the different sections of a lesson. It is important to note that it is NOT considered that these 5 sections--that this lesson--would be done in a single 50-60 minute class period. These 5 e's include: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate. These 5e's were later expanded to 7E's by (a downloadable pdf is available) to emphasize particular aspects of a few sections:

• Elicit prior understandings: As you get students to think about the concepts of the day/unit, simultaneously find out what lived-experiences they have that involve the concepts.
• Engage: Generate enthusiasm! Cool demo, let 'em see the cool thing they will touch/see/do (but be careful to not spoil any surprises).
• Explore: students observe, record data, isolate variables, design and plan experiments, create graphs, interpret results, develop hypotheses, and organize their findings. Students develop their own explanation.
• Explain: Students are introduced to models, laws, and theories. Students develop potentially new explanations based on these new theories and models.
• Elaborate: provides an opportunity for students to apply their knowledge to new domains (new contexts), which may include raising new questions and hypotheses to explore. Also, could include numerical problems.
• Evaluate: include both formative and summative evaluations of student learning.
• Extend: The addition of the extend phase to the elaborate phase is intended to explicitly remind teachers of the importance for students to practice the transfer of learning. Thus during this phase, students again use their knowledge in additional contexts.