Atsusi Hirumi

The natural inquiry of children and problem-solving of adults follow a pattern of initial engagement, exploration of alternatives, formation of explanations, use of the explanations, and evaluation of the explanations based on efficacy and responses from others. Activities encourage conceptual change and a progressive re-forming of ideas.
1. Engage activities provide the opportunity for teachers to identify students’ current concepts and misconceptions. Although provided by a teacher or structured by curriculum materials, these activities introduce major ideas in problem situations. How do students’ explain this situation?
2. Explore activities provide a common set of experiences for students and opportunities for them to "test" their ideas with their own experiences and those of peers and the teacher. How do students’ exploration and explanation of experiences compare with others?
3. Explain activities provide opportunities for students to use their previous experiences to recognize misconceptions and to begin making conceptual sense of the activities through construction of new ideas and understandings. Allows introduction of formal language, terms and content information that makes students’ previous experiences easier to describe and explain.
4. Elaborate activities apply or extend the student’s developing concepts in new activities and relate their previous experiences to the current activities. How does the new explanation work in a different situation?
5. Evaluate activities serve as a summative assessment of what students know and can do. How do students understand and apply concepts and abilities?