Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning
POGIL is Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning. coLearn-AI brings guided questions, shared group work, and instructor insight together to support this student-centered approach.
Visit The POGIL ProjectPOGIL combines small-team learning with carefully designed activities that help students develop concepts and practice process skills. Students build understanding through inquiry, while the instructor facilitates their learning. Learn about the POGIL approach.
From pedagogy to practice
POGIL connects content understanding with the deliberate development of learning skills. The platform supports that design through the tools below; the instructor’s activity design and facilitation bring the pedagogy to life.
01 / GUIDED INQUIRY
POGIL principle: Students construct understanding through exploration, concept development, and application.
In coLearn: Use the activity builder to sequence models, evidence, and guiding questions in text or code activities. Ask groups to explain patterns before introducing formal terminology, then test their ideas in a new context.
02 / TEAM ROLES
POGIL principle: Small, self-managed teams share responsibility for learning.
In coLearn: Facilitator, analyst, quality-check, and spokesperson roles distribute responsibilities; shared work and turn rotation support participation. Explain how each role contributes to discussion, evidence checking, and a group response that every member can explain.
03 / PROCESS SKILLS
POGIL principle: Process skills are explicit goals embedded in the activity alongside course content.
In coLearn: Build prompts that require evidence-based reasoning, communication, problem solving, and self-assessment. For example, ask a group to compare two explanations, justify its choice, and reflect on how discussion changed its thinking. Shared responses and revisions provide material for that reflection.
04 / FACILITATION
POGIL principle: The instructor facilitates students’ thinking and responds to team needs.
In coLearn: Course, activity, and group views help instructors notice stalled progress and examine explanations. Use that evidence to ask a probing question, invite a team to revisit its model, or organize a class discussion. Responses and revisions inform coaching beyond completion counts.
05 / AI SCAFFOLDING
Design choice for coLearn: AI is an additional support tool, not a defining element of POGIL.
Review AI prompts and feedback so they direct students back to evidence and discussion. A prompt such as “Which observation supports your explanation?” leaves the intellectual work with the team. Configure guidance to preserve student discovery and the instructor’s facilitation role.
06 / ACTIVITY DESIGN
Putting the principles into practice: Create or refine an activity, preview its questions, and revise before launching it. Check that the model gives students something to investigate, questions build toward understanding, and a named process skill is practiced and reflected on. Platform features support these choices; using group roles or AI alone does not make an activity POGIL.
An example activity
This sample sequence shows how an instructor could organize a guided-inquiry activity in coLearn-AI.
Give the group a small network diagram. Ask students to trace possible routes and describe what happens when a connection is removed.
Have students compare observations and explain which features keep the network connected. Ask the group to support its explanation with evidence from the model.
Present a different network and ask students to predict its behavior. Finish with a prompt about how their roles and discussion improved the group’s reasoning.
The instructor can follow group progress and use students’ explanations to choose when to ask a probing question or bring the class together.
Start with a learning goal, a model worth investigating, and a process skill for students to practice. Then use coLearn-AI to organize the questions and make the group’s reasoning available for feedback.
Try the coLearn-AI demoExplore the POGIL Project’s resources on the learning cycle and process skills and classroom facilitation.