Reflections Journal, Week 5

Last week I was on a website, http://www.miamisci.org/ph/lpintro5e.html. The site was titled, "Constructivism and the Five E's." Basically the five E’s are a systematic approach to constructivism and technology in the classroom, particularly in the science classroom. I had never heard about the 5 E's. The five E’s are: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate and Evaluate. Everything I’ve ever been taught about incorporating/creating a classroom environment with constructivism can be summarized into this notion of the 5 E’s. When I first saw this I completely agreed with all of the E’s except for Explain. Explain puzzled me. While I realize how Explain works into constructivism, I didn’t see it as a key component. I started looking through other sites and lessons to see how the evidence, or lack there of, for Explain. As I started digging I was finding more and more evidence validating Explain. I did notice in my past lesson plans, I usually coupled Explain with the evaluation – this is why I think it went under the radar for me. I’ve always included some sort of explanation into my lessons, but I usually always add it to something else. I didn’t see Explain as a strong enough trait to stand on its own.