Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning

POGIL® (Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning) is a student-centered instructional approach in which students work in small teams with the instructor acting only as a facilitator. The specially designed activities follow a learning cycle paradigm in which students are presented with data or information to interpret and guiding questions to lead them toward valid conclusions-essentially a recapitulation of the scientific method. Students develop content mastery by constructing their own understanding while developing and improving important learning skills, such as information processing, communication, critical thinking, problem solving and metacognition and assessment.

The POGIL® Approach

The POGIL approach has two broad aims:

  • Develop content mastery through student self-construction of their understanding.
  • Develop and improve important learning skills that are useful across the curriculum.

With POGIL activities, self-managed teams explore on their own to construct understanding as the instructor acts only as a guiding facilitator and not a source of information. As they explore, the discipline content facilitates the development higher level thinking and the ability to learn and to apply knowledge in new contexts. This inquirybased team environment energizes students and provides instructors with constant feedback about what students understand and misunderstand.

Using POGIL in the Classroom

Watch our Using POGIL in the Classroom videos to learn how the guided-inquiry, student-centered activities inspire creativity and increase analytical reasoning skills.

Using POGIL in the Classroom - Chemistry

Using POGIL in the Classroom - Biology

Testimonials

"Through professional development and word-of-mouth, I am exposed to more and more programs and methods and strategies but POGIL, out of all of them, is the one that maximizes student-centered discovery and learning in a way that is practical and authentic given the abstract nature of Chemistry, and remains true to the thought process (logic, analysis, etc.) used by scientists in the field and in the lab.
--L. Pugliese "