POGIL a Resource in Teaching Secondary and PostSecondary

Introduction
When walking into a classroom,
wondering what is going to happen today is
on every teachers mind. What if a student
needs all my attention during the class and I
cannot work with my other students? Most
new teachers have no idea if they really know
how to handle this situation. A more
experience teacher may have a work sheet
for the students to do if this happens, but the
other students are really left high and dry.
What is out there to help teachers continue
to teach their students and still be able to do
many things at once. How can teachers
today make their students more desirable for
the global job market? What can a teacher
do in their classroom to make their students,
better communicators, reflectors on person
work, critical thinkers, and better problem
solvers, all while still their the material and
keeping up with mandatory state deadlines
and have their students reach goals set by
the government. A solution too these
question is POGIL.
Key Works: POGIL, active student center,
Job Market skill, group work
What is POGIL?
POGIL is Process Oriented Guided
Inquiry Learning, in other words, POGIL is
an active learning where students work in
small groups with roles to play. The system

develop skill such as critical thinking,

problem solving, and

Communication. Through cooperation and

refection (POGIL, 2012). POGIL was created
in 1994 in a college Chemistry Department
and it has grown over to cover a wide range
of disciplines in High School and colleges.
(POGIL, 2012). Teacher are using this more
and more due to the added benefits that their
students with skills learned and can turn
students into lifelong learners because they
are more engaged in the content and for the
teacher and how it will change their
classroom.
POGIL is structured to have students
work in small groups that have roles that are
assigned by the teacher. The roles are
manager, they are in charge of keeping their
group on the given task, recorder, who
records the information that is was gained
throughout the process, presenter is the
person that shares their information with the
class, and the reflector will report to the class
or the teacher how the group worked
together and worked on the performance of
the group (Trevathan, J., Gray, H., & Myers,
T., 2014)
How does POGIL Work?
POGIL was created to help students
in college chemistry classroom and this is
still the main focus of POGIL. The use of

 POGIL A Tool in Teaching Chemistry Secondary and Post-Secondary

POGIL by Chemistry students in High School

and Colleges both show the same thing, student
do better with POGIL (Barthlow, M. J., &
Watson, S. B., 2014). How does this happen?
POGIL allows students to be more successful
because of it allows students to learn hands on
with representation through models they build
and can grasp and have a better understanding
than just hearing about it or looking at it though
a text book picture.
POGIL is active, student- centered
instruction, which turns the students into
constructors of knowledge, which allows the
students to feel like they have an actual say in
what they are learning (Barthlow, M. J., &
Watson, S. B., 2014). POGIL is an example of
process differentiation, as the P in POGIL is,
indeed, process. POGIL utilizes guided inquiry
set in cooperative learning groups where
students actively build on their previous
knowledge while giving to and receiving from
their group mates learning support as needed
(Barthlow, M. J., & Watson, S. B., 2014).
Students in a POGIL lesson evaluate the
learning model provided and move from their
own unique cognitive starting place, based on
their personal prior knowledge. This active
process of POGIL differs from the traditional
passive lecture pedagogy, which provides only
one lesson for all listening to the lecture. The
active involvement in a POGIL lesson results in
process differentiation from traditional lecture.
(Barthlow, M. J., & Watson, S. B., 2014).
How Does POGIL Help Teachers in the
Classroom?
The way that POGIL is set up is student
are place in small groups. This allows teachers
to look at students as a team and allows the
students to teach each other and have the
teacher be more of a resource not just as
someone that lectures at them. With students
being in small groups more question can be
asked and students will understand how the

contain works and they can go and help another

group that are struggling. This system is used to
keep more students engaged in the material due
to the active learning style that is needed to
complete the learning objective for that day
(Lenz, 2015). The use of POGIL give students
the stimuli to make them want to push
themselves further to complete the learning
outcome. Students that we POGIL are more
likely to continue in the discipline, and their test
score are higher than students that have not
used POGIL (Barthlow, M. J., & Watson, S. B.,
2014).
The use of POGIL in the classroom also
changed the dynamic in the classroom that will
benefit teacher that have large classroom sizes,
and in small classrooms as well. POGIL creates
an environment relaxed friendly, and trusting
classroom, that students feel safe enough in to
share because everyone has to share what they
have learned (Trevathan, J., Gray, H., & Myers,
T. , 2014). The use of POGIL helps teacher is
large classroom by give order to the students.
With students in small groups the classroom
management is easier to maintain because in
each group has a designated leader and a
reporter. These two roles lends to keeping the
group on task.
POGIL give teacher classroom actives
that teachers the students what is needed to be
learned. Teacher or school districts can buy a
course of from POGIL, which has teaching tips
and gives teacher accuse to printable work
pages that will guide the students through the
learning outcomes. Most teachers give a brief
outline of what the class is doing and make give
some hints to get the ball rolling. Most of the
time during the class students are working in
their group to figure out what is needed to be
taught. The teacher mostly walks around
observing with give help when needed.
(POGIL, 2012).

Teachers can use POGIL in many

different ways. One way POGIL can be used in
the class would be to make would be to lecture
about the topic and then give them POGIL
activity to reinforce what they learned. This
would be a more traditional way to teach the
class so that the students and the teacher can
become more comfortable. Another way to use
POGIL is to have a flip classroom. This could
be used a flip classroom. The use of a flip
classroom and POGIL could give the teacher the
ability to teach more information in a shorter
amount of time. This would give the students
more chances to learn the material and make
the students more responsible on their own
learning.
The use of POGIL also gives teacher the
resource that gives teacher worksheets, and
lecture outline. POGIL gives teacher more time
do work in the class. POGIL outline gives
teacher more time to adapt to the lesson and
their classroom work time (Trevathan, J., Gray,
H., & Myers, T., 2014). The use of POGIL gives
the teacher more ability to give their students a
deeper understanding of the material.
Chemistry is a very challenging for
students to understand. The use of POGIL can
help urban setting schools have some of the best
results of from using POGIL in chemistry (K.
Carr, 2009). The method of using POGIL gives
teacher the ability to give the students a deeper
understanding of the materials. With the use
of POGIL in urban city allows for teachers who
have high number of students to have a chance
to reach more students. Having a resource s
that would give Chemistry teachers a different
way to reach students.
Conclusion
Being able to teach in more than one
way is a great resource s to have. POGIL give
teachers the ability to reach their students in
different ways. The use of POGIL is a great way
to help manage classroom, with putting student

in small groups. This gives students the ability

to learn world market job skill. POGIL is a good
resource of teacher that will allow students to
gain more responsibility about their learning.
POGIL is a Process Orientated Guided Inquiry
Learning, which gives teachers the ability to
teachers in students centered learning. POGIL
is a great resource for teacher, by giving teacher
resource s to outline for the classroom, and help
their students become more willing to learn.
POGIL is a great resource for teacher in both
High School and Post-Secondary School, in
many discipline.

Reference
Barthlow, M. J., & Watson, S. B. (2014). The
Effectiveness of ProcessOriented Guided
Inquiry Learning to Reduce Alternative
Conceptions in Secondary Chemistry. School
Science and Mathematics, 114(5), 246-255.
Lenz, L. (2015). Active Learning in a Math for
Liberal Arts Classroom. PRIMUS, 25(3), 279296.
Trevathan, J., Gray, H., & Myers, T. (2014).
Scaling-up Process-Oriented Guided Inquiry
Learning Techniques for teaching large
information systems courses. Journal of
learning design, 7, 23-38.
Pogil - Process Oriented Guided Inquiry
Learning. (2012). Retrieved February 29, 2016
Carr, K. (2009). Q & A: Interview: Bryce Hach:
High School Chemistry Teaching Gets a Boost.
Science Activities: Classroom Projects and
Curriculum Ideas, 46(2), 38-40. Retrieved
February 20, 2016.

 POGIL A Tool in Teaching Chemistry Secondary and Post-Secondary