Benefits of P.O.E
The simple POE procedure works well with a surprisingly large number of standard science learning activities. It has been used successfully with students from preschool (using drawings and talk) to college and post-college ages. Although there is not much to it in terms of structure, it appears to help in several ways:
First of all, it helps students to slow down and reflect on what they are doing. The writing takes time, even more if students work in groups and discuss their writing, but that time is exactly what is needed to think about interesting phenomena and possible theories to account for them.
Second, writing down predictions increases the level of commitment. This makes most of us more interested in the actual events, especially if they do not accord with our predictions.
Third, the POE provides a good starting point for dialogue, in pairs, within small groups, or across a large class. This can be as important for learning as the direct interaction with interesting materials.
Fourth, the various predictions, observations, and explanations become fodder for further inquiry. What was the highest/lowest prediction? What different things were observed? What further experiment does this explanation suggest?
Finally, the POE provides a reasonably good record of what the students did. They can use this for further study and their writing can be the basis for informal evaluation.