INTRODUCTION TO TEACHING GENERAL METHODS OF TEACHING Lectures

 1. DEFINITIONS OF TEACHING A child’s learning depends on the talent and skills of the person leading his or her classroom, the teacher. Teachers are the persons who work in an applied discipline and face the reality of nature in the form of growing minds before them, their students. Teaching is an art and an academic process. In this process students are made motivated by a number of ways to learn. A teacher begins with the student’s view about different things, what do they know and think about the topic. The teacher keeps in mind the prior knowledge of the students. Teaching positively influences the way students think, act and feel. Teaching is defined as a process in which students are prepared for learning by providing initial structure to clarify planned outcomes and indicate derived learning strategies. The teachers provide sufficient opportunities in the classroom for students to practice and apply what they are learning and give improvement-oriented feed-back (Good, T.; Brophy, J. 2000). The teachers provide assistance to enable the students to engage in learning activities productively (Meichenbaum, D.; Biemiller, A. 1998). In the process of teaching the teachers take their students from a level of unknown to a level of understanding the new concepts. Therefore an effective teacher is one who contributes to the learning environment by increasing keen interest of the students. For the purpose of teaching the teacher has to play five major roles. These roles are: As a Subject matter expert Teachers possess thorough knowledge of subject matter and go beyond the standard textbook materials. Teachers develop important and original thoughts on the subject matter. They tackle issues related to the discipline on the basis of their knowledge. As a Pedagogical expert Teachers set appropriate learning goals and objectives and communicates them clearly. They show a positive attitude towards the subject, work to overcome difficulties that might hindrance in learning. They evaluate and mark students’ work fairly. They guide students through critical thinking, and problem solving processes and help them to develop their own understanding. Teachers provide feedback to students about their progress in learning. As an Excellent communicator A Teacher demonstrates effective oral and written communication, good organizational abilities and planning skills. He/she helps students learn to use effective communication skills; utilizes teaching tools appropriately and effectively. 5 As a Student-centred mentor A Teacher tries to encourage each student to learn through a variety of methods and encourages student participation. Take his/her students to higher intellectual levels. As a Systematic and continual assesser A Teacher makes an appropriate procedure for student outcome assessments in order to improve student learning experiences. He/she systematically assess his/her own teaching, keeps the class material fresh and new. He/she uses new teaching style to achieve the objectives of successful student learning by identifying his/her own weaknesses and shortcomings in the teaching process. Learning is very easy and natural process for the small children but it becomes hard and difficult for the children as they grow older. Learning can be made easy and natural at schools only if education and teaching is based on experiences in life of the children. Alton-Lee (2003) has listed ten characteristics of quality teaching. Alton-Lee's ten point model covers the following areas: 1. A focus on student achievement. 2. Pedagogical practices that create caring, inclusive and cohesive learning communities. 3. Effective links between school and the cultural context of the school. 4. Quality teaching is responsive to student learning processes. 5. Learning opportunities are effective and sufficient. 6. Multiple tasks and contexts support learning cycles. 7. Curriculum goals are effectively aligned. 8. Pedagogy scaffolds feedback on students' task engagement. 9. Pedagogy promotes learning orientations, student self regulation, meta cognitive strategies and thoughtful student discourse. 10. Teachers and students engage constructively in goal oriented assessment (AltonLee, 2003: vi-x) Long ago a Russian psychologist, L. S. Vygotsky’s (1956) ideas affected the world’s understanding of teaching, learning, and cognitive development. Many researchers of different nations have now elaborated, corrected, and developed the concept of teaching differently. Much of this work was focused on the "natural teaching" of home and community. It is now accepted that before the children enter school, they could be "taught" cognitive and linguistic skills. teaching of these skills is done in everyday interactions of domestic life by setting goaldirected activities of daily life. The new concept of teaching consists of more capable family and friends assisting children to do things which the children cannot do alone. According to Vygotsky’s theory, the developmental level of a child is identified by the ability of the child to do work alone. On the other hand the child’s ability to do work with the assistance of anyone was called by Vygotsky the "zone of proximal development”. 6 Teaching may be defined in the proximal zone. In Vygotskian terms, teaching is good only when it "awakens and rouses to life those functions which are in a stage of maturing, which lie in the zone of proximal development" (Vygotsky, 1956, p. 278; quoted in Wertsch & Stone, 1985). Therefore a general definition of teaching was derived from this as: Teaching consists of assisting performance through a child’s zone of proximal development (ZPD). But teaching must be redefined as assisted performance; teaching occurs when performance is achieved with assisting the students (teaching): Students’ performance can be assisted by a number of ways. Behavioral and cognitive science have given following seven means of assistance: 1. Modeling: teacher offers behavior for imitation. Modeling assists learning and gives the learner information and a remembered image that can serve as a performance standard. 2. Feeding back: teacher provides information on the performance of the students. This enables the learners to compare their performance to the standard, and also allows self-correction. 3. Contingency managing: teacher applys the principles of reinforcement and punishment. In this rewards and punishment are arranged to opt desirable behaviour and to avoid the negative behavior. 4. Directing: teacher requests for specific actions. Directing assists by specifying the correct response. It provides clarification information, and promotes decisionmaking. 5. Questioning: teacher produces a mental operation that the learner cannot or would not produce alone. This interaction assists by giving the teacher information about the learner’s developing understanding. 6. Explaining: the teacher provides explanation of the concepts in the content. This assists learners in organizing and justifying new learning and perceptions. 7. Task structuring: The teacher organizes a task into different components in a sequense. The students work on the task. the task structuring involve the chunking, segregating, and sequencing. Properly organized classroom activities in teaching also provide assistance to students’ learning. Many teaching methodologies like lectures, demonstrations, cooperative learning exercises/activities, and textbook reading can all assist learning. Other necessary elements contributing to classroom learning are recitation and assessment. In past teachers emphasized rote learning and immediate responses. there were no opportunities for give-and-take between a teacher and learning students. The student role was passive. Very few teachers make efforts to adapt instruction to individual differences. The other modern way/mean for effective teaching is "scripts" (scripted teaching). It involves the traditional student-teacher interaction set up. It uses predesigned teacher talk and predicts student responses. It offers more than the recitation script for learning. The 7 scripted teaching emphasizes: i) rote learning, ii) student passivity, iii) facts and low-level questions, and iv) low-level cognitive functions (Tharp & Gallimore, 1991). Activity: Collect information from teachers working at different levels about the concept of teaching and redefine the concept of teaching on the basis of their opinions. Let us do an exercise to check the knowledge. Exercise Q 1 Define teaching and elaborate this concept in the light of theoretical perspectives. Q2 Debate on old and new aspects of teaching