The Approach to Implementing POGIL

As a POGIL practitioner, you work with students to create an effective team learning environment and guide students in the process of learning, developing skills, and developing their own understanding—all critically important for a successful POGIL learning experience for teacher and student, and often a new paradigm for a classroom teacher. 

There is no single way to implement POGIL in the classroom and every implementation has unique characteristics that can influence how and whether particular goals are achieved. However, there are 4 core characteristics that must be present in order for a classroom environment to be considered a POGIL implementation:

• Students are expected to work collaboratively, generally in
  groups of 3 or 4.

• The activities that the students use are POGIL activities,
  specifically designed for POGIL implementation.

• The students work on the activity during class time with a
  facilitator present.

• The dominant mode of instruction is not lecture or instructor-
  centered; the instructor serves predominantly as a facilitator of student learning.

In addition, there are two common attributes of many POGIL classroom implementations and facilitation strategies that, when combined with the required characteristics above, have been shown to be very important to effective POGIL implementation:

• Students have assigned roles within their groups.

• The activity is designed to be the first introduction to the topic or specific content.