The Learning Cycle and Five E’s (5e) models of instruction.
I hear – I forget, I see – I remember, I do – I understand
– Old Chinese Proverb
Effective science and mathematics teachers are
concerned with promoting "meaningful learning”
through a process of guided inquiry, symbolic thinking
and skills development; where meaningful learning
embodies personal knowledge construction, and the
identification of relationships between concepts in an
integrated network of related ideas.
“Everyone deserves to share in the excitement and
personal fulfillment that can come from understanding
and learning about the natural world" (NSES, 1996).
The Learning Cycle: (Karplus, 1962) The “Learning Cycle” promoted by Karplus and others (many
iterations since its introduction) have been called a second-generation constructivist model.
The Learning Cycle in its simplest form is a three-stage inquiry process that includes:
Elicitation (sometimes called exploration)
Development (sometimes called invention)
Application (usually this is the only term used)
These three main phases comprise a variety of goals and tasks. Essentially there is an introduction or
engagement phase (Elicitation/exploration) where learners are first exposed to a new idea. In this phase
the learner’s thinking is engaged and prior ideas/knowledge about the concepts are elicited. As learners
freely explore the ideas or phenomenon in question; their inquiry leads to further questions and tentative
new ideas. Learners look for patterns through their own involvement with provided materials. New ideas
and relationships are explored with minimum teacher guidance. The goal is to allow learners to apply
previous knowledge, feed their interest and stimulate curiosity. This is also a good opportunity for the
teacher to pre-assess student knowledge. This Elicitation phase can entail a simple question that evokes
disequilibrium, or what is often called a “discrepant event” where the new information, phenomenon or
idea is intended to surprise, confound and otherwise unbalance thinking and expose prior conceptions.
The second phase, Development (or Invention) is where the new idea or event is then looked at in detail.
Here is where a teacher would help learners synthesize their emerging ideas, guide them in developing
more precise and incisive thinking, and introduce new “terminology”. Learners link the patters they saw
emerge in the Elicitation phase to specific Exploration strategies. The teacher helps here by clarifying
student descriptions, with discussion about new terms and formalized terminology. Learners are guided to
invent concepts and principles that help them answer questions and address preconceptions. The teacher
generally employs a variety of guided-inquiry strategies and/or direct instruction on terms introduced,
connecting formalized understanding to the learner’s emerging ideas. The goal here is to begin to
understand and reconcile the new information with other supporting or detracting information. Often there
is room for exploring previous conceptions and disassembling them, examining misconceptions, and then
rebuilding more complete ideas incorporating the new information. Often in this phase certain
“generalizations” are then made regarding the new idea and the concept is ready to apply to new
situations or extensions.
In the third phase, Application, learners think of ways to apply concepts learned in phase 2 to new
situations. Learners find examples and non-examples of the concept application. The goal is to have
learners generalize the application of their knowledge. Learners try out their newly
reconstituted/developed ideas by transferring/applying what they have learned to new situations to see if
they hold up, or to gather additional information and make connections to other ideas and concepts.
Throughout the Learning Cycle, and especially in the Development/invention phase, the learner is highly
encouraged to reflect upon their own thinking and learning process and recognize the self-regulating
tendencies, to monitor the “assimilation” process ensuring that misconceptions are not reinforced and that
older non-valid ideas are thoroughly replaced with better explanations and more complete ideas.
The Learning Cycle can be simplified as follows:
1. Elicitation (e): begins with exposure to new and novel ideas, engages thinking, exposes prior
knowledge. Can be a simple provocative question, and event or phenomena. Its purpose is to
engage the learner in thinking and reasoning about the new idea or concept in light of their prior
understandings.
2. Development (d): the new ideas, concept, event or phenomenon is explored in depth, reasoning
through prior conceptions and reconciling with prior ideas through identifying evidence,
gathering additional information, etc. Often new “terminology” is applied to the developing reconceptualizations.
3. Application (a): the newly re-conceived idea or concept is then adapted for application to a new
situation, where it is investigated in another context. This is an opportunity to make connections
with other ideas that support of reinforce the new conception.
A Learning Cycles approach is consistent with
constructivist, inquiry, and cooperative/collaborative
approaches. It affords learners an opportunity to confront
preconceptions, to share, discuss and debate ideas, and it
provides opportunities for teachers to monitor cognitive
development with concrete examples and student
experiences. Learning Cycles approaches also offer an
opportunity for teachers to identify different learning
strategies: Descriptive (students observe, identify
patterns and seek similar patterns elsewhere). Empiricalinductive (students explain phenomena). Hypotheticaldeductive (students make explicit statements of
alternative explanations or phenomena).
Use of Learning Cycle accomplishes the following ends:
• The Learning Cycle allows students to examine the
adequacy of previous beliefs (preconceptions).
• Students are forced to share and/or debate and test their beliefs/ideas.
• It provides disequilibrium for alternative conceptions.
• It provides opportunity to construct more appropriate conceptions.
• It assists students in becoming more skilled in the process of concept construction.
Five E Instructional Model: (Bybee ’97) The 5E’s Approach is a more linear approach to progressive
learning strategies (it is, however, most appropriate to loop back from the evaluation phase where ideas are
applied to new situations, to a new “engage” phase, thus cycling the 5e’s).
Like the Learning Cycle, it takes into
consideration a learner’s existing ideas
and engages them in examining new
information, reconciling alternative
connections and re-integrating new
knowledge to build ever better
understandings.
Five E Instructional Model: a 5-step
learning spiral. Learning spirals or
cycles are an attempt to model a more
learner-centered approach to building
knowledge. Learning cycles/spirals in a
5E’s context provide a guided process
of building understanding, taking into
account prior knowledge, developing
connections between ideas and
concepts, formalizing and integrating
new ideas – accommodation, and
reflecting on the application of new
knowledge to alternative situations.
There are various frameworks for
learning spirals. In the 5E’s model the
spiral/cycle has 5 steps or turns.
This 5E model suggests that a natural learning process contains the following elements:
1. Engage (e1) -- Some phenomenon catches a person’s interest.
2. Explore (e2) – Some observations are made or actions are taken to provide experience with the
phenomenon.
3. Explain (e3) – An effort is made to incorporate this phenomenon and its attributes into the person’s
prior experience. Often, vocabulary is introduced at this stage to describe the phenomenon.
4. Elaborate (e4) – Further observations or experiments are performed to confirm, apply and deepen the
understanding of the phenomenon.
5. Evaluate (e5) – The effectiveness of the observational strategy and the meaning of the information
obtained are evaluated by the student and the teacher.
Note that this model puts the responsibility for learning squarely where it belongs: on the shoulders of the
student. Studies suggest that this strategy facilitates learning more effectively for a broader range of
students than traditional "lecture-first" strategies. It also seems to promote greater retention of the subject
matter than traditional strategies. If properly constructed, this model also gives the student the opportunity
for an improved learning environment in the following ways
1. Interest and Motivation – The initial engaging activity should be designed to interest them in the
problem.
2. Ownership – The concepts constructed during the lab are really the student’s own, rather than being
principles that are handed to them from the outset.
3. Social Interaction – The development of concepts and sharing of observations must result from a joint
effort to understand the laboratory.
4. Reward – An environment where people observe discuss and reach conclusions together is a far more
welcoming environment than one in which the object is to show up and perform.
Our role is to provide an environment (albeit a carefully crafted one) in which students can construct their
understanding of scientific processes and explore how natural phenomena grow out of basic scientific
concepts. Employing learning cycle frameworks will hopefully facilitate a rich learning experience for
students.
How does this compare with what we are leaving behind?
Contrast with "Traditional" Science & Mathematics Instruction. Just for contrast, consider the
structure of a traditional laboratory layout. If we were to develop a model, how would it compare with the
Five E picture above? The current lab experience might be said to consist of three elements:
1. Receive – Read about underlying concepts for the laboratory. (e3 without the student input)
2. Verify – Perform experiments that verify the validity of the concepts presented in phase 1. Learn
techniques for laboratory manipulations. (e4 without student understanding of the rationale for
the experiments)
3. Report – Write up a summary of the results and answer questions about the experiment. Make any
obvious critical statements about the data. (e5 without much critical thinking and evaluation of
strategies employed)
In Science and Mathematics Teaching, the practice, the 5e’s can be synthesized as follows:
The 5E's of Teaching Science
Engage: Activity which will focus student's attention, stimulate their thinking, and access prior
knowledge.
Explore: Activity which gives students time to think and investigate/test/make decisions/problem solve,
and collect information.
Explain: Activity which allows students to analyze their exploration. Student's understanding is
clarified and modified because of a reflective activity.
Extend: Activity which expands and solidifies student thinking and/or apply it to a real-world situation.
Evaluate: Activity which allows the teacher to assess student performance and/or understandings of
concepts, skills, processes, and applications.
The Learning Cycle and 5E model for Science Inquiry and teaching is an effective way to
present new concepts, to novice learners (and those rather more expert as well). In
Eliciting/Engaging the learner using a “discrepant event” or other highly engaging beginning
to the lesson, the teacher can make note of alternative conceptions as they arise, and
employ them in a discussion that works toward remediation and the building of more
accurate science conceptions.
Without formally and openly addressing alternative conceptions – eliciting and
acknowledging students’ prior ideas – a teacher will likely not affect a students thinking in a
way that allows the learner to Accommodate rather than Assimilate new knowledge (Piaget,
Vygotski, etc.)
Reference Figures:
Teaching modes as a spatial model within which teacher-student interactions/dynamics take place.
As the teacher responds to student needs for differing guidance, the bond-link between them flexes.
The goal is to move students into more independent modes of learning, and in the process, a teacher
may invoke multiple styles of interaction:
Socratic, Didactic, Inquiry, Discovery.
Students either gravitate toward the teacher,
relying on them for delivery of information
and guidance, or away from the teacher as
they begin to explore and investigate on their
own. The teacher promotes flexible and
expanded student autonomy by moving away
from a certain style of teaching when
students become too dependent.
References
Atkin, J.M./ Karplus, R. Science Teacher, 29, 45, 1962, "Discovery or invention?"
Bybee, R. W. (1997). Achieving scientific literacy: From purposes to practices. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann.
Carlson, D.A. Dissertation Abstracts, 36, 7368A, 1975, "Training in formal reasoning abilities
provided by the inquiry model approach and achievement on the Piagetian formal operational
level."
Fuller, R., & et al. (1977). Multidisciplinary Piagetian-based Programs for College Freshman.
Lincoln, NE: ADAPT Program.
Hestenes, D. (1987). Toward a modeling theory of physics instruction. Americana Journal of Physics,
55(5), 440-445.
Karplus, A.R., Abraham, M.R. & Renner, J.W. 1989. A theory of instruction: using the learning cycle
to teach science concepts and thinking skills. NARST monograph #1, National Association for
Research in Science Teaching.
Karplus, E., & Karplus, R. (1970). Intellectual development beyond elementary school. School
Science and Mathematics, 70, 398-406.
Karplus, R. (1977). Science Teaching and the Development of Reasoning. Journal of Research in
Science Teaching, 14, 169.
Karplus, R., Renner, J., Fuller, R., Collea, F., & Paldy, L. (1975). Workshop on Physics Teaching
and the Development of Reasoning. Stony Brook: American Association of Physics Teachers.
Karplus, R., & Thier, H. (1967). A new look at elementary school science. Chicago: Rand-McNally.
Lawson, A. (1995). Science Teaching and the Development of Reasoning. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Lawson, A., Abraham, Michael & Renner, J. (1989). A Theory of Instruction: Using the Learning
Cycle to Teach Science Concepts and Thinking Skills. Manhattan, KS: National Association for
Research in Science Teaching.
Lawson, A.R., Abraham, M.R. & Renner, J.W. 1989. A theory of instruction: using the learning cycle
to teach science concepts and thinking skills. NARST monograph #1, National Association for
Research in Science Teaching.
Trowbridge, L.W.; Bybee, R.W. and Powell, J.C. 2000.Teaching Secondary School Science, Chapter
15, "Models for Effective Science Teaching", Merrill/Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
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