The Inquiry Approach: How the Center Employs the 5Es
Our Inquiry Companion Guide utilizes a 5E model. Educators facilitate student-centered learning through activities that ask young scholars to engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate. This learning process engages students by making real-world connections through high-level questioning that prompts self-discovery.
Five Best Practices for We the People
1. Launching Inquiry
Correlates to ➔ Engage
Inquiry is the mode of learning for the We the People (WTP) curriculum. Educators and students engage in compelling questions in every WTP lesson to drive genuine, sustained civic learning.
2. Constitutional Investigation
Correlates to ➔ Explore
We the People educators regularly practice rigorous primary source analysis methods to allow students to explore constitutional principles such as the rule of law, justice, liberty, and equality.
3. Civil Dialogue
Correlates to ➔ Explain
We the People educators have students apply their knowledge to real-world conversations to explain their new understanding and solidify their thinking using academic language.
4. Democratic Simulations
Correlates to ➔ Elaborate
We the People educators invite students to deepen constitutional knowledge and civic dispositions by having them elaborate on their learning via democratic experiences such as our simulated congressional hearings.
5. Informed Engagement
Correlates to ➔ Evaluate
We the People educators evaluate students' civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions. They use project-based learning strategies to measure students' capacity for life-long, informed engagement in democracy. Students are ready to evaluate their civic engagement opportunities.
