High School POGIL Initiative Implementation Guide
Welcome to our Implementation Guide! This resource was developed through the High School POGIL Initiative (HSPI), a 3-year project designed to bring student-centered, guided inquiry instruction to secondary school classrooms. The HSPI has created a set of activity collections, for biology and chemistry, at both the first year and AP levels. These activity collections are now available through Flinn Scientific.
As any classroom teacher can attest, quality curriculum materials are only a piece of the educational puzzle. Effective implementation of an instructional strategy is key to having a successful classroom experience with students. Contained within the pages of this web-based Implementation Guide, you will find suggestions, tips, videos clips, material files and more, created and shared by high school POGIL practitioners. These teachers are working in a variety of settings - from large and urban to small and rural, from public schools to private academies - but all share the common goal of improved science education. Each has experienced success using POGIL activities with their students and wants to pass along what they have learned. Specifically, we want to acknowledge the HSPI Partners and Editorial team, and the participants in the Northern Colorado POGIL-Hach Collaboration for their contributions to this guide.
We hope you will find these pages useful. If you have any comments, or information and tips you would like to add to the Implementation Guide, please contact The POGIL Project via email at
Stage 1 - Shifting to a Student-Centered Classroom
Whether you are looking to test the waters with some preliminary adjustments to your classroom routines or are ready to dive in the deep end of the POGIL pool, here are some points to consider BEFORE implementing your first activity.
- Why use POGIL?
- When do I use a POGIL activity?
- Curriculum Considerations
- My new role as Facilitator
- Communication
- Classroom Setup
- Materials Needed / Implementation Costs
- Grading
- Student Roles
Stage 2 - POGIL In Your Classroom
As with any instructional technique, you will experience both successes and challenges when using POGIL. This section includes tips from our practitioners about the kinds of things that come up during DAY-TO-DAY implementation in the classroom and can help you make adjustments to refine your instructional practice.
- Class Discussion
- Formative Assessment / Reporting Out
- The Mini-Lecture
- Pacing
- Student Groups
- Classroom Management / Dealing with Challenges
- Process Skill Development
Stage 3 - The Reflective POGIL Practitioner
Ongoing items to consider to ENHANCE your use of POGIL in your classroom.
- Extending Activities, Evaluation and Assessment
- Writing and Refining Activities
- Support and Networking
- Reflecting / SII