The POGIL Spring 2016 Newsletter is Now Ready for Download

Monday March 3rd, 2016

Click below to see the latest issue!

Dear friends,

Spring has finally made it to Lancaster, and with it come good wishes and news from The POGIL Project. First, please join me in congratulating Tammy Pirmann of the School District of Springfield Township, PA, and Tricia Shepherd of St. Edward's University, Austin, TX, for receiving The POGIL Project’s inaugural Early Achievement Award. Givento one post-secondary and one secondary educator, the award recognizes practitioners who are relatively new to The Project and have distinguished themselves by advancing the goals of The POGIL Project.

We’re also excited about the fantastic response to our summer regional workshops—the Northeast Regional Workshop at Simmons College is already full, and the Southeast, Central, Southwest, and Northwest workshops are filling quickly. If you’re planning to attend one of the four remaining workshops, please register soon to guarantee your spot.

And, look for another exciting program in the works: the National Conference for Advanced POGIL Practitioners, scheduled for June 26-28, 2017, at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. You’ll be hearing more about this in the coming months.

Finally, we’re getting ready for the POGIL National Meeting. We have another capacity crowd this year—a testament to the incredible devotion of the POGIL community and your willingness to work together to advance The Project’s strategic plan and transform education through our collective efforts.

Thank you for everything you do on behalf of The POGIL Project. All of this would not be possible without the support we continually receive from you, the educators and thinkers that help sustain The POGIL Project and our programs. 

Warmly, 

Rick

Ask The Mole

Q: Can I implement POGIL in my laboratory course?

A: The simple answer is, “Yes, of course!”

The learning cycle framework used in POGIL activities can be applied to laboratory work in the same manner as it is in the classroom. In its simplest form, instead of giving the students a goal of completing an experiment or obtaining a result, you would start by asking them a question and provide an experimental framework that could provide data that can be used to answer that question. With guidance, students work together to develop the details of the experiment and decide what data they want to acquire to answer the question. In an advanced laboratory, the students can be asked to refine their experiment and repeat it to answer the question with more detail.

As with classroom activities, the laboratory activity is driven by carefully structured questions. The questions are designed either for pre- experiment work to get students thinking about the work ahead, and also for reflection about the data they have acquired and what it means.

To get a better sense of how POGIL can be used in the laboratory or how you might convert your favorite traditional experiment into a POGIL experiment, a Lab Track has been added to the Southeast and Northeast Regional Workshops this summer.

If you have any questions regarding inquiry learning, POGIL materials, or any POGIL-related knowledge, email us at marcy.dubroff@pogil.org