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CONTROL TECHNOLOGY IN
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION
Eric Alsop
Eric Alsop
Control Technology in Elementary Education
by Eric Alsop
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Contents
Chapter 1 Concept of Educational Technology 1
Chapter 2 Basics of Technology 22
Chapter 3 Techniques of Teaching 53
Chapter 4 Communication 121
Chapter 5 Froebelian System of Education 233
1
Concept of Educational Technology
MEANING OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY
Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of

facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using
and managing appropriate technological processes and resources.
The term educational technology is often associated with, and
encompasses, instructional theory and learning theory. While
instructional technology is “the theory and practice of design,
development, utilisation, management, and evaluation of processes
and resources for learning,” according to the Association for
Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) Definitions
and Terminology Committee, educational technology includes other
systems used in the process of developing human capability.
Educational technology includes, but is not limited to, software,
hardware, as well as Internet applications, such as wikis and blogs,
and activities. But there is still debate on what these terms mean.
Technology of education is most simply and comfortably defined
as an array of tools that might prove helpful in advancing student
learning and may be measured in how and why individuals behave.
Educational Technology relies on a broad definition of the word
“technology.”
Technology can refer to material objects of use to humanity, such
as machines or hardware, but it can also encompass broader themes,
including systems, methods of organisation, and techniques. Some
modern tools include but are not limited to overhead projectors,
laptop computers, and calculators. Newer tools such as
“smartphones” and games (both online and offline) are beginning
to draw serious attention for their learning potential. Media
2 Control Technology in Elementary Education
psychology is the field of study that applies theories in human

behaviour to educational technology.
The word technology for the sister fields of Educational and
Human Performance Technology means “applied science.” In other
words, any valid and reliable process or procedure that is derived
from basic research using the “scientific method” is considered a
“technology.” Educational or Human Performance Technology may
be based purely on algorithmic or heuristic processes, but neither
necessarily implies physical technology. The word technology comes
from the Greek “techne” which means craft or art. Another word,
“technique,” with the same origin, also may be used when
considering the field Educational Technology. So Educational
Technology may be extended to include the techniques of the
educator.
A classic example of an Educational Psychology text is Bloom’s
1956, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Bloom’s Taxonomy is helpful
when designing learning activities to keep in mind what is expected
of—and what are the learning goals for—learners. However, Bloom’s
work does not explicitly deal with educational technology per se and
is more concerned with pedagogical strategies.
An Educational Technologist is someone who transforms basic
educational and psychological research into an evidence-based
applied science (or a technology) of learning or instruction.
Educational Technologists typically have a graduate degree
(Master’s, Doctorate, Ph.D., or D.Phil.) in a field related to
educational psychology, educational media, experimental
psychology, cognitive psychology or, more purely, in the fields of
Educational, Instructional or Human Performance Technology or
Instructional Systems Design. But few of those theorists would ever
use the term “educational technologist” as a term to describe
themselves, preferring terms such as “educator.”
The transformation of educational technology from a cottage
industry to a profession is discussed by Shurville, Browne, and
Whitaker.
Control Technology in Elementary Education 3
HISTORY OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY
Educational technology in a way could be traced back to the

emergence of very early tools, e.g., paintings on cave walls. But
usually its history starts with educational film (1900s) or Sidney
Pressey’s mechanical teaching machines in the 1920s.
The first large scale usage of new technologies can be traced to
US WWII training of soldiers through training films and other
mediated materials. Today, presentation-based technology, based on
the idea that people can learn through aural and visual reception,
exists in many forms, e.g., streaming audio and video, or PowerPoint
presentations with voice-over. Another interesting invention of the
1940s was hypertext, i.e., V. Bush’s memex.
The 1950s led to two major, still popular designs. Skinners work
led to “programmed instruction” focusing on the formulation of
behavioural objectives, breaking instructional content into small units
and rewarding correct responses early and often. Advocating a
mastery approach to learning based on his taxonomy of intellectual
behaviours, Bloom endorsed instructional techniques that varied both
instruction and time according to learner requirements. Models based
on these designs were usually referred to as computer-based
training” (CBT), Computer-aided instruction or computer-assisted
instruction (CAI) in the 1970s through the 1990s. In a more simplified
form they correspond to today’s “e-contents” that often form the
core of “e-learning” set-ups, sometimes also referred to as web-based
training (WBT) or e-instruction.
The course designer divides learning contents into smaller
chunks of text augmented with graphics and multimedia
presentation. Frequent Multiple Choice questions with immediate
feedback are added for self-assessment and guidance. Such e-contents
can rely on standards defined by IMS, ADL/SCORM and IEEE.
The 1980s and 1990s produced a variety of schools that can be
put under the umbrella of the label Computer-based learning (CBL).
Frequently based on constructivist and cognitivist learning theories,
these environments focused on teaching both abstract and domain-
specific problem solving. Preferred technologies were micro-worlds
(computer environments where learners could explore and build),
simulations (computer environments where learner can play with

parameters of dynamic systems) and hypertext.
Digitised communication and networking in education started
in the mid 80s and became popular by the mid-90’s, in particular
through the World-Wide Web (WWW), eMail and Forums. There is
a difference between two major forms of online learning. The earlier
type, based on either Computer Based Training (CBT) or Computer-
based learning (CBL), focused on the interaction between the student
and computer drills plus tutorials on one hand or micro-worlds and
simulations on the other. Both can be delivered today over the
WWW.
Today, the prevailing paradigm in the regular school system is
Computer-mediated communication (CMC), where the primary form
of interaction is between students and instructors, mediated by the
computer. CBT/CBL usually means individualised (self-study)
learning, while CMC involves teacher/tutor facilitation and requires
scenarisation of flexible learning activities.
In addition, modern ICT provides education with tools for
sustaining learning communities and associated knowledge
management tasks. It also provides tools for student and curriculum
management.
In addition to classroom enhancement, learning technologies also
play a major role in full-time distance teaching. While most quality
offers still rely on paper, videos and occasional CBT/CBL materials,
there is increased use of e-tutoring through forums, instant
messaging, video-conferencing, etc. Courses addressed to smaller
groups frequently use blended or hybrid designs that mix presence
courses (usually in the beginning and at the end of a module) with
distance activities and use various pedagogical styles (e.g., drill and
practise, exercises, projects, etc.). The 2000s emergence of multiple
mobile and ubiquitous technologies gave a new impulse to situated
learning theories favouring learning-in-context scenarios. Some
literature uses the concept of integrated learning to describe blended
learning scenarios that integrate both school and authentic (e.g.,
workplace) settings.
THEORIES AND PRACTICES IN EDUCATIONAL

TECHNOLOGY
Three main theoretical schools or philosophical frameworks have

been present in the educational technology literature. These are
Behaviourism, Cognitivism and Constructivism. Each of these schools
of thought are still present in today’s literature but have evolved as
the Psychology literature has evolved.
BEHAVIOURISM
This theoretical framework was developed in the early 20th
century with the animal learning experiments of Ivan Pavlov,
Edward Thorndike, Edward C. Tolman, Clark L. Hull, B.F. Skinner
and many others. Many psychologists used these theories to describe
and experiment with human learning. While still very useful this
philosophy of learning has lost favour with many educators.
Skinner’s Contributions
B.F. Skinner wrote extensively on improvements of teaching
based on his functional analysis of Verbal Behaviour and wrote “The
Technology of Teaching”, an attempt to dispel the myths underlying
contemporary education as well as promote his system he called
programmed instruction. Ogden Lindsley also developed the
Celeration learning system similarly based on behaviour analysis but
quite different from Keller’s and Skinner’s models.
COGNITIVISM
Cognitive science has changed how educators view learning.
Since the very early beginning of the Cognitive Revolution of the
1960s and 1970s, learning theory has undergone a great deal of
change. Much of the empirical framework of Behaviourism was
retained even though a new paradigm had begun.
Cognitive theories look beyond behaviour to explain brain-based
learning. Cognitivists consider how human memory works to
promote learning. After memory theories like the Atkinson-Shiffrin
memory model and Baddeley’s Working memory model were
established as a theoretical framework in Cognitive Psychology, new
cognitive frameworks of learning began to emerge during the 1970s,
1980s, and 1990s. It is important to note that Computer Science and

Information Technology have had a major influence on Cognitive
Science theory. The Cognitive concepts of working memory (formerly
known as short term memory) and long term memory have been
facilitated by research and technology from the field of Computer
Science.
Another major influence on the field of Cognitive Science is
Noam Chomsky. Today researchers are concentrating on topics like
Cognitive load and Information Processing Theory. In addition,
psychology as applied to media is easily measured in studying
behaviour. The area of media psychology is both cognative and
affective and is central to understanding educational technology.
CONSTRUCTIVISM
Constructivism is a learning theory or educational philosophy
that many educators began to consider in the 1990s. One of the
primary tenets of this philosophy is that learners construct their own
meaning from new information, as they interact with reality or others
with different perspectives.
Constructivist learning environments require students to utilise
their prior knowledge and experiences to formulate new, related,
and/or adaptive concepts in learning. Under this framework the role
of the teacher becomes that of a facilitator, providing guidance so
that learners can construct their own knowledge.
Constructivist educators must make sure that the prior learning
experiences are appropriate and related to the concepts being taught.
Jonassen (1997) suggests “well-structured” learning environments
are useful for novice learners and that “ill-structured” environments
are only useful for more advanced learners. Educators utilising
technology when teaching with a constructivist perspective should
choose technologies that reinforce prior learning perhaps in a
problem-solving environment.
INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNIQUE AND TECHNOLOGIES
“Children and young people are growing up in a vastly changing

context. No aspect of their lives is untouched by the digital era which
is transforming how they live, relate and learn.” Some examples of
these changes in the classroom include Problem Based Learning,

Project-based Learning, and Enquiry-based learning. Together they
are active learning educational technologies used to facilitate
learning. Technology which includes physical and process applied
science can be incorporated into project, problem, enquiry-based
learning as they all have a similar educational philosophy. All three
are student centered, ideally involving real-world scenarios in which
students are actively engaged in critical thinking activities. The
process that students are encouraged to employ (as long as it is based
on empirical research) is considered to be a technology. Classic
examples of technologies used by teachers and Educational
Technologists include Bloom’s Taxonomy and Instructional Design.
BENEFITS OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY
Educationaltechnology is intended to improve education over

what it would be without technology.
Some of the claimed benefits are listed below:
• Easy-to-access course materials: Instructors can post the course
material or important information on a course web site, which means
students can study at a time and location they prefer and can obtain
the study material very quickly
• Student motivation: Computer-based instruction can give instant
feedback to students and explain correct answers. Moreover, a
computer is patient and non-judgemental, which can give the student
motivation to continue learning. Who studies the effectiveness of
computers used for instruction, students usually learn more in less
time when receiving computer-based instruction and they like classes
more and develop more positive attitudes towards computers in
computer-based classes. The American educator, Cassandra B. Whyte,
researched and reported about the importance of locus of control
and successful academic performance and by the late 1980s, she wrote
of how important computer usage and information technology would
become in the higher education experience of the future.
• Wide participation: Learning material can be used for long distance
learning and are accessible to a wider audience
• Improved student writing: It is convenient for students to edit their
written work on word processors, which can, in turn, improve the
quality of their writing. The students are better at critiquing and
editing written work that is exchanged over a computer network with
students they know
• Subjects made easier to learn: Many different types of educational

software are designed and developed to help children or teenagers to
learn specific subjects. Examples include pre-school software,
computer simulators, and graphics software
• A structure that is more amenable to measurement and improvement
of outcomes: With proper structuring it can become easier to monitor
and maintain student work while also quickly gauging modifications
to the instruction necessary to enhance student learning.
• Differentiated Instruction: Educational technology provides the means
to focus on active student participation and to present differentiated
questioning strategies. It broadens individualised instruction and
promotes the development of personalised learning plans. Students
are encouraged to use multimedia components and to incorporate
the knowledge they gained in creative ways.
CRITICISM OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY
Although technology in the classroom does have many benefits,

there are clear drawbacks as well. Limited access to sufficient
quantities of a technology, lack of training, the extra time required
for the implementations of technology, and the apprehension
associated with assessing the effectiveness of technology in the
classroom are just a few of the reasons that technology is often not
used extensively in the classroom. To understand educational
technology one must also understand theories in human behaviour
as behaviour is affected by technology.
Media Psychology is the study of media, technology and how
and why individuals, groups and societies behave the way they do.
The first Ph.D programme with a concentration in media psychology
was started in 2002 at Fielding Graduate University by Bernard
Luskin. The Media Psychology division of APA, division 46 has a
focus on media psychology. Media and the family is another
emerging area affected by rapidly changing educational technology.
DIGITAL DIVIDE
One of the greatest barriers of integrating technology into the
school system deals with the digital divide. The concept of the digital
divide was originally defined as a gap between those who have
access to digital technologies and those who do not. This access is
associated with age, gender, education, income, ethnicity, and
geography. The first deals with the onset of integrating technology

into the curriculum and the gap between the digital haves and have
nots. In most cases, this form of the digital divide means that those
who have access to a computer and the Internet are considered a
digital have, while on the other hand, those who do not are
considered a digital have not. In today’s society, this is still a
significant barrier to implementing technology into the curriculum
because the socio-economic status of a school, and its students, will
impact whether resources can be purchased and implemented in the
school system. Schools that are able to provide technology within
the classroom are able to expose their students to a new means of
learning, while the students in lower socio-economic schools may
miss out on these experiences.
As more and more people have gone online and started using
the Internet for an increasing number of activities, researchers have
begun to reconsider the notion of the digital divide. Some scholars
offered a redefined understanding by seeing the digital divide as a
complex and dynamic phenomenon that is essentially multifaced and
includes technical access (the physical availability of technology) and
social access (the mix of professional knowledge, economic resources,
and technical skills required for effectual use of echnology). This
means that even if schools and students have access to technology,
the ways in which teachers use and introduce it is significant to
consider. This form of the digital divide is yet another barrier because
it also goes hand-in-hand with the resources the schools have and
the training teachers receive. If a teacher, for example, is not well
equipped and confident in utilising a form of technology, those
students will miss out on gaining the valuable skills required for
today’s society.
Another factor that plays into the digital divide, which makes it
difficult to implement technology into the curriculum, is the
generational digital divide. Herrington recognises that the
generational divide is interpreted to mean that people on one side
of the gap, including the youth, have more access and a greater
ability to use new technologies than those on the other side like the
adults who were born before the advent of the Internet. The
generational digital divide is a common barrier because it challenges
teachers to keep up with the ever-changing technology in the

classroom.
Even extending beyond the classroom, by the time an individual
“adopts a technology, a new one is developed, marketed, and
requires a new adoption cycle”. Students, who have grown up in a
digital environment, may be well acquainted with the on-going
process of new technological innovation but may be lacking the
guidance they need in order to utilise these technologies effectively.
From the teacher’s perspective, this process could be an intimidating
experience because something as foreign as the computer and
Internet must first be learned and then taught to the students in a
classroom setting. It is difficult to formulate a curriculum, which aims
to integrate technology into the classroom, when the decision-makers
are still in the process of learning about it themselves.
TEACHER TRAINING
Similar to learning a new task or trade, special training is vital to
ensuring the effective integration of classroom technology. The current
school curriculum tends to guide teachers in training students to be
autonomous problem solvers. This has become a significant barrier to
effective training because the traditional methods of teaching have
clashed with what is expected in the present workplace. Today’s
students in the workplace are increasingly being asked to work in
teams, drawing on different sets of expertise, and collaborating to solve
problem. These experiences are not highly centered on in the
traditional classroom, but are twenty-first century skills that can be
attained through the incorporation and engagement with technology.
Changes in instruction and use of technology can also promote a
higher level of learning among students with different types of
intelligence. Therefore since technology is not the end goal of
education, but rather a means by which it can be accomplished,
educators must have a good grasp of the technology being used and
its advantages over more traditional methods. If there is a lack in either
of these areas, technology will be seen as a hindrance and not a benefit
to the goals of teaching.
Another major issue arises because of the evolving nature of
technology. Teachers may find themselves acting as perpetual
novices when it comes to learning about technology. This is because

technology, including the Internet and its range of applications, is
always in a state of change and teachers must attempt to keep
current. The ways in which teachers are taught to use technology is
also outdated because the primary focus of training is on computer
literacy, rather than the deeper, more essential understanding and
mastery of technology for information processing, communication,
and problem solving. New resources have to be designed and
distributed whenever the technological platform has been changed.
However, finding quality materials to support classroom objectives
after such changes is often difficult even after they exist in sufficient
quantity and teachers must design these resources on their own. The
study by Harris notes that the use of random Professional
Development days is not adequate enough in order to foster the
much-needed skills required to teach and apply technology in the
classroom. Learning, therefore, becomes and on-going process, which
takes time and a strong commitment among the community of
educators.
Teacher training faces another drawback when it comes to one’s
mindset on the integration of technology into the curriculum. The
generational divide might also lead to a generational bias, whereby
teachers do not feel the need to change the traditional education
system because it has been successful in the past. This does not
necessarily mean it is the right way to teach for the current and future
generations. Considering the fact that today’s students are constantly
exposed to the impacts of the digital era, learning styles, and the
methods of collecting information has evolved. To illustrate this
concept Jenkins states, “students often feel locked out of the worlds
described in their textbooks through the depersonalised and abstract
prose used to describe them,” whereas games can construct worlds
for players to move through and have some stake in the events
unfolding. Even though technology can provide a more personalised,
yet collaborative, and creative, yet informative, approach to learning,
it may be difficult to motivate the use of these contemporary
approaches among teachers who have been in the field for a number
of years.
ASSESSMENT
Research has shown that there is a great deal of apprehension
associated with assessing the effectiveness of technology in the
classroom and its development of information-age skills. This is
because information-age skills, also commonly referred to as twenty-
first century literacies, are relatively new to the field of education.
These include “the set of abilities and skills where aural, visual, and
digital literacy overlap”. Jenkins modifies this definition by
acknowledging them as building on the foundation of traditional
literacy, research skills, technical skills and critical-analysis skills
taught in the classroom. Current school assessments are based on
standardised tests and the ability to complete these uniform tests,
regardless of one’s preferred learning style. Many factors play into
this observation including the strong impact of time. By using
technology and learning through discovery, teachers may feel that
they are not able to cover the material needed to meet the
requirements of the curriculum. Therefore, the traditional style of
teaching, including the lecturing in front of the class, and a “one-
size-fits-all” approach to testing is common in today’s classrooms.
This is a barrier because it prevents the full integration of technology
into the curriculum, the ability to learn through enquiry, and the
collaborative problem-solving skills, which prove to be essential traits
needed in the twenty-first century.
THE ADVANCEMENT OF EDUCATION
THROUGH TECHNOLOGY
In recent years, OpenCourseWare (OCW), an academic initiative

that gives the public access to much of the same information used
in undergraduate and graduate programmes at institutions of higher
education, has greatly improved the quality of educational material
available for free on the Internet. The idea of OpenCourseWare
gained prevalence in 2002 when MIT began distributing academic
material from courses to the public for free. Through the early 2000’s,
this idea began to gain popularity with other colleges and
universities. As of 2008, there were close to 150 collegiate institutions
that had operational OpenCourseWare programmes, or were in the
process of planning such programmes. These institutions include

Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, University of Pennsylvania, and
University of Michigan. Such programmes are an example of how
technology can allow more people to have access to information and
resources that have originally only been accessible to students at
prestigious universities.
EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM
There are various types of technologies currently used in

traditional classrooms.
Among these are:
• Computer in the classroom: Having a computer in the classroom is
an asset to any teacher. With a computer in the classroom, teachers
are able to demonstrate a new lesson, present new material, illustrate
how to use new programmes, and show new web sites.
• Class web site: An easy way to display your student’s work is to create
a web page designed for your class. Once a web page is designed,
teachers can post homework assignments, student work, famous
quotes, trivia games, and so much more. In today’s society, children
know how to use the computer and navigate their way through a
web site, so why not give them one where they can be a published
author. Just be careful as most districts maintain strong policies to
manage official web sites for a school or classroom. Also, most school
districts provide teacher webpages that can easily be viewed through
the school district’s web site.
• Class blogs and wikis: There are a variety of Web 2.0 tools that are
currently being implemented in the classroom. Blogs allow for
students to maintain a running dialogue, such as a journal,thoughts,
ideas, and assignments that also provide for student comment and
reflection. Wikis are more group focused to allow multiple members
of the group to edit a single document and create a truly collaborative
and carefully edited finished product.
• Wireless classroom microphones: Noisy classrooms are a daily
occurrence, and with the help of microphones, students are able to
hear their teachers more clearly. Children learn better when they hear
the teacher clearly. The benefit for teachers is that they no longer
lose their voices at the end of the day.
• Mobile devices: Mobile devices such as clickers or smartphone can
be used to enhance the experience in the classroom by providing the
possibility for professors to get feedback.
• Interactive Whiteboards: An interactive whiteboard that provides

touch control of computer applications. These enhance the experience
in the classroom by showing anything that can be on a computer
screen. This not only aids in visual learning, but it is interactive so
the students can draw, write, or manipulate images on the interactive
whiteboard.
• Digital video-on-demand: Replacement of hard copy videos (DVD,
VHS) with digital video accessed from a central server (e.g. SAFARI
Montage). Digital video eliminates the need for in-classroom hardware
(players) and allows teachers and students to access video clips
immediately by not utilising the public Internet.
• Online media: Streamed video web sites can be utilised to enhance a
classroom lesson (e.g. United Streaming, Teacher Tube, etc.)
• Online study tools: Tools that motivate studying by making studying
more fun or individualised for the student (e.g. Study Cocoa)
• Digital Games: The field of educational games and serious games has
been growing significantly over the last few years. The digital games
are being provided as tools for the classroom and have a lot of positive
feedback including higher motivation for students.
There are many other tools being utilised depending on the local
school board and funds available. These may include: digital
cameras, video cameras, interactive whiteboard tools, document
cameras, or LCD projectors.
• Podcasts: Podcasting is a relatively new invention that allows anybody
to publish files to the Internet where individuals can subscribe and
receive new files from people by a subscription. The primary benefit
of podcasting for educators is quite simple. It enables teachers to
reach students through a medium that is both “cool” and a part of
their daily lives. For a technology that only requires a computer,
microphone and internet connection, podcasting has the capacity of
advancing a student’s education beyond the classroom. When students
listen to the podcasts of other students as well as their own, they can
quickly demonstrate their capacities to identify and define “quality.”
This can be a great tool for learning and developing literacy inside
and outside the classroom. Podcasting can help sharpen students’
vocabulary, writing, editing, public speaking, and presentation skills.
Students will also learn skills that will be valuable in the working
world, such as communication, time management, and problem-
solving.
Although podcasts are a new phenomenon in classrooms,
especially on college campuses, studies have shown the differences
in effectiveness between a live lecture versus podcast are minor in

terms of the education of the student.
SCOPE OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY
By scope of educational technology we mean the jurisdiction,

the limits or the boundaries within which it works. It needs
demarcation of the boundaries within which the process of education
can go on. Being a fast growing modern discipline it is almost
practical all through and is expanding with a tremendous speed,
aiming at all- round development in the area of education.
National Policy on Education (1986), recommends that,
“Educational Technology will be employed in the spread of useful,
information, the training and retraining of teachers, to improve
quality, sharpen awareness of art and culture, inculcate abiding
values, etc., both in the formal and non-formal sectors. Maximum
use will be made of the available infrastructure.”
The scope of Educational Technology can be accessed from the
following points:
• Determination of Objectives: Educational Technology provides
different methods and techniques for writing instructional objectives
in behavioural terms such as Bloom Taxonomy Magar’s Approach
and RCEM Approach. The needs and requirements of the people and
hence education need be revised from moment to moment.
Educational technology helps in fixing-up the right objectives in the
light of the changed circumstances and changed environment.
• Improvement in Teaching Learning Process: It helps in improving the
teaching learning process and makes it more purposive. It tries to
discuss the concept of teaching, analysis of teaching process, variables
of teaching, phases and levels of teaching, principles of teaching,
maxims of teaching and relationship between teaching and learning.
• Development of Teaching Learning Material: Teaching learning
materials are also as important as anything else in the teaching
learning process. In this age of science and technology, the materials
of teaching cannot be unscientific. Everything of the society including
values of life need be reflected in the materials. Only right type of
material will be able to modify the behaviour of the learner suitably
making him a fit person for the society.
• Improvement in Teaching Training: The change of environment with
ne curriculum and new materials need be handled by the teachers.
The teachers equipped with old strategies and methodologies of
teaching will remain misfits. Right type of training to the teachers is

the need of the hour. Educational Technology can render its valuable
help in the training of teachers also. The use of video tapes and close
circuit T.V. will help the teachers to remodel and reshape their
teaching behaviours suitably. It includes micro teaching, simulated
teaching, term-teaching, teacher effectiveness, modification of teacher-
behaviour, class-room interaction and interaction analysis, etc.
• Development of Teaching Learning Strategies: A strategy plays an
important role in the hands of a teacher in every learning situation.
The strategy has to be the right one which should be according to
the materials and is able to bring about effective teaching- learning.
The different strategies are being evolved by educational technology.
The knowledge of those strategies is a must for every teacher. Then
only the teacher will be able to do justice to their jobs. It tries to
describe the ways and means of discovering selecting and developing
suitable strategies and tactics of teaching in terms of optimum learning
and available teaching-learning resources; the availability of the
different types of teaching methods, devices and models of teaching-
their appropriate selection and use for the optimum results.
• Proper Use of Audio Visual Aids: Audio Visual aids have always played
an important role in the teaching-learning process. They need be used
according to the times. The software aids, the hardware aids, the
computer and other such appliances, equipment, etc., have to be used
in the present type of teaching-learning environment. Computer
assisted instructions will help the learner as well as the teacher to
achieve the goals of education more conveniently.
• Utilisation of the Sub-System of Education: Educational Technology
considers education as a system operating in a systematic and
scientific way for the achievement of educational objectives. For the
coverage of its systematic approach, it tries to include the topics
dealing with the theory and principles of a system approach, explaining
education as a system, its different sub-systems in terms of input and
output. It is helpful in solving scientifically educational administrative
problems with the help of system analysis.
• Development of Curriculum: Educational Technology is concerned
with the designing of a suitable curriculum for the achievement of
the desired objectives. It is helpful in describing the ways and means
of the selection of suitable learning experiences, organisation of the
contents in a suitable framework in order to bring better results. It
provides the scientific foundation to education as well as develops
theories of teaching and learning.
• Proper Use of Hardware and Software: These days’ hardware and

software are playing an effective role in the attainment of educational
objectives. Educational Technology helps in the proper use of these
aids. It tries to describe these resources in terms of their specific
functions, their solution, proper handling and maintenance.
• Provides Feedback: It provides an appropriate feedback to the learners
as well as teachers for bringing necessary improvement at the
preparatory and implementation stages of their specific acts. For this
purpose, educational technology discusses the ways and means of
suitable evaluation techniques, their planning, development selection
and appropriate use in relation to the objectives of teaching- learning
system. In this way Educational Technology is concerned with all
those who are connected in any way, directly or indirectly, to the
processes and products of education. It teaches the teachers the art
of teaching, the learners the science of teach the educational planners
the structure of planning and administrators or managers the skill of
managing or administering the task of teaching and learning. It works
for the individualisation of instructions as well for improving the
group dynamics of the class-room.
IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY
In the past, learning and education simply meant face-to-face

lectures, reading books or printed handouts, taking notes and
completing assignments generally in the form of answering questions
or writing essays. In short; education, learning and teaching were
considered impossible without a teacher, books and chalkboards.
Today, education and training have taken on a whole new meaning.
Computers are an essential part of every classroom and teachers are
using DVDs, CD-ROMs and videos to show students how things
work and operate. Students can interact with the subject matters
through the use of such web based tools and CD-ROMs. Moreover,
each student can progress at his/her own pace.
HOW IMPORTANT IS TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION
The role of technology in the field of education is four-fold: it is
included as a part of the curriculum, as an instructional delivery
system, as a means of aiding instructions and also as a tool to enhance
the entire learning process. Thanks to technology; education has gone
from passive and reactive to interactive and aggressive.
Education is essential in corporate and academic settings. In the

former, education or training is used to help workers do things
differently than they did before. In the latter; education is geared
towards creating curiosity in the minds of students. In either case,
the use of technology can help students understand and retain
concepts better.
FACTORS THAT HELP STUDENTS LEARN BETTER
Research has shown, time and again, that students learn best
when they are engaged. Through the use of technology, students
can become active participants as opposed to passive ones where
they simply receive instructions or information. Trust is another
factor that enhances the learning ability of students.
With the help of technology, teachers can establish credibility in
what they are teaching. Web based tools can be used for providing
demonstrations and examples that can help students establish
credence in what they are learning.
TECHNOLOGY ALLOWS DISTANCE LEARNING
Perhaps the greatest impact of technology in the field of learning
is its ability to help several people learn simultaneously from
different locations.
Learners are not required to gather at a predetermined time or
place in order to learn and receive instructions and information. All
one needs is a computer connected to a modem (or with a CD drive);
these tools can literally deliver a ‘classroom’ in the homes and offices
of people.
TECHNOLOGY ALLOWS GROUP LEARNING
There are naysayers who argue that distance learning of this sort
cannot help students receive the support of traditional group-based
learning.
For proving this theory wrong, technology has helped provide
distance learners with online communities, live chat rooms and
bulletin boards. All these allow students to collaborate and
communicate even though they are isolated in their own space.
TECHNOLOGY ALLOWS INDIVIDUAL PACING

Multimedia tools, on-line and CD-ROM based training have
helped eliminate the need for an instructor-based lesson plans.
Students who grasp concepts faster proceed and move along, without
being held back by ones who need more time and help for learning.
Such individual pacing is beneficial to all.
TECHNOLOGY HELPS LOWER TRAINING COSTS AND
INCREASES PRODUCTIVITY
Another benefit of using technology to reach many students in
shorter time is lowering training costs. Corporate and academic
Institutions can reduce their costs of delivering lessons to students
on a per-student basis. Moreover, technology produces quantifiable
results and allows students to put into practice this information
quickly and with better results. Through the use of technology,
students can considerably save time and increase their productivity.
Both these points justify the higher costs of advanced technological
tools.
ROADBLOCKS IN THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN LEARNING
Naturally, for education technology to have a positive impact
on students, it should be designed and prepared well. Tools used
for disseminating information must be developed with students in
mind. There are also factors like lack of computer/technology literacy
to be considered. Schools and businesses must bear in mind that
education technology is simply a tool and its success depends largely
on the amount of planning that goes into it. Using education
technology can be a right choice as long as all such factors are
considered.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY OF EDUCATION AND
TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION
Technology of Education and Technology in Education are two

phrases that are really confusing to many. Education has come a
long way since early days though it encompasses a lot more than
what was there to be taught in earlier times, technology has made it
easier for both the teachers and students to learn easily. The
advancements in technology are not limited to gadgets and
appliances used by people in daily life, it has reached schools and
classrooms to ease the way education is imparted and absorbed by
students. There are two phrases in this connection that are often
confusing for people as they sound similar but are different.
Technology of education is also referred to as educational
technology and is in reality incorporation of IT into the realm of
classroom. This is a constantly evolving field that depends upon
technological advancements. The use of technology in education has
many advantages just as technology has enriched the world in all
walks of life. One can see and feel the change in air as classrooms
are becoming modern and teachers and students are benefiting with
gadgets such as smart boards and computers.
The advent of Internet has made a sea of change in the way
teachers can demonstrate concepts and ideas to children and make
learning almost fun. Information today has been encapsulated in
internet which can be beautifully used to allow learning be a fun
rather than being a drudgery which it used to be in earlier times.
What this has meant is that education is no longer limited to the
privileged few and even those who are downtrodden and poor can
learn all the ideas and concepts which were like a dream to them in
earlier times. Internet today has become very commonplace and its
true potential can realised by disseminating knowledge through it
to all, without any discrimination.
Technology in education is not limited to making use of
technology to make learning and imparting of education easier in
all possible ways but also a field of study in itself for those who are
involved with developing technological tools for educational
purposes.
Keeping in mind the end user which are the students and
teachers, technologists are busy inventing tools and gadgets for use
in classrooms. These are the people who are behind this revolution
and are working overtime in the field of educational technology to
cover all the processes of learning and instruction.
Technology in education refers to, but is not limited to the use

of hardware and software, including internet and other related
activities, for the purpose of increasing human capabilities. While
the use of technology in education is always welcome as it enables
both teachers and students to gain knowledge in a much better and
faster rate, ultimately it is teachers who make use of all the
technology and hence they will remain as important as ever, and
technology can never even think of replacing teachers.
2
Basics of Technology
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEACHING AND LEARNING

CONCEPT OF LEARNING
Learning is a natural process of growth or change in a person
which is manifested as new modes or patterns of behaviour. This
change exhibits itself as a skill, a habit, an attitude an understanding,
or as knowledge or an application. Learning is a relatively permanent
change in behaviour and is the result of reinforced practice through
the process of “stimulus and response”. This definition of learning
assumes that certain conditions in the environment bring about
fundamental changes in our behaviour that persist for a long time.
The changes which result from learning are positive and active, not
negative and inert. Learning is not directly observable but inferred
from one’s performance. We can infer that a person has learnt
something when he does something, which he could not do before.
A person may know some thing and yet may not have learnt it.
You may know how a computer works, but may not be able to
operate it. Thus the distinction between learning or acquisition of
knowledge and performance is an important one. We use the term
‘behavioural tendency’ to maintain the distinction between learning
and performance. The relatively permanent change in behaviour
refers to a change in performance.
We can also define learning in terms of cognitive development.
Cognitivists say that learning is a change or reorganisation of
cognitive structures, which involves acquisition and transformation
of new knowledge. Thus we may conclude that learning is a change
in knowledge, skills, attitudes and values brought about through
experiences and this change in knowledge may or may not be
expressed in overt behaviour. However, it may be pointed that all

behaviours cannot be related to learning. Some behavioural changes
are due to biological development or maturation. In maturation,
growth developments are independent of specific learning
conditions. A child starts walking once his/her legs are strong enough
to support his/her weight.
The child is born with the potential to mature and at successive
age levels, grasp and learn language, ways of behaving, attitudes,
and values of his/her cultures he is born also with potential for
reorganising and remoulding many aspects of his culture in harmony
with changing conditions and needs. Thus, the child is a product of
culture as much as he is of biology. Through maturation and
learning, the child acquires a culture. The process through which
the child is taught the cultural ways that society accepts him to follow
is termed as ‘enculturation’. In this process, the child adjusts his
innate biological characteristics to the prevailing cultural practices
in society.
CONCEPT OF TEACHING
The purpose of teaching is to help a child to learn. Teaching is
not only confined to the act of disseminating information to children
in classroom situations. It is a process which involves stimulation,
guidance, direction and encouragement of learning among children.
Stimulation causes motivation in the child to learn new things.
Teaching is not a haphazard activity but a goal-directed activity
which leads to predetermined behaviour. The activities of the child
in teaching are directed and controlled, taking into consideration
the economy of time and efficiency of learning. In the process of
teaching, the child is guided to develop his capabilities, skills,
attitudes and knowledge to the maximum for adequate adjustment
and learning. Teaching is a communication between two or more
persons who influence each other by their ideas and learn something
in the process of interaction. It is a process in which the learner,
teacher, curriculum and other related variables are organised in a
systematic way to attain some pre-determined goal.
Teaching is an educational communication. Here the input is
knowledge, skills, standards and values of a society, interwoven in
a particular subject matter. This input is supplied and managed by

the teacher. When he puts forth facts, ideas, attitudes, statement,
etc. ‘coding’ takes place as messages which are coded into sound,
visual images, printed words and non-verbal messages. Thus coding
is the process of making the desired input visible or audible to the
students. The channels of communication are the sound or visual
signals produced by the teacher, chalk and board or even the audio-
visual signals that convey the message to the students accurately
and clearly.
THEORIES OF LEARNING
Learning is based on philosophical and psychological ideas and
principles about human nature which have given rise to various
learning theories. The prominent learning theories we intend to
discuss in this unit are behaviourism, cognitivism and the possible
synthesis of the two.
Behaviourist Views
Behaviourism is one of the most dominant among the modern
theories of learning. The behaviourist school is very comprehensive
and it includes a variety of thoughts. However, all these thoughts
suggest a common approach to learning in terms of the development
of connections in the organism between stimuli(S) and response(R).
Based on laboratory experiments with animals, behaviourists
concluded that learning is a process by which stimulus and response
bonds are established when a successful response immediately and
frequently follows a stimulus. They assumed that people are similar
to machines, and considered any reference to the rule of mind
irrelevant. Behaviourism holds that the subject matter of human
psychology is the behaviour or activities of human beings. The
behaviourists have put forward three main laws of learning: Law of
Effect, Law of Readiness and Law of Exercise. The Law of Effect
stresses the importance of the effect of a response. Satisfying results
reinforce the response while annoying results weaken it. Reward
and punishment are, therefore, important ingredients of learning.
The law of readiness indicates the student’s willingness to make S-
R connection while the law of exercise relates to strengthening the

connection through practice.
Behaviourists consider learning a formation of habit through
conditioning which links desired responses to stimuli. The prominent
theorist among them is B.F. Skinner who propagated the idea of
operant conditioning.
Educational Implications
The Behaviourist approach to learning has significantly

influenced modern educational practices. Behaviourists have
conceived teaching as manipulation of environment to produce
desired behavioural changes in learners and thus make education
more effective.
They suggest the adoption of the following three principles in the
teaching-learning process:
• Knowledge of result and use of positive reinforcement,
• Minimum delay in reinforcement, and
• Elaboration of complex behaviour by dividing learning into a series
of small steps.
One of the major contributions of behaviourists to education is
their emphasis on defining teaching objectives in behavioural terms. They
have stressed the need for stating objectives in the form of overt
behaviour which can be observed and measured. The role of teachers
becomes very crucial in deciding the changes of behaviour in their
students when they learn and teaching in such a way that can
students make attain those behavioural changes.
Behaviourist principles have influenced the contemporary
approaches to evaluation also. For instance, based on the hierarchy
of learning outcomes, Bloom has suggested a model of ‘taxonomy
of educational objectives’. Another educational implication of the
behaviourist approach is individualising instruction such as
‘Personalised System Instruction (PSI)’ based on the reinforcement
theory that has been widely used in education.
Skinner’s Theory of Operant Conditioning
Skinner propagated the theory related to stimulus-response
behaviour and reinforcement. In his view, learning is a change in
behaviour. As the student learns, his responses in terms of changed

behaviour increase. He therefore, formally defines learning as a
change in the likelihood or probability of a response. The operant
conditioning is a learning force which effects desired response more
frequently by providing reinforcing stimulus immediately following
the response. The most important principle of this type of learning
is that behaviour changes according to its immediate consequences.
Pleasurable consequences strengthen behaviour while unpleasant
consequences weaken it.
In operant conditioning, learning objectives are divided into
many small steps/ tasks and reinforced one by one for teaching
purpose. The operant — the response behaviour of act — is
strengthened so as to increase the probability of its reoccurrence in
the future. Three external conditions — reinforcement, contiguity
and practice — must be provided in operant conditioning.
Reinforcement
The most important aspect of Skinner’s theory of learning relates

to the role of reinforcement. An organism is presented with a
particular stimulus — a reinforcer — after it makes a response. In
given situation, the organism will tend to repeat responses for which
it is reinforced.
Skinner distinguished between positive and negative
reinforcements. Positive reinforcement is a stimulus, which increases
the probability of desired response. The positive reinforcement is a
positive reward.
Praise, smiles, prize money, a funny television programme, etc.,
are the examples of positive reinforcement. In negative
reinforcement, the desired behaviour is more likely to occur if such
stimulus reinforcement is removed. For example, we can close
windows and doors to avoid hearing loud noise; we can avoid wrong
answers by giving right answers.
Here ‘noise’ and ‘wrong answers’ are negative reinforcers. Thus
a negative reinforcer is a negative reward the avoidance of which
gives us relief from unpleasant state of affairs. Skinner did not equate
negative reinforcement with punishment.
The basic implication of operant conditioning to teaching/
instructional activities is dependency on observable behaviour. For
Skinner, reinforcement facilitates learning. Further, he thinks that
the most effective control on human learning requires instrumental
aids/teaching aids.
Broadly, Skinner’s theory has made the following contribution to the
practice of education in teaching:
• Teaching Machine: Teaching machine, in the sense of a systematic
approach to teaching with the help of machines, deserves attention as
it has strongly influenced education both in theory and practice. In
this approach, machines present the individual students with
programmes containing a set of questions to be answered, problems to
be solved, or exercises to be done. In addition, they provide automatic
feedback to the students. Teaching through machines and electronic
gadgets encourages students to take an active part in the instruction
process. Use of mechanical teaching devices has the following
advantages:
– Right answer is immediately reinforced. Machines encourage and
force the students to come up with right answers.
– Mere manipulation of the machines probably, will reinforce
sufficiently to keep an average student busy at a task for a
prescribed period.
– Any student who is forced to leave a learning activity for a period
of time may return at any time and continue from where he left
off.
– Each student may proceed with his learning task on an individual
basis at his own pace.
– The teacher is forced to arrange and design the course content
carefully in a hierarchical order.
– There is constant interaction between the teaching material and
the student, thus sustaining activities.
– After knowing about the progress of the student, the teacher can
supply necessary supplementary reinforcement. Thus, machines
make it compulsory that a given material be thoroughly
understood before the student moves on to the next set of
material.
• Programmed instruction: Programmed instruction is a self-learning
system in which the subject matter is broken into small bits of
information and presented in a logical sequences. Each step builds
deliberately upon the preceding one.A student progresses through the
theme that is being taught through the programme. At the end of

each step there is a question to be answered by the learner. After the
question is answered, the learner is expected to check his/her answer
with the correct answer supplied in the programme. This is an inbuilt
feature of programmed material.
Cognitive Approach
Cognitive approaches mainly deal with the psychological aspects
of human behaviour. ‘Cognitive psychology’ has taken an important
place in the psychology of learning over the last three decades. While
conducting experimental investigations, cognitivism takes into
consideration activities such as perception, concept formation,
language use, thinking, understanding, problem solving, attention
and memory. Thus, the cognitive approach is concerned with the
individual’s inner psychological functioning.
Cognitive theorists have investigated and shown that people
learn by perceiving, comprehending and conceptualising the
problem. The comprehension of concepts and rules, etc., is
transferable to the solution of new problems. The cognitive theorists
argue that people grasp things as a whole, and therefore, oppose
the Behaviourist approach to teaching which employed drills to
memorise the information. They believe, learning is both a question
of ‘insight’ formation and successful problem solving, and not a
mechanical sequence of stimuli and responses. Thus, teaching
according to cognitivists, should encourage understanding based on
‘problem solving’ and ‘insight formation’.
Information Processing
The contemporary cognitivists equate human mental activities

with the process that goes on in a ‘computer’ in operation. They
conceptualise human beings as information processing system. The
information processing system describes a psychological activity in
terms of information being received by the senses and then
information items being selected and passed on to short-term
memory where encoding processes transfer them to the long-term
memory. Long term memory provides a store room where
information can be retrieved in order to make a response.
There are a number of elements, which are central to the

cognitive theory of learning. To begin with, the individual is seen as
one having active relationship with the environment. He has
intentions and goals, and thinks of alternative strategies to achieve
these goals. Thinking is essentially a purposive activity. Learning is,
therefore, an intelligent and active process. Within this process, issues
of perception are very important because perceptual activity is the
first relationship between a person and his environment or situation.
The individual interacts with the situation and this interaction leads
to relativity in perception as he organises the stimulus into
meaningful patterns. Thus an individual acquires knowledge through
his interaction with the environment and stores it for using this in
new situations.
Learning as a Cognitive Process
Learning has been conceived as a cognitive process. In the

process of learning, certain changes in the cognitive structure take
place that help the individual in development and understanding
of the concept that is being learnt or taught. Thus, learning goals
are not achieved simply by doing but by grasping the meaning of
things in a way that can be transferred for finding the solution to
new problems.
Feedback: One of the important elements of the cognitive
approach is the notion of ‘feedback’. The learning situation is seen
as one in which an individual confronts a problem, develops a
hypothesis based on his knowledge in his memory and then tries it
out. The consequences of his action then provide him feedback so
that the correct solutions are confirmed and the incorrect ones
rejected.
What is the relationship of this school of thought to educational
practices especially teaching? Cognitive psychologists have
investigated complex mental behaviours in a scientific way and their
views are becoming increasingly important in their application to
education and instruction. The major emphasis of this approach is
on how to design educational activities to promote cognitive learning.
We describe below the major educational implications of the cognitive

approach for classroom teaching:
• The most important aspect of the cognitive approach to education
relates to promoting retention of knowledge acquired through
learning. The ability to retain knowledge depends on how best it is
understood. ‘Understanding’ can help us spreading mentally the
information we store in our memory and create new cognitive
structures to efficiently use long-term memory.
• Teaching materials should be planned on the basis of the theory of
discovery. Instructional methods, therefore, should emphasise the
spontaneous discovery competency of the learner. It indicates that
active learning methods should be adopted to motivate the learner
to rediscover the facts or find solutions to the problems.
• This approach emphasises, appropriate decisions regarding the
instructional objectives, analysis of pre-requisite behaviour, and
teaching methods.
• Besides, it stresses problem-oriented learning. It gives a detailed
description of how to teach in a reflective way by raising problems
and solving them.
• Lastly, it emphasises the study of learner character-istics, which can
be used by the teacher to expand the quality and quantity of students’
insights.
Gagne has identified nine phases of cognitive process that are
essential to learning and which need to be executed in sequential
order. The phases of learning are the typical series of external and
internal conditions that constitute a single learning act. The ‘internal
conditions’ of learning include two factors — learner’s psychological
states and cognitive process required for learning. The internal
process may be influenced by external events in the form of
environmental stimulation.
The functions of the nine phases of Gagne are categorised as:
• Preparation for learning,
• Acquisition and performance, and
• Transfer of learning.
The importance of these phases is that they are present in every
act of learning and are performed in different ways for different
varieties of learning. Preparation for learning initiates the individual
to the learning task. In contrast, acquisition and performance
represent the learning of the new capability. Depending on the
complexity of the skill to be learned, these phases may require a
varying number of sessions. Finally, transfer of learning may take

place a few days after acquisition of the new skill. A brief account
of the categories.
External conditions responsible for learning are very important
in various types of learning.
A brief description of these conditions of learning are given below:
• Contiguity: One of the basic conditions of learning is contiguity —
the almost simultaneous occurrence of the stimuli and responses. In
teaching we are always interested in making the students build up
associations between particular stimulus and responses.
• Practice: Practice is the repetition of a response in the presence of a
stimulus. We usually need to practice or repeat S-R (stimulus —
response) associations to retain them for relatively longer periods of
time. For new stimuli and new responses, more practice is required.
In all types of learning under S–R situations, practice is of crucial
importance. However, in concept learning, principal learning and
problem solving, it is of minor importance, if the other conditions of
learning such as reinforcement are provided appropriately.
• Reinforcement: Reinforcement is a major condition for learning
because of the complexity of the concept and because of its
importance, it should be known extensively. We can use reinforcement
in different ways to produce different effects. i.e., to effect different
types of learning in our students. In the process of reinforcement an
organism is presented with a particular stimulus before and after it
elicits desired respsonses. In a given situation, the organism will tend
to repeat the responses for which it is reinforced and to discontinue
responses for which it is not reinforced. We can distinguish a
reinforcer from other stimuli because it has a particular effect on
behaviour. A positive reinforcer is a positive reward while a negative
reinforcer is a stimulus, which gives us relief from an unpleasant state
of affairs.
• Feedback or knowledge of correct responses also functions as
reinforcement to strengthen the responses to be learned. The term
‘feedback’ stresses the informative aspect of teacher’s function. There
are various ways in which feedback may be provided. The importance
of providing feedback has sparked several technological innovations,
including programmed instruction and computer-assisted instruction.
Learning efficiency often increases when the student receives feedback
before moving to new learning materials. Available evidences indicate
that active responding with direct feedback is superior to passive
responding with indirect feedback. Very weak reinforcement may
sufficiently be effective in controlling one’s behaviour if it is wisely
used. We cannot say that a particular consequence is in fact a

reinforcer until we have evidence that it has strengthened the
behaviour of the individual concerned.
• Generalisation and discrimination: Both of these are closely associated
with the basic conditions of contiguity, practice and reinforcement,
which are basic to all learning. The complex learning behaviour can
be described in terms of stimulus generalisation and discrimination.
In many situations, we observe that a child when confronted with a
new stimulus makes a response he had previously learnt to make to
similar types of stimulus. We call this behaviour ‘generali-sation’.
When a child is taught to call a particular colour ‘red’, he also learns
to call similar hues ‘red’. Under discrimination, the individual makes
different responses to two or more stimuli. A child for example can
learn to select red colour and not pink. To the extent he learns to
pick up red and ignore pink, he has learnt to discriminate.
Synthesis of Behaviourism and Cognitive Approach
The behaviourists concentrate on the external stimulus and
conditions of environment for learning or bringing about changes
in behaviour. The cognitive theories, on the other hand, stress the
internal conditions of learning, viz., perceptual reorganisation,
insight, information processing and memory. But in reality, learning
depends on both external and internal conditions.
Gagne’s Views on Learning
Robern M. Gagne is a prominent educational psychologist whose

‘conditions of learning’ are generally employed in teaching-learning
process. He identifies the factors that account for the complex nature
of human learning. His viewpoints are often used to underpin the
mechanistic instructional technology that is associated with
behaviour modification and performance or competency-based
education. For Gagne, ‘learning is a change in human disposition or
capability, which can be retained, and which is not simply ascribable
to the process of growth’. Learning is a process that takes place inside
an individual’s brain. The most important aspect of learner is ‘his
senses, his central nervous system, and his muscles’. Gagne combines
a basic behaviourist position with elements of cognitive thought and
builds a hierarchical model of the different types of learning. Gagne
shows the way in which a unifying theory may be able to explain
how different kinds of learning relate to each other. He synthesises

the existing learning theories and has tried to provide a consistent
explanation for all types of learning.
Gagne puts forward a set of psychological principles of learning.
For example, learners learn best when information is presented in
logical sequence consisting of short units with clear framework.
Conditions of Learning
Gagne distinguishes eight conditions of learning, or varieties of

learning, beginning with the simple forms and ending with the
complex ones. Although Gagne refers to these conditions as learning
types, he is primarily interested in observable behaviour and
performance, which is the product of each condition. In this condition
of learning he combines a basic behaviourist thought with cognitive
theory into a hierarchical model of different types of learning. Here,
we shall give a brief description of the phases of learning advocated
by Gagne.
Varieties of Learning
Gagne identifies five categories or varieties of learning which include:
• Verbal information skill;
• Intellectual skill;
• Motor skill;
• Attitudes; and
• Cognitive strategies.
Each type of learning is acquired in a different set of prerequisite
skills and a different set of cognitive processing is required to support
the learner’s cognitive processes during learning. Thus, learning is
the result of interaction between a learner’s internal and external
events variables. In other words, Gagne attempts to synthesise the
basic principles of cognitivism and behaviourism.
The varieties of learning identified by Gagne are summarised below:
• Verbal Information Skill: Verbal information skill provides ability to
state/ recall information. This has to be developed to meet the needs
of a particular subject matter.
• Intellectual Skill: Intellectual skills are the most important skills
involving the mental operations. They include conceptualisation of
environment; discrimina-ting between things; understanding concepts,
seeing relationships between things. Reading, writing and handling

of numbers are the other abilities, which also come under this variety.
These abilities range from the simple to the complex.
• Motor skills: Motor skills are physical skills. They include a sequence
of physical movements.
• Cognitive strategies: Cognitive strategies include learner’s thinking,
remembering and learning the procedures we use for ordering and
processing information internally. They are learned over long periods.
• Attitudes: Attitudes are deep-rooted in us and we find it difficult to
change them. They determine our predisposition to positive and
negative responses towards an object. Our attitudes strongly affect
our motivation for learning.
Educational Implications of Gagne’s Theory of Learning
We present here three broad educational implications of Gagne’s theory

of learning to teaching:
• Prerequisite behaviour: Gagne advocated those processes of learning
that move from the simple to the complex. The learner has to develop
the prerequisite capabilities before he acquires new terminal behaviour.
Thus, the use of a hierarchy of learning and task analysis is an integral
part of instructional activities.
• Learners’ characteristics: Learners’ individual differences, readiness
and motivation to learn are the important issues to be considered
before designing instructional activities.
• Cognitive process and instruction: Transfer of learning and the
students’ skills of problem solving are integral parts of internal
conditions of learning applicable to the instruction. The skill of
learning ‘how to learn’ should be developed in the learner. The
emphasis should be on the individuality of the learner.
RELATIONSHIP OF TEACHING AND LEARNING
There is a close relationship between teaching and learning. A
teacher is said to be teaching when it is helping someone else to
learn. The quality of a teacher’s teaching is directly related to the
quality and value of the learning that is taking place in his students.
A teacher and his students interact and communicate, generally, under
three types of relationships:
1. Authoritarian;
2. Democratic; and
3. Laissez-faire.
However, in actual classroom situations, we find that these three

types of relationships overlap. For example, a teacher is not always
democratic. Sometimes he turns out to be authoritative or laissez-
faire. Different types of relationship create distinctive personality
characteristics in students. The students taught by an authoritarian
teacher develop apathy and dependency characteristics. They lack
the capacity for initiation and group action and show no interest in
their work.
A democratic teacher respects the individuality of his students.
He creates such an environment in which students freely
communicate with each other. The students in this type of
relationship show a high level of efficiency and habit of independent
work. A laissez-faire teacher is quite opposite to an authoritarian
teacher. He does not direct or guide students’ activities. In a laissez-
faire relationship, the students are more cooperative.
The teaching-learning process, generally operates at three levels which
include:
1. Memory level;
2. Understanding level; and
3. Reflective level.
Memory level of teaching-learning means committing factual
information to memory. If we observe teachers in the classrooms, as
suggested, find that in majority of the cases the teaching is being
carried out at memory level. The teacher gives factual material which
students memorise without under-standing it. This type of teaching
seems to be based on the S-R conditioning theory of learning in which
bondage is formed between the stimuli (S) and response (R) without
involving any purpose. Cognitive field psychologists point out that if
anything is learned, it involves insight but insight involved in memory
learning has no significant relationship to the material being studied.
The material learned is patterned by the learner. It may be noted that
teaching students at the primary stage is mostly carried out at memory
level to teach fundamental skills such as spellings and rules of arithmetic,
etc. Teaching-learning at the understanding level emphasises the
comprehension of the meaning of something when it is taken out of
that particular context. It means seeing solitary facts in relation to general
principles. Comprehension means mastery of the subject matter. It is
reached when thorough understanding of the subject matter is gained

through planned learning. It involves exploration, presentation,
assimilation, organisation and recitation through oral presentation or
in the form of a written paper. This type of teaching-learning can be
carried out with the students in senior primary classes.
Reflective level of teaching-learning is at the highest in the
hierarchical order of mental processes. It is not an isolated and
unitary process of memorising factual information for future recall
but it seeks to know how knowledge changes, grows and is
interpreted. Students, at this level, develop curiosity, interest, enquiry
and persistence which culminates in a scientifically determined
conclusion or solution of a problem. Teaching-learning at reflective
level involves careful and critical examination of an idea or problem
through the ‘problem solving approach’. It is only possible at the
high school and college level because older learners (students) have
usually developed certain habits and abilities that were not strong
in earlier years.
ACTIVITIES THAT FACILITATE LEARNING
A classroom teacher performs a number of activities, which are
aimed at facilitating learning.
These activities are:
• Presenting the material: The teacher present the prescribed materials,
which are available in part or some other form. The teacher is
supposed to breathe life into the text and help the learner
communicate with it.
• Identifying the objectives: The syllabus and very often, the prescribed
text itself make it clear as to what educational objectives are to be
achieved through a particular course. But practically, it is the teacher
who identifies them and states them in behavioural terms for the
learner. It is the teacher who points to what is significant and what
trivial, what needs more attention, and for what purpose.
• Motivation and learner: To reduce distraction, the teacher provides
motivation. He brings learners to a state of readiness in which learning
takes place more easily. All of us know of teachers whose very name
or presence provides enough motivation for a successful teaching
exercises. And then there are teachers who are demotivating in most
of the situations.
• Exploiting learner’s experience: Good teachers build on learners’

experiences. One and the same concept may be brought home to
rural learners with the help of their experiences and to those of urban
learners with theirs.
• Providing learning activities: Once a new concept is taught or a new
piece of information is given, the teacher promotes learning through
learning activities. For example, after having taught formula, the
teacher asks learners to apply their learning to work out the solution
of a few problems.
• Facilitating retention: Just knowing about a concept, does not amount
to having learnt it. The learner should be able to retain it in his
memory. Good teachers use different ways and means to help their
students to improve their retention through exercise.
• Promoting transfer of learning: Having learnt a concept or obtained
any new learning, the learner should be able to transfer his learning
to various issues within and across various disciplines. For example,
if we have learnt about the notion of Relativity in physics, we should
be able to think of a different kind of Relativity in sociology. Besides,
transfer also means facilitating further learning. Used in either sense,
transfer is provided by the teacher in the classroom through various
means.
• Providing occasion for feedback: For successful teaching, two way
feedback is needed from the learner to the teacher, and vice versa.
The teacher provides occasion for this exchange. For example, he
puts a few questions to see whether or not the learners have learnt
what he taught.
It is worth noting that each individual learns as a result of his
own efforts and successes. No teacher can learn anything for him.
The teacher’s task is to understand and encourage the child, to watch
for an appropriate psychological moment when he has a high degree
of readiness to learn a specific task, to guide him into making a
response, and then to reinforce his natural satisfaction in his own
success. The learning that occurs in a child through experiences
provided by the teacher starts from what he has previously learnt
and moves in directions that are determined by the needs and
interests he feels at the particular moment. A teacher is effective if
he is able to identify the child’s own purposes and feelings of need.
It is through the identification of these keys, the teacher unlocks the
doors of learning in any direction that the child can see as significant
for the satisfaction of his own purposes and needs.
VARIABLES OF TEACHING
Learning to programme is not easy. Recent experimental studies

into students’ programming ability have shown that university
students in many countries have similar difficulties in writing,
tracing, and designing programmes. The emergence of the expert
programmer from the novice is a process that involves the formation
of multiple mental models, deep and interlinked knowledge
hierarchies, and abstract, generalised problem-solving patterns. As
programming instructors, our job is to initiate and facilitate this
process.
SCHEMAS
An expert solves problems fluently and fast and possesses
domain-specific problem-solving strategies. A novice is
uncoordinated and slow and commonly resorts to generic problem-
solving strategies, such as trial-and-error and means-ends analysis.
What is a complex problem for the novice may be for the expert
merely a task with a familiar solution pattern. One explanation for
this difference is suggested by schema theory. Schema theory argues
that people bundle similar experiences into cognitive constructs
called schemas. Schemas are abstractions of concrete cases of
experience and have a crucial role in the way people store, organise,
and understand information. A schema can be triggered and brought
to bear – consciously or unconsciously – in new problem-solving
situations similar to previously encountered ones. The importance
of schemas, sometimes called plans, has been explored in many
fields, including computer programming.
For instance, say a student has encountered examples of:
• Sequentially searching an array for the smallest integer, and
• Searching a linked list of Movie objects for the movie with the highest
gross income.
With enough practice and reflection, encountering such concrete
cases contributes towards the eventual formation of a schema for
sequential searching, which can be applied to similar problems. An
expert has many schemas that accommodate various kinds of
scenarios he or she is likely to encounter. A novice, lacking these
schemas, flounders.
COGNITIVE LOAD
Human working memory is very limited in capacity and a
novice’s working memory resources are greatly taxed by problem-
solving situations such as programming. Novice students of
programming are commonly asked to complete assignments that
require understanding of multiple interacting programme
components, algorithmic design, the sometimes less-than obvious
programme syntax, language semantics, and the notional machine.
In addition, they may need to use an integrated development
environment or similar tools, or to apply third-party libraries in their
programmes. As the novice juggles all these new concepts in their
working memory, it is burdened with a high cognitive load.
Excessive cognitive load hinders meaningful learning and schema
formation.
Schemas combine related bits of knowledge into larger chunks,
which can be brought to working memory and processed as a single
entity. Sequential searching through a collection of elements, for
instance, eventually becomes a single chunk of knowledge whose
details do not need to be kept in working memory. With experience,
a learner becomes increasingly familiar with common schemas. As
this happens, triggering such schemas becomes increasingly
unconscious and automatic, further lessening the strain on working
memory.
PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
If schemas play a crucial part in turning a novice into an expert,
then it is crucial that we help our students construct them. Eckerdal
and Berglund drawing on work by Hazzan called for pedagogy that
helps programming students discern ‘canonical procedures’ before
maturing towards a more abstract ‘object conception’. A ‘canonical
procedure’ is a problem-solving procedure that is more or less
automatically triggered by a given problem. We see canonical
procedures as closely related to schemas. As students form and
internalise schemas, they learn procedures that can be applied
instinctively. Fostering schema formation will therefore aid the
student in developing canonical procedure. In addition to facilitating
the formation of schemas, it is also important to ensure that students

need to cope with as little extraneous cognitive load as possible.
Cognitive load can be adjusted by carefully choosing instructional
methods and example materials and through curricular redesign.
The two goals of helping students form schemas and managing
cognitive load are linked. On the one hand, schemas decrease
cognitive load; on the other hand, cognitive load level affects schema
formation.
Many recent works in the field of computer science education
can be viewed as attempts to support schema formation by making
explicit various patterns that occur in programmes. Of these
approaches, roles of variables are systematically linked to code
constructs and earlier results suggest that roles provide an excellent
coverage of variable use in the implementation of algorithms. For
these reasons, and since we felt that variable roles hold intuitive
appeal as a succinct way to express algorithm-related schemas and
explain and discuss experts’ programming knowledge, we integrated
roles of variables into our teaching in two courses at Helsinki
University of Technology. We relate our experiences of this
experiment from a teachers’ point of view. As suggested, also present
some early evidence of how our students took to roles of variables.
ROLES OF VARIABLES
Roles of variables are stereotypes of variable use in computer
programmes. Roles embody expert programmers’ tacit knowledge
on variable usage patterns, which can be made explicit and taught
to students. The concept of roles of variables was introduced by
Sajaniemi who analysed programmes written by novice-level
programmers. He concluded that 99 per cent of the variables used
in novice-level programmes can be described using a small set of
role names that denote certain common variable usage patterns. The
original role set was found through analysis of procedural
programmes. Since then, the set of roles has evolved, and roles have
been applied to object-oriented as well as functional programmes.
In recursive programmes, roles can be applied not only to variables,
but to the behaviour of parameters and return values over nested
recursive calls.
Research suggests that students can benefit from instruction that

uses roles. Sajaniemi and Kuittinen analysed the examination
answers of groups of introductory programming students who had
received the same amount of instruction through different teaching
methods. They found that students who are taught elementary
programming using roles of variables gain better programme
comprehension skills than students taught in an otherwise similar
way but without use of roles as a pedagogical tool. Byckling and
Sajaniemi further discovered that roles-based instruction facilitates
the development of programme construction skills better than
traditional instruction. Their results also suggest that the
development of programme construction skills can be aided by the
use of a role-based programme animator tool instead of a regular
visual debugger. Ben- Ari and Sajaniemi showed that the concept of
roles of variables is easily grasped by computer science educators.
So far, little has been published about the experiences of teachers in
higher education who have adopted roles in their programming
courses or about the methods of instruction that can be used to
introduce roles.
We briefly introduce each role in the current version of
Sajaniemi’s role set. Like Sajaniemi, we have divided the roles into a
group of eight general roles that can apply to variables of any type,
and a group of three roles related to data structure use. For a more
verbose introduction to each role and concrete programme examples,
we refer the reader to Sajaniemi.
General Roles
• A variable has the role fixed value if the variable’s value is not changed
after it is initialised.
• A variable has the role Stepper if it is assigned values in a systematic
and predictable order. An example of a Stepper is an index counter
used when looping through array elements.
• A variable has the role most-recent holder if it holds the latest value
in a sequence of unpredictable data values. For instance, a Most-
Recent Holder could be used to store the latest element encountered
while iterating through a collection of data elements, or the latest
value that has been assigned to an object’s attribute by a setter
method.
• The role Most-Wanted Holder describes variables that hold the ‘best’
value encountered in a sequence of values. Depending on the
programme and the type of the data, the ‘best’ value may be the
largest, smallest, alphabetically first, or otherwise most appropriate
value.
• A variable has the role Gatherer if the variable is used to somehow
combine data values that are encountered in a sequence of values,
and the variable’s value represents this accumulated result. For
instance, a variable keeping track of the balance of a bank account
object is a Gatherer.
• A Follower is a variable that always holds the most recent previous
value of another variable. Whenever the value of the followed variable
changes, the value of the Follower is also changed. For example, the
‘previous node pointer’ used in linked list traversal is a Follower.
• A variable is a One-way Flag if it only has two possible values and if
a change to the variable’s value is permanent. That is, once a One-
way Flag is changed from its initial value to the other possible value,
it is never changed back. For example, a Boolean variable keeping
track of whether or not errors have occurred during processing of
input is a One-way Flag.
• A variable has the role Temporary if the value of the variable is needed
only for a short period. For example, an intermediate result of a
calculation can be stored in a Temporary in order to make it more
convenient or efficient to use in later calculations.
Roles Related to Data Structures
• An Organiser is a variable that stores a collection of elements for the
purpose of having that collection’s contents rearranged. An example of
an Organiser is a variable that contains an array of numbers during
sorting.
• A variable is a Container if it stores a collection of elements in which
more elements can be added. For example, a variable that references
a stack could be a Container.
• A Walker is a variable whose values traverse a data structure, moving
from one location in the structure to another. For instance, a variable
that contains a reference to a node in a tree traversal algorithm, and
a variable that keeps track of the search index in a binary search
algorithm can be considered to be Walkers.
TWO CASES
At Helsinki University of Technology, roles of variables were
first adopted in the second programming course (CS2) lectured by
the third author in Spring 2006. In Fall 2006, roles were used in an
introductory programming course (CS1) taught by the first author.
The following subsections describe what measures we took to make
use of roles of variables in our courses. The reader should note that
despite the fact that students take CS1 before CS2, our experiment
involves one set of CS2 students and another set of CS1 students.
Therefore, none of our students enrolled in either course had been
previously taught roles of variables.
CS2 - Data Structures and Algorithms
Our CS2 course teaches data structures and algorithms
independently of any programming language. While we make use
of code and pseudocode examples, the focus is not on programme
code but on a more abstract level. Students are required to write
little code, since our goal is to give a broader overview of data
structures and algorithms than would be possible in a course that
includes many coding tasks. The topics covered include basic data
structures, sorting, priority queues, dictionaries and graph
algorithms. The course also covers basic algorithm analysis. We
examine a number of different sorting algorithms, for instance, in
order to demonstrate the fact that there is no single sorting method
that is conclusively better than the rest.
‘Lightweight’ Introduction of Roles
We did not go out of our way to change the examples we used

or the order in which they were presented in order to accommodate
for roles of variables. Instead, we used existing examples and
attached roles of variables to them by annotating course materials
with role names. We introduced roles very briefly as they appeared
in existing examples. We discussed examples using role names quite
casually, and no extra effort was put into defining the roles for the
students. Roles were not learning objectives of the course, but merely
a learning aid, which students could make use of if they wished.
Lecturer’s notes included links to the roles of variables home page
in case someone wanted to learn more. In previous experiments with
using roles in teaching, more effort was made to define each role to
students; our approach in the CS2 course was decidedly more casual
and ‘lightweight’.
There were two groups of students in the CS2 course, which we
refer to as CS majors (Computer Science students) and CS minors
(students from other engineering disciplines such as Electrical
Engineering and Engineering Physics). Lectures were the same for
both groups, and exposure to roles of variables through lecturer’s
notes and slides was identical for both CS majors and minors. In
addition to lectures, CS majors had classroom exercise sessions,
which made use of code examples annotated with role names. CS
majors, therefore, had an additional chance to discuss roles in class,
although we did not require the use of roles in the classroom sessions
either. The classroom exercises covered basic algorithm analysis,
designing short new algorithms, simple proofs, etc. Thus, only a
subset of the exercises was such that roles were applicable.
For each exercise, one of the students was selected to present
his or her solution to the rest of the group. If students wanted to
use roles when explaining a solution, it was up to them to do so; we
did not specifically encourage it. In addition, even though our
teaching assistants were aware of the existence of roles of variables
as a concept, we did not instruct them to pay any specific attention
to roles. Instead of classroom exercises, CS minors had a teamwork
assignment, which was also not strongly linked to roles of variables.
In this assignment, students were asked to design a solution for a
larger software application. Typically, several algorithms and data
structures were needed in order to complete the assignment. Again,
if roles were used to explain a team’s solution, this arose voluntarily
from the students themselves.
Assessing Impact on Students
We wanted to see how the ‘casual’ introduction of roles of

variables affected our CS2 students. To find out whether or not
students found roles of variables useful, we wrote a multiple choice
question in our CS2 course feedback form. Students were asked to
select the statement that best described how they felt about roles of
variables. Giving feedback was voluntary and anonymous, but
students were awarded with one extra point for the final examination
if they filled the feedback form.
We wished to find out whether or not students actually learned
about roles of variables. We assumed that if our students had learned
about roles, they would demonstrate this by using role names in
their descriptions of the behaviour of algorithms and in their
algorithm implementations. To find out if this was the case, we went
through the final examination papers of the CS majors and counted
the occurrences of role names in their answers. We chose this group
of students since they had had more exposure to roles through the
classroom exercises. Moreover, as indicated by the results presented
later in this paper, our CS majors had found roles of variables
somewhat more helpful than our CS minors. We analysed the
answers to two questions in the examination. The first question
required the students to explain the behaviour of the Quicksort
algorithm given in pseudocode. For the second question, each
student had to design a depth-first search (DFS) algorithm using
pseudocode or some programming language and then explain the
behaviour of the algorithm.
CS1 - Basics of Programming
Our CS1 course introduces students to computer programming
using object-oriented programming and the Java programming
language.
General Introduction to Roles
Variables are a fundamental programming construct, and they

appear in programmes in numerous different ways. Depending on
programming paradigm and language we can have variables
containing numbers, characters, objects, pointers, and references. We
can have local variables, global variables, static variables, instance
variables, and parameter variables. We can have steppers, most-
wanted holders, and fixed values. The lists go on. To help our CS1
students navigate this conceptual and terminological jungle, we
presented roles as an aspect of variables to be placed side by side
with two other aspects that are routinely and explicitly taught in
CS1: type and scope.
Introduction of Individual Roles

We again did not set out to restructure our course materials and,
instead, introduced roles as they appeared in existing examples. As
a consequence of some idiosyncrasies in course structure, roles were
not introduced quite in the order suggested by Kuittinen and
Sajaniemi.
As we use Java ArrayLists very early on, the role container was
presented at the beginning of our course, for example, and we ended
up introducing instance variables that are Most-Wanted Holders
before introducing Most-Recent Holders.
Following the advice of Sajaniemi, each time a new role was
encountered, it was defined to the students informally in course
materials and during lectures, with an emphasis on how this new
role differs from previously encountered ones. At this point, we also
listed some example situations where the new role may be useful
and discussed how variables with this role typically appear in Java
source code.
Each role was associated with an illustration as it was
introduced. The illustrations we used were mostly different ones
than the visual metaphors used in the PlanAni animator tool. As
the course proceeded, we continued to point out cases where a
previously introduced role was encountered again in lecture
examples, and used roles to draw parallels between examples.
Students who did not come to lectures had less exposure to roles
than those who did, despite the availability of lecture notes.
The programming assignments in our CS1 course require
students to read plenty of given programme code, which they then
extend, modify, and correct.
We annotated this given code – a few thousand lines of
commented code in total – with comments indicating the role of each
variable. Not all variables were annotated in this way, however;
parameter variables were considered Fixed Values ‘by default’, for
instance.
Fig. Categorisation of Java Variables
Roles and Algorithm Design

When writing code of their own, we wanted our students to think
about the intended use of each variable just as they think of the kind
of data to be stored in the variable. To this end, we used roles as a
tool during lectures when discussing how to implement the classes
and methods in Java programmes. In algorithmic design, we
commonly used stepwise refinement to progress from a pseudocode
solution towards actual Java code. Roles served as a stepping stone
in this process, helping us bridge the gap from idea to code. After
an initial pseudocode solution was created, we discussed the kinds

of programming constructs needed for the actual implementation.
As a part of this process, we selected roles and types for variables.
We then refined our pseudocode to explicitly use these constructs.
Students were encouraged to follow a similar procedure when
working on their assignments.
A simple example of an algorithm in pseudocode that makes
use of roles is shown in Figure. Given a collection of Movie objects,
the algorithm finds and returns the one with the highest box office
income.
Say greatest so far is a Most-Wanted Holder of type movie.
Say current is a Most-Recent Holder of a movie.
For each element in the collection this movie:
1. Store the element in the Most-Recent Holder current.
2. If current has grossed more than greatest so far, it is now the most wanted alue.
Assign the value of current to greatest so far.
Finally, return the value of greatest so far.
Fig. Pseudocode Using Role Names
Assessing Impact on Students

In our online course feedback questionnaire at the end of CS1,
we included a few questions related to roles of variables. Using a
four-point Likert-like scale, students were asked whether they saw
roles of variables as something useful, whether roles had helped
them understand given code, whether roles had helped them
understand examples of step-by-step method design using
pseudocode, and whether roles had helped them design and write
their own programmes. Answering the questionnaire was an
obligatory part of passing the CS1 course, but the answers were
nevertheless processed anonymously. We had some non-Finnish-
speaking students taking the course but their course feedback is not
considered in this paper, since they had different materials and a
different feedback form than the Finnish-speaking majority.
The feedback questions asked of the students were not quite
identical in the CS1 course compared to those used in the CS2 course.
The CS1 questions were designed later than the CS2 ones and probed
the topic in some more detail; this was deemed to be useful by the
teacher for reasons of course development, despite having an adverse

effect on the comparability of the feedback results of the two courses.
What we Did Not Do
In the CS2 course in particular, the way we introduced roles was
decidedly ‘lightweight’. We did not spoon-feed roles of variables to
those of our students who were not interested in learning them.
Although various CS1 lecture examples in particular will have been
more difficult to understand without grasping role terminology, it
was perfectly possible for a student so inclined to ignore any explicit
teaching of variable roles and still pass the courses. We had no
assignments in either course specifically about roles, nor did we
require students to explicitly use roles in any assignment.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
We take a retrospective look into the process of applying roles
of variables in the CS2 and CS1 courses.
CS2 - Data Structures and Algorithms
The original motivation to adopt roles of variables into our
teaching was to let the instructors experiment with these novel
concepts and to monitor how students assimilate this new
knowledge. As it turned out with the CS2 course, the experiment
was a learning experience perhaps especially for the instructor.
Roles of variables helped us develop our materials and teaching
processes further. This happened not only because roles helped us
provide additional documentation of algorithm behaviour in code
and pseudocode This brought to light some anomalies, which had
previously gone unnoticed. Some 25 different programme examples
were annotated, five of which needed to be transfigured. We then
report on the same experiment from the students’ point of view.
Conflicting Roles and Names of Variables
The name given to a variable can be very misleading if it is not
consistent with the way the variable is used. The code fragment in
Figure is an example taken from the lecturing material that we used
in CS2 before adopting roles. This material made widespread use of
variables named temp. In Figure, the role of the variable temp is

not a Temporary even though its name suggests such an
interpretation. The variable is a Gatherer, which iteratively
accumulates a hash value for a key string. Each intermediate result
stored in the Gatherer variable represents the hash value for an
increasingly long prefix of the key string k. Each consecutive hash
value is calculated based on the previous one, until the hash value
for the entire key string has been formed. The variable name hash
Value Of Prefix would be more informative and more descriptive of
the variable’s role in the algorithm.
1 temp = 0;
2 for (i = 0; < key_length; i++)
3 temp = ( (32*temp) + value (k[i]) ) modulo N;
Fig. A code Fragment, which used Horner’s rule to determine the hash value of a key string k.
Obviously, one can improve uninformative variable names
without thinking about them in terms of roles. However, we found
roles helpful in that they triggered this process of careful examination
of variable names in our CS2 examples, and provided a framework
that enabled us to systematically examine and discuss the ways
variables are used and how this usage should be reflected in variable
names.
PRINCIPLES OF TEACHING
• Share intellectual control with students: Building a sense of shared
ownership is an effective way of achieving high levels of student
interest and engagement. It can be achieved in many ways; many of
these involve some form of formal or informal negotiation about parts
or all of the content, tasks or assessment. Another complementary
approach is to ensure that students’ questions, comments and
suggestions regularly influence, initiate (or terminate) what is done.
• Look for occasions when students can work out part (or all) of the
content or instructions: Learning is almost always better if students
work something out for themselves, rather than reading it or hearing
it. This is not always feasible of course, but often it is. It can involve
short, closed tasks: e.g. ‘if the units of density are grams per cm work
out the formula by which we calculate the density of a substance
from the volume and mass of an object made of that substance’. It
can also involve much longer open-ended tasks: e.g.’Here is a photo
of the ruins of Machu Pichu, work out as much as you can, from this
photo, about the Incas and their fate’.
• Provide opportunities for choice and independent decision-making:
Students respond very positively to the freedom to make some
decisions about what or how they will work. To be effective, the
choices need to be genuine, not situations where there is really only
one possibility. These may include choices about which area of
content to explore, the level of demand, the form of presentation
and how to manage their time during a day or lesson.
• Provide diverse range of ways of experiencing success: Raising
intellectual self-esteem is perhaps the most important aspect of
working with low and moderately achieving students. Success via
interactive discussion, question-asking, role-plays and tasks allowing
high levelsof creativity often results in greater confidence and hence
persistence in tackling other written tasks. Publicly recognising and
praising good learning behaviours is useful here.
• Promote talk which is exploratory, tentative and hypothetical: This
sort of talk fosters link-making and, as our research shows, commonly
reflects high levels of intellectual engagement. Teaching approaches
such as delayed judgement, increased wait-time, promotion of ‘What
If’ questions and use of P.O.Es are all helpful. The classroom becomes
more fluid and interactive.
• Encourage students to learn from other students’ questions and
comments: The conception that they can learn from other students
ideas, comments and questions develops more slowly than the
conception that discussion is real and useful work. The classroom
dynamics can reach new, very high levels when ideas and debate
bounce around from student to student, rather than student to
teacher.
• Build a classroom environment that supports risk-taking: We
underestimated the very high levels of perceived risk that
accompanies many aspects of quality learning for most students,
even in classes where such learning is widespread. It is much safer,
for example, to wait for the teacher’s answer to appear than to
suggest one yourself. Building trusts in the teacher and other
students and training students to disagree without personal put-
downs are essential to widespread display of good learning
behaviours.
• Use a wide variety of intellectually challenging teaching procedures:
There are at least two reasons for this, one is that teaching procedures
that counter passive learning and promote quality learning require
student energy and effort. Hence they need to be varied frequently
to retain their freshness. The other is that variety is another source

of student interest.
• Use teaching procedures that are designed to promote specific aspects
of quality learning: One of the origins of eedback or knowledge of
correct responses also functions as reinforcement to strengthen the
responses to be learned was the belief that students could be taught
how to learn, in part by devising a range of teaching procedures to
variously tackle each of a list of poor learning tendencies, for example
failing to link school work to relevant out-of-school experiences. The
variety is not random and one basis for selecting a particular teaching
procedure is to promote a particular aspect of quality learning.
• Develop students’ awareness of the big picture: how the various
activities fit together and link to the big ideas: Many, if not most
students, do not perceive schooling to be related to learning key ideas
and skills. Rather, they see their role as completing tasks and so they
focus on what to do not why they are doing it. Much teacher talk,
particularly in skills based areas such as Mathematics, Grammar and
Technology reinforces this perception. For these reasons, students
(including primary students) commonly do not link activities and do
not make links to unifying, ‘big ideas’.
• Regularly raise students’ awareness of the nature of different aspects
of quality learning: This is a key aspect of learning how to learn.
Students typically have no vocabulary to discuss learning. it is very
helpful to build a shared vocabulary and shared understandings by
regular, short debriefing about some aspect of the learning that has
just occurred. Having a rotating student monitor of a short list of
good learning behaviours can be very helpful.
• Promote assessment as part of the learning process: Students (and
sometimes teachers) typically see assessments as purely summative:
something that teachers do to students at the end of a topic. Building
the perception that (most) assessment tasks are part of the learning
process includes encouraging students learning from what they did
and did not do well as well as having students taking some ownership
of and responsibility for aspects of assessment. It also includes teachers
ensuring that they are assessing for a range of aspects of quality
learning (eg if you want students linking different lessons then reward
that in your assessment) and for a wider range of skills than is often
the case.
3
Techniques of Teaching
TEACHING SKILLS: MICRO-TEACHING

TEACHING SKILLS
The aim of all teaching activity is to facilitate and support student
learning. Doing this in the best possible way is to show teaching skill.
Teaching Qualifications and Teaching Skills
Support for student learning can take many different forms. Some
support activities can be directly perceived by the students. Other
activities are less apparent, but still important since they help create
good working conditions for teachers and students and thereby have
an influence on student learning. Teaching (including supervision and
examination), the preparation of study guides and learning material,
the development of courses and new methods, efficient administration
and good pedagogical leadership are examples of different types of
pedagogical work. Of importance is also what the teacher has done
to develop and maintain his or her pedagogical competence. The
different pedagogical activities a teacher has performed are all part
of his or her teaching qualifications. These teaching qualifications
are what the teacher presents as a basis for an assessment of teaching
skills. Teaching skills are related to the way in which the teacher
has performed the activities. The assessment of teaching skills should
focus on how the teacher works, not what the teacher has done.
QUESTION SKILLS
Types of Classroom Question
Skill in asking and directing questions to students is one of the
important skills about which a teacher needs good orientation so
that he can acquire this skill effectively.
In a class where the teacher dominates the class mainly by using

direct influence uses three types of questions, such as:
• Compliance: Here the student is to comply with a question of the
commanding and requesting nature
• Rhetorical: The teacher puts the question to the student, but does
not pause for an answer. The teacher himself answers it.
• Recall: The teacher asks questions which students answer from their
memory.
A teacher should not confine himself only to these types of
questions. He should raise questions which involve higher mental
processes like comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and
evaluation also.
Higher order cognitive questioning can be classified into three broad
categories: namely:
1. Reasoning questions;
2. Creating questions;
3. Valuing questions, so as to help the students to:
– Reason
– Create, and
– Value.
Reasoning Questions
Illustrations:
• Why instructional objectives should be stated in behavioural terms?
• Why do you think the competencies a teacher requires should be
described in behavioural terms?
Reasoning questions can follow the following pattern:
• How do you differentiate between.............. and............. ?
• What are the causes........... ?
• What information do we need to prove............... ?
• Why do you believe that if..................... ?
Reasoning questions are helpful in explaining a concept.
Explanation involves:
• The ‘what’ (the interpretative);
• The ‘How’ (the descriptive); and
• The ‘Why’ (the reason-giving).
The teacher may have to decide which type/pattern of questions
(what, how or why) should be first in sequence.
Creating Questions
Illustrations:
• What type of instructional strategies will you develop to realise the
instructional objectives that you have set out to achieve in your
course?
• How do you plan to utilise the existing community resources to
provide outdoor learning experience to your students?
Creating questions can take the following pattern:
• What will happen if.................. ?
• Write a story to......................
• Play the role of......................
• What will be your strategy................. for achieving................?
Value Questions
Illustrations:
• What experiences in your life make you feel proud?
• Evaluate the performance of teacher from the students’ reactions.
Some of the patterns common to valuing questions are:
• Do you agree................?
• What is your opinion about...............?
• What steps would you have taken........... if...........?
It is also desirable for a teacher to group the question into “fact”
questions and “thought” questions. Fact questions are those
questions which can be answered from memory or by referring to a
book or notes or by just getting the information/copying from
another student. “Thought” questions would involve higher mental/
cognitive process.
Framing Classroom Questions
Given below are a few guidelines for framing classroom
questions.
You need to go through them very carefully.
• In classroom teaching, very short answer questions (one sentence
answer) or short answer (two three sentences) should be asked. These
questions give the child an opportunity to express his ideas.
• Whenever multiple choice questions have to be asked, these should
be written on the blackboard or on the other roller board.
• Essay type questions should be avoided during the classroom

transaction.
• Questions which require ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ response should be rarely asked.
These questions have high scope for guessing. The correct responses
on the part of a student does not manifest as to whether the response
was really known to him/her or it was a sheer guess. Secondly, such
questions hardly stimulate thinking.
• Teachers should ask questions which are related to the content being
taught in the class. The questions not related to the content hardly
serve any purpose. Rather, they break the continuity of the lesson
and distract the student’s attention and impede the process of learning
the content.
• As an ilIustration, given below is a teaching episode. In this episode,
teacher wants to teach what is a “noun”. Identify the sentences which
are irrelevant:
– Teacher: What is a noun?
– Student: Noun is the name of a person, place or a thing.
– Teacher: Writes on the blackboard. Allahabad is a sacred city; and
puts the
– Question: ‘Which is the noun in this sentence?’
– Student: Allahabad.
– Teacher: Do you know what is a sacred place?
– Student: No
You know that the instructional objective of the teacher in the
said teaching episode was to teach the ‘noun’. She asks them to recall
its definition and recognise the noun in a given sentence. The third
question “Do you know what is sacred place?”, is not a relevant
question. Therefore, questions, which drift from the main theme of
the lesson, need to be avoided. If the questions structured by a
teacher is not grammatically correct, it creates confusion in the minds
of students. They take more time to understand and respond. In some
cases, they may even fail to respond. Moreover, the teacher’s fluency
of questioning is reduced. Grammatically incorrect questions also
fail to communicate their intent.
Some errors which have been observed while framing classroom
questions include:
• Not using appropriate interrogatives at the beginning of questions;
• Use of inappropriate tense; and
• Use of double negatives in a single question.
Given below are a few appropriately and inappropriately
structured questions.
Inappropriately Structured Appropriately Structured

Where is Ashoka born? Where was Ashoka born?
Is it not true that there is no Is it true that there is no oxygen in
atmosphere beyond a certain height?the atmosphere beyond the certain
height?
That inappropriately structured questions mar the quality and

effectiveness of classroom questions. Secondly, inappropriately
structured questions with double negatives render the questions
confusing for students. Clarity refers to the understandability of
language of a question. The components of relevance and
grammatical correctness also contribute to the clarity of the questions.
Besides, there is one more source of threat to the clarity of questions.
The use of vocabulary beyond the understanding and experience of
students impede their understanding of questions. Consider the
following examples:
What problems accompany the What problem arise when a large
migration based urbanisation? number of people move to cities? What causes the
Indian war of What were the causes leading to the
independence 1857? Indian war of independence of 1857?
What is the flora and fauna of What are the important plants and
temperature zone? animals of temperature zone?
You would notice that the use of flora and fauna might make
the language of the third question beyond the vocabulary of say III
class students. Students therefore, may fail to respond to the
question. Other questions also lack clarity and therefore may fail to
elicit the response from students. Teachers should avoid framing very
lengthy questions. Too lengthy a questions fails to get registered in
the mind of students. The length of a question therefore, needs to
be appropriate to the purpose and level of students. Students’ grade
level and their maturity needs to be taken into consideration while
framing questions. As far as possible, the question should not contain
words more than what is absolutely essential. Given below are two
inappropriately structured questions, which lack precision.
Appropriately structured questions in this regard are also presented:
Will anyone of the back bancher When did India get freedom?
tell me as to when did India get freedom?
Can u tell me waht is the name Who is the president of India?
of the first president of India who
is the highest authority in the country?
Classroom questions generate certain mental processes in

students and vary in the kind and complexity of thinking required
for answering them. Based on the thinking processes required, the
classroom questions have been classified into three different levels
of categories: lower order questions, middle order questions and
higher order questions. The lower order questions stimulate recall
and recognition; the middle order questions stimulate translation,
interpretation and application; and the higher order question
stimulates analysis, synthesis and evaluation process in students.
Asking Question in the Classroom
Structuring of questions is a conscious process going on in the
mind of the teachers continuously in the classroom: He structures
various questions in relation to the instructional objectives of the
lesson and the learning task at hand. Ultimately these questions are
communicated to the students to elicit answers from them. This
process of communicating the question verbally to the students in
the classroom is termed as the ‘delivery process’. Once a teacher
has put a question to the class, the next step in the sequence refers
to identifying a student who would respond to that question. This
stage is known as ‘distribution stage’ in classroom questioning
behaviour sequence. Delivery and distribution are thus important
aspects of classroom questioning behaviour.
Delivery Component
A teacher’s questioning in the classroom is primarily a verbal

communication to stimulate students’ thinking. In a normal
classroom, a teacher talks to approximately 30-35 students. The
effectiveness of his talk in general and questioning in particular
depends on the delivery process which includes the speed with
which a question is put, the voice its pitch and tone, and pause to
allow the students to think.
Let us now discuss these components relating to the delivery process
of classroom questions:
• Speed: The speed of the delivery of a question refers to the time taken
in speaking it out to the students. Our observations have shown that
usually teachers take a few seconds to deliver a question. Moreover,
it is also found that in most of the cases the speed remains

uninfluenced with the function and level of a particular question.
Indeed, high speed in asking questions is sometimes wrongly estimated
by teachers. Considering the level of aural and oral development of
students, it could be rightly justified that the speed of delivering
questions in the classroom should always be in accordance with the
students’ comprehensibility. Besides, the speed of delivering a question
should also be adjusted according to the level of thinking required to
answer it. The lower order questions requiring memory functions of
students could be asked relatively faster in comparison to higher order
questions, which requires complex mental operations. Putting higher-
order questions at a quicker pace is likely to go incomprehended in
the classroom. Consequently, the students may not be able to respond
to them. Thus the level and function of classroom question determine
the speed of their delivery. Questions intended for drill and practice
could be asked relatively faster than questions to perform other
functions. In conclusion, it may be emphasised here that speed of
the delivery of a question should be in accordance to the students’
cognitive development, the level of thinking required to answer it,
and the function it is required to perform.
• Voice: In the perspective of questioning in the classroom, voice refers
to its audibility and modulation is such a manner that each and every
student in the classroom listens accurately what the question is, what
it requires and through what level of thinking it could be answered.
The question should be spoken in such a voice that all students
including those sitting in last rows of the classroom can hear it. Only
then we can expect to harness the students’ capacities to develop the
lesson and to impart new knowledge. Besides the audibility of the
question, its modulation orientation is also important. Intonation of
specific words or pharases of a question emphasise the specific objects
that are to answer a question. Improperly modulated or intonated
questions remain unsuccessful in creating an appropriate learning
mental set in the students. Such questions tend to be perceived by
the students as statements put questions, which results in a failure to
secure the desired attention from the students. The discussion leads
to the conclusion that teachers should pay adequate attention to their
voice, its pitch, modulation and intonation.
• Pause: It refers to the small periods of silence observed by the teacher
just after delivering a question. These periods of silence are very
important in determining the kind and level of thinking stimulated
in students. They provide the time to the students to think and
formulate an appropriate answer. A long pause communicates the
teacher’s intent to elicit well considered relatively lengthier answer

from the students. On the contrary, a short pause indicates the
teacher’s expectations of immediate answers from the memory of the
students. It has been found that usually teachers in the classroom
neglect the importance of a pause to stimulate thinking in students
and observe either a too short or too lengthy pause, for a question
irrespective of its level and function. It should be kept in mind that
periods of pause should be in accordance with the level and function
of the question. Thus, a shorter pause for lower order questions is
suitable. While relatively lengthier pause is appropriate for higher
order questions requiring higher mental thinking from students. Drill
questions require shorter periods of pause than questions for other
functions. It is very common for teachers to ask questions in the
classroom: These questions serve many purposes. One of them is to
test students’ knowledge at different stages of teaching. Questions
are also put to arouse their curiosity and to prepare them for the
learning task.
In classroom teaching questions are used by the teacher to find
out whether students have understood what was taught. But its
effectiveness depends on the competence of the teacher who uses it.
One must acquire this skill for its effective use in his/her classroom
instruction. Questions are also classified broadly into two categories.
Questions in the first category are those which ‘test’ knowledge. The
latter may be labelled as ‘divergent’ questions. The questions in the
former category are labelled as ‘convergent’ questions as they have
a particular correct response.
The following questions fall in the first category:
• When was Mahatma Gandhi born?
• When was Indian Constitution formed?
• When did India achieve Independence?
You know that there is one correct response for each of these
questions. Students’ responses to these questions will either be
correct or incorrect. The question in the second category does not
have any one correct response. A number of responses to such a
question can be correct.
For instance, there is no single correct response to any of the following
questions:
• What would happen if man starts living on the moon?
• What would happen if India is not able to achieve “Education for All
by 2000 A.D.”?
There can be many different responses to either of the questions,

which cannot be classified as either right or wrong. On the other
hand, questions in this category stimulate thinking on the part of
students and generate new ideas. In the classroom, questions
belonging to the first category are mostly asked. Questions falling
under the second category are rarely asked. As a result we do not
provide adequate experiences to our students to stimulate their
thinking.
Distributing Questions in the Classroom
The following guidelines as suggested by Kulkarni (1986), may

be followed by teachers while distributing questions in the classroom.
Clear and Coherent
The questions should be clear and coherent. The clarity of the
question is less when the teacher does not plan to ask that question.
He becomes hesitant and indecisive. Sometimes the vague and poor
knowledge of the teacher about the subject leads to questions which
are not clear.
Frequency and Sequencing of Questions
The number of questions asked by the teacher in one classroom
session should be moderate. Too many questions will transform a
teaching session into a quiz session. If the number of questions asked
by the teacher is small, it will make students passive and inattentive.
Pausing and Non-verbal Cues in Questions
Some teachers ask a question and without waiting for an answer
the students themselves give the answer, or proceed further. This
makes the situation a rhetorical one and the students also feel it is
an activity of the teacher in which they need not participate. Hence,
it is desirable to provide an appropriate pause for students to think
and formulate their answers. The teacher should also resphrase the
question if it is not understood by the students. Some verbal or non-
verbal cues should also be provided by the teacher to help the
students to arrive at the correct answers. This sustains the interest
of students.
Directing Questions
The teacher while asking questions should provide the
opportunity to answer to the majority of the students. The distribution
of questions should be uniform and random. If a teacher asks questions
only to those who are eager, he may end up with a situation where
he is talking to only a few students in the classroom, completely
ignoring the slow learners. If he deliberately puts questions to those
who cannot answer, the teacher may end up in a situation where most
students get a feeling that the teacher trying to expose their ignorance
in the classroom. Hence, questions should be asked to facilitate the
learning process, not as punishing/threatening tool. The distribution
of classroom questions can be considered along three lines, namely
distribution in terms of classroom space, distribution among volunteers
and non-volunteers, and redirecting the same question to other
students for increasing student participation.
Proper distribution of questions helps in securing and
maintaining students’ attention, enlists their active involvement in
the teaching-learning process and also in sustaining their interest in
the learning task:
• Distribution in space: It has been observed that the teachers tend to
ask questions mostly from the students seated in front rows. Besides
this, there is also a variation in the frequency of questions put to the
students on the left or right side of the classroom. Thus, in most of
the classroom the back benchers are neglected. These students slowly
become passive towards the teacher’s questions. They fail to answer,
even if an occasional opportunity is provided to them: The lack of
active participation in classroom teaching-learning creates a feeling
of indifference among students in the classroom transactions. This
leads them to poor attention and consequent low achievement. An
effective approach in this regard may be to distribute questions fairly
in different parts of the classroom. This will help the teacher to secure
active cooperation of all the students to develop his lesson and make
it interesting.
• Distribution among volunteers and non-volunteers (direct): Whenever
a question is asked by a teacher, some students raise their hands,
while others do not. Besides, some students show, verbally or non-
verbally, their eagerness to answer the question and others show their
reluctance towards it. The former category of students is termed as
volunteer and latter as non-volunteer. The teacher should also give
special consideration to non-volunteer students while asking the

question. Non-volunteers, as a group, lack initiative, remain aloof and
disinterested in the classroom transactions. They may rather create
discipline problems. All this leads to poor achievement. In order to
involve the whole class in the teaching-learning process and making
teaching effective, the teacher should put questions to volunteers as
well as non-volunteer.
• Distribution among volunteers and non-volunteers (redirection): There
is one more procedure available to distribute questions in the
classroom. Suppose, you have asked a question in the classroom and
after an appropriate pause, you designate student “A’ to respond. The
movement you designate student “A” other students class become
passive listeners. To check this tendency among the students and
sometimes to improve or judge the answer given by “A”, you may
repeat your question to some more students. This is what we call
‘redirection’ and is a useful strategy to secure and maintain student’s
attention in the classroom. Redirection of the questions among the
space and among volunteers and non-volunteers is also an effective
way to secure student’s active participation in the teaching-learning
activities.
Prompting and Probing Questions
To facilitate the learning process, the teacher should provide
prompts, cues, etc., to students so that they come up with right
answers. The prompts can be thematic, sequential or pictorial. The
questions asked by the teacher will help the students to remember,
think, create, compare or evaluate if the teacher asks a series of
supplementary questions. This skill of asking questions is ‘probing’.
It is a process which helps a student to ‘deliver’.
Dealing with Students Responses
When a teacher asks a question there are a number of possible
student response situations from the students.
These are:
• No response
• Wrong response
• Partially correct response
• Incomplete response
• Correct response.
The teacher should try to elicit the correct response from all these
response situations. This may require his/her to do some prompting
or seek further information by probing or sometimes refocussing on

the concept. The teacher may also sometimes use “how” and “why”
about a concept to find out the students understanding of the concept
(increasing awareness). Let us discuss these aspects.
Prompting
As already discussed, ‘prompt’ stands for a hint or clue, which

helps a student to arrive at the correct response. This skill is used to
deal with response situations such as ‘response’ or ‘wrong response’.
In these situations the teacher does not provide answer to the
question put to the class, but guides the student through suitable
hints to arrive at the desired response.
Sometimes no response or wrong response situation may occur
due to poor framing of question on the part of the teacher rather
than the students’ inability to answer. Whenever the teacher is in
doubt about the clarity of the question s/he should repharase the
question before providing a hint to the student. Prompting influences
students in a number of ways. Firstly, it promotes their learning to
a great extent. Secondly, students experience a sense of emotional
security. Thirdly, prompting stimulates students’ thinking as they
are made to think for the correct response. Fourthly, prompting
enhances self-esteem as they themselves arrive at the correct
response. Lastly, prompting enlists student’s participation in the
teaching-learning process.
Given below is an illustration on the use of prompting:
• Teacher: How will the climate be affected if the sun disappears from
the solar system?
• Student: No response.
• Teacher: Has it anything to do with the day and night? (prompt)
• Student: There will be no day.
• Teacher: Very good. How will the temperature be affected?
• Student: The temperature on the earth will decrease. This will lead
to heavy snowfall........... and...........
Seeking Further Information
This technique is to be used when the students initial response

is either incomplete or partially correct, i.e., to deal with incomplete
response situation and partially correct response situation. Seeking
further information consists of eliciting additional information from

the student to bring the initial response to expected response level.
For example, ‘What else’ type of question seeks further information
from students. When a teacher feels that the student’s response to
his/her question is as a result of guessing, s/he should ask the student
to give reasons for his/her answer or state the answer differently. In
such a situation if the student’s answer is based upon guessing, s/he
will not be able to give the reasons for or restate the answer in his/
her words.
Consider the following illustration:
• Teacher: What are the various natural sources of water?
• Student: Rain and rivers.
• Teacher: Is there any other source of water? (seeking further
information)
• Student II: Yes sea, lakes, springs.
Refocusing
This component is used to deal with correct response situation.
When a student response to the teacher questions happens to be
completely correct, the teacher should use this component. In such
situations, normally there is no need to put any more questions.
But sometimes a skilful teacher wants to strengthen the response
given by the student. For this, he refocusses the student’s response
and wants the student to relate it with something already learnt in
the class or requires the student to consider the implications of the
given response in more complex and novel situation. Besides,
questions requiring the student to identify the similarities or
dissimilarities of the given responses with the related facts or issues
not only strengthen the given response but also stimulate the
thinking on the part of the student.
Given below is a situation, which illustrates the use of refocussing
component of the skill:
• Teacher: Do gases dissolve in water?
• Student: Yes, gases dissolve in water.
• Teacher: Can you name any gas that dissolves in water?
• Student: When we open a bottle of aerated water (soda water), gas
dissolved in the water comes out immediately in the form of bubbles.
Increasing Awareness
This component is also used to deal with correct response
situation. After the student has given the correct response, i.e., ‘the
criterion response’, this component can be used to increase critical
awareness in the student. This involves asking ‘why’ and ‘how’ of
the correct response. By asking why and how of the correct response
the teacher asks from the responding student the justification/rational
for his correct response. Thus asking ‘why’ and ‘how’ of a completely
correct response increases their critical awareness.
Given below is a teaching episode, which illustrates the use of this
component for increasing awareness among students:
• Teacher: A person wants to get down from a boat and jumps suddenly.
In which direction will the boat move while the person moves
forward?
• Student: The boat will move in the backward direction.
• Teacher: Why will the boat move backward when the person jumps
out of it? (increasing critical awareness.)
• Student: While jumping the feet of the person exerts a force on the
boat. At the same time a force is exerted by the boat on the feet of
the boy, which makes him move forward and the boat moves
backward.
COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Communication: The Concept

The word ‘communication’ is derived from Latin word,
‘communis’ meaning commonness of experiences. However,
communication cannot be defined through a single definition.
Different people perceive it in different ways in different contexts.
Communication has heen described as “the transfer of conveying of
meaning”, “transmission of stimuli,’ ‘one mind affecting another’;
‘the mechanism through which human relations exist and develop,
or sharing of experience on the basis of commonness”.
Communication involves interchange of meaning among
individuals. This occurs mainly through verbal and non-verbal
symbols, such as language, gestures - a shrug of the shoulders, a
nod, facial expressions and actions. Same cultural context makes
communication easier because words essentially represent what
members of a society decide it would stand for. The knowledge of

these symbols, signs and meanings is essential for effective
communication. For example, let us take a simple word like ‘chair’.
To some, it may be a thing to sit on, however, in certain other
contexts, it can denote a desired position. Thus we realise that pattern
system of communication are influenced by sociocultural- political
and economic contexts. Depending on the environment or
surroundings in which communication takes place, it can be defined
as a process of sharing or exchange of ideas, informataion,
knowledge attitudes or feeling among two or more persons to elicit
the desired/intended response.
Elements of Communication
Communication is a dynamic process involving active interaction

between sender and receiver and variety of inputs. Effective use of
communication in a classroom situation between teacher-pupil or
pupil-pupil can accelerate the pace of actions.
Following are the elements of communication:
• Source
• Message
• Channel
• Receiver
• Feedback
The Source
Source is the communicator. S/he encodes the purpose in the
form of a message, to pass it on to receiver and also decides the
medium-channel to use for communication.
The Message
Message may be an idea, information or attitude. It can be
purposive or non-purposive. Messages drafted for achieving the
specific behavioural objective are purposive. Messages with no
intention to influence the behaviour are formed as non-purposive.
For effective communication, the messages should be short, precise
and in simple language. Clarity of message and style of presentation
can enhance the effect of communication.
The Channel
The channel for communication is a medium, a carrier of
information from the source to receiver and vice-versa. This may be
verbal, non-verbal, written, printed, visual, etc. TV, Radio,
newspaper, etc., are used as means for mass communication.
The Receiver
The receiver is recipient of the message. In the case of mass
media, the readers, viewers and listeners are the receivers. In a
classroom situation, the teacher is the source, the message is the
instruction/lesson and pupils are the receivers.
The Feedback
Receiver’s response to communicator’s message and vice-versa
is termed as the Feedback. Feedback is quick in face-to-face
communication. This may be verbal or non-verbal. Receiver’s
feedback to the communicator becomes a stimulus for him/her. This
provides an opportunity to gauge the effectiveness of communication
and helps in improving the quality of further communication when
needed.
Process of Communication
Communication is a necessary condition for growth and

transmission of cultures, the continuity of societies and the effective
functioning and control of social groups. The process of
communication involves interaction between the communicating
individuals. In education communication the response (feedback)
evoked in the receiver (learner) becomes a stimulus for the
communicator (teacher) to which s/he responds. Thus, in face-to-face
communication, the source (teacher) and receiver (teacher-student)
are at once both response and stimuli. This process continues
between the players (source and receiver) in conversation game in
which a number of intervening variables such as individual
differences, levels of perception, motivation level, etc., are involved.
Another important feature of communication is that the recipient

(teacher) infers from the behaviour of communicator (pupils), what
idea or feeling the other person is trying to convey. S/he then reacts
not to the behaviour but to the inferred idea or feeling. The other
person then reacts to his/her response in terms of his/her inference
of the idea/feeling and the meaning behind it.
Communication accomplishes its purpose accurately if the
message is interpreted in the same way by the communicator and
by the recipient of the communication. Communication depends on
the comprehension and communication skills of the individuals.
Interpretation of Meanings
Meanings exist in the minds of people. Interpretation of meaning
depends upon the past experience, present circumstances and
psychological state of an individual.
Meanings depend upon present context both:
• Verbal and
• Non-verbal and also on syntactical arrangement of words.
For example:
• Child’s first book
• First child’s book.
You would have noticed that the meaning is changed when the
same set of words are arranged in a different manner. Thus, every
word occurs in the context of other words and the meaning of a
word depends upon the pattern of these words. When these are not
supplied, the individual will provide his/her own internal verbal
context, (it can represent - person and objects) the inference and
meaning of responses would differ accordingly. Therefore, in a
classroom situation, it is important to simplify and clarify the
concepts so that students derive the same meaning as put forth by
the teacher.
Functions of Communication
Communication is at the root of all social actions and interactions.

Thereby it functions as a tool that creates understanding and
facilitates collective living.
Some of the functions of communication in a social system are given

below:
• Information: Information serves as a resource for socio-cultural and
economic development. Communi-cation provides information (both
past and present) about environment for wider utilisation by people.
Access to information enables people to participate in and make
decisions on social issues as well as issues safeguarding their own
interest.
• Instruction: Communication acts as a tool to instruct, educate and
socialise the members of society at all the stages in life.
Communication provides people an enormous amount of knowledge,
expertise and skills to become useful members of a society. Besides
creating awareness, it guides people and provides opportunities for
participating in public life effectively.
• Entertainment: Entertainment plays an important role in human lives
by revitalising them. Communication in the form of pictures, films,
music dramas, dance, literature, sports, games teaches a great deal
about life to human beings even while entertaining them.
• Persuasion: Persuasion helps in reaching decisions on social, economic
issues/policies to make the process of governing or control easier.
The art of persuasion can save many lives when used constructively.
Advertising, selling, negotiating in mass media, peace talks at
international level are the examples of persuasive aspect of
communication.
• Debate and discussion: These provide different viewpoints on issues
of public interest and help in arriving at a general agreement on
related matters. In a healthy discussion, each participant has the right
to express his/her point of view and no one is under pressure to toe
a certain line.
• Cultural Promotion: Communication is used to transmit the culture
to successive generations for preservation and promotion. This can
be done through traditional means of communications as well as
through mass media.
• Integration: By providing knowledge/information about individuals,
groups or cultures to one another, communication helps them to
understand and appreciate each other’s ways of life. This develops
tolerance towards each other. However, if used negatively,
communication can also be a great disintegrating tool. For example,
misinformation about a certain class, caste or religion can lead to
friction and mistrust in a society.
Barriers to Communication
There are many elements of communication and a message has
to pass through various stages from the source to the receiver(s)
and vice versa. These may cause a number of interruptions and
distortions in the way of effective communication.
Sillars (1988) discussed two types of barriers that usually distort the
flow of communication, and these are discussed below:
• Barriers due to the senders and receivers
• Barriers due to the external factors.
Barriers Due to the Senders and Receivers
The act of communication between senders and the receivers
may break because of lack of understanding between each other,
poorly defined objectives, failure to comprehend the language used,
or both the sender and the receiver may not be clear about what to
communicate and so on. The receiver (pupil) may not understand
the message as intended by the source (teacher or communicator).
Similarly, defensive or rigid attitude, situational misunderstanding,
unfounded certainty, etc., are some other factors which can affect
communication among the participants. The personality
characteristic’s such as - aptitude, attitude, interest, motivation, and
experience of an individual also influence the effectiveness of
communication. Similarly, the hidden distractors, such as tension,
frustration, anxiety, etc., among students can also decrease the impact
of educational communication. You, as a teacher, cannot force a pupil
(receiver), to learn unless he or she is mentally ready to receive
educational message or has the necessary pre-requisites and study
skills to grasp it. Another barrier of effective communication can be
receiver’s indifferent behaviour and lack of sufficient motivation. The
participants may not be ready to receive information and willing to
actively participate in its transaction. This can be because of various
intervening variables.
Barriers Due to the External Factors
Certain external factors such as, various type of noises caused by
plying of vehicles, sound of type-writer, conflicting messages, poor
printing impressions, poor reception of the audio-video programmes,
etc., may distort communication between the sender and the receiver.
Technical interruptions too can create a lot of distortion in the
communication process. Poor maintenance of equipment, substandard
tools, defective receiving sets, weak transmission waves, etc., inhibit
effective communication..
At times, it is difficult to avoid barriers between the source and
the receiver. However, these can be minimized by taking special care
at the stage of planning and developing the instructional materials.
Strategies to Minimize Barriers
The following steps can be used to overcome some of the barriers in

communication:
• Use of different teaching arrangements;
• Use of easily comprehensible language;
• Selection of appropriate medium; and
• Appropriate timings for communication.
The interference of some of the barriers can be reduced to a large
extent if the sender/ source understands the process of
communication.
Communication can be effective when:
• Both the parties (teacher-pupil) involved know that communication
need to be attended to. Both should take initiative in sharing
information.
• Both the parties recognise each other’s communication signals, i.e.,
they should understand each other’s language.
• Both the parties should engage jointly in a purposeful communication
act.
• Communication is for an outcome - the participants should display
the communication specific intended behaviour. Information must
be successfully shared so that a tangible outcome can be displayed.
Educational Communication
Education is the process of imparting/acquiring knowledge
through instruction, study and participation. Education would result
in improvement/addition in knowledge, skills and understanding.
The emphasis of education is on holistic development which is
positive in nature and observable in daily life. Teaching is an
educational communication. Knowledge, skills, standards and values
of societies are imparted through subject matter. The teacher makes
these desired inputs through i) lecturing, ii) discussing, iii)

questioning, iv) explaining, v) dramatising, vi) using audio-visual
aids, vii) reading, viii) demonstrating and so on.
Educational communication is purposive in nature. In a
classroom situation, communication between teacher and children
is for an all round development of our future generation. In this
setting, communication for teachers is both an art and a science. An
art because they have to plan a strategy as per the needs of target
groups. To communicate the desired concepts s/he may use various
techniques (drama, story telling, discussion, and so on). It is a science
because it follows a systematic process - planning, implementation
continuous and final evaluation to assess the impact for desired
output, i.e., holistic development of children.
Characteristics of Effective Teaching Strategy
For educational communication to be effective, a proper teaching

strategy needs to be adopted. The selection of suitable teaching
strategy depends upon the task, context and the teacher’s discretion.
Nonetheless, a good strategy:
• Captures and maintain interests;
• Interprets the concepts clearly;
• Encourages critical thinking;
• Applies the learning in problem-solving; and
• Stimulates self-learning.
For this, it is important to select and organise the material taking
into consideration learners’ abilities, interests and psychological
factors into mind. The sequencing of information, i.e., moving from
familiar to unfamiliar, simple to complex, general to specific and
concerte to abstract needs to be done. Utilisation of illustrations,
audio-visual aids, humour, questions use of exercises and
assignments for continuous assessment increases the level of interest
of students. Short, active responses during the course of the listening
facilitate a greater degree of attentiveness and active participation
by children.
Communication for Enhancing Children’s Competencies
Communication enables development of listening and speaking

skills for acquiring new concepts. While planning suitable tasks we
need to bear in mind the age level and the interests of the children.
The same activity can be varied for different age groups.
While planning suitable listening speaking and comprehension
activities for learners, the following questions need to be raised:
• What type of listening activities actually go on in real life?
• What are the particular difficulties likely to be encountered by learners
when coping with them?
We would like our children to go through activities which equip
them to deal with real life situations effectively. In order to do this
we have to create situations in the classroom which are as close to
real life as possible.
To do this, we might need to look at:
• Environment clues: These include the facial expressions, posture, eye-
direction, proximity, gesture and tone of voice of the speaker. In
addition, related noises, visual materials such as illustrations, diagrams
or maps may be deliberately introduced to make the listening
experience as close to real life as possible.
• Communication in real life: Communication is interrupted by various
stimulus such as person, action, visuals, happenings, etc., in the
environment. In real life, stretches of heard speech are broken up by
being spoken by different people from different directions. Even when
there are long periods of seemingly uninterrupted discourse-talks,
instructions, anecdotes, etc., these are often broken down into smaller
units by the physical movement of the speaker - pauses, audience
reaction, changing environmental clues. More formal stretches of
speech - lectures, broadcasts, reports are usually less interrupted.
• Formal/Informal communication: It is necessary to draw a distinction
between formal and informal communication used in most
spontaneous conversations. You would have noticed a range of
formality, stretching from the extremely formal (speeches, lectures),
to the fairly formal (news reading), to the fairly informal (television
interviews), to the very informal (gossip, conversations, phone chats).
As teachers, you need to be aware of these aspects to identify the
special characteristics of speech that go with the degree of formality
for effective communi-cation.
There is a distinct difference between the auditory effect of a
piece of spoken prose and that of informal conversation. The former
is characterised by a fairly even pace, volume and pitch. Spontaneous
conversation, on the other hand, is jerky, has frequent pauses and
overlaps, goes intermittently faster and slower, louder and softer,
higher and lower. Hesitations, exclamations, emotional reactions of

surprise, irritation or amusement are bound to cause uneven and
constantly changing rhythm of speech. Informal speech also contains
a lot of colloquial terms, which are often spontaneous. The listener
needs to develop some skills to identify the characteristics of this
kind of speech. The message of a piece of spontaneous talk is
delivered much more slowly, with a lot of repetition and irrelevant
talk, than that of a rehearsed or planned speech.
In addition to preparing the activities keeping real life aspects in view,
you can use variety of occasions in classroom to impart the skills of listening
for:
• Main ideas,
• Important details,
• Sequence of events.
In this context, let us discuss two types of problems that have been
identified to be most resistant for instructions:
• Overuse of preferred information: Many pupils tend to ignore
important information and rely excessively on the facts that appeal
to them. Their attention has to be consciously drawn to other relevant
facts.
• Lack of comprehension monitoring: Many pupils tend to understand
narratives, descriptions and explanations one fact at a time, without
being able to evaluate the facts or see inconsistencies in the facts.
They need to be given several such tasks, initially as reading tasks,
where their eyes can move back and forth to detect inconsistencies.
Later similar tasks can be given as listening task. The stories they
have heard, the places they have visited, the home environment, the
programmes they have been listening to on television all provide the
backdrop against which they able them to view and give meaning to
the various sounds. You can specifically develop tasks which will help
children to improve some particular aspects of their listening.
Efficient, active attentive listening needs to be taught at all grade
levels.
Teacher-Pupils’ Communication
Different types of communication serve different purposes. We
can utilise these effectively to facilitate teacher-pupils’
communication.
Interpersonal Communication
The teacher who values good rapport with children takes time
to listen to children. This is where the student and the teacher have
a real opportunity to grow and to change together. Generally,
teachers say eighty percent of the words in classroom. S/he may try
to maximize informal interactions this would increase interaction
amongst students. Endless repetition can be avoided by challenging
children to listen carefully. If additional clarification is required, the
children should be encouraged to help each other. New topics,
instructions and activities need to be planned carefully to correlate
with the child’s attention span. Variety adds interest, renewed
enthusiasm and better listening opportunities in the classroom. They
should not become tedious, boring or overwhelming. You also need
to reward and commend good behaviour.
Sincere statements to the class at appropriate times might include:
• I appreciate your attention to what was taught.
• I can tell by your answers that you’re listening carefully for main ideas.
• I see that you stopped what you were doing to be ready for these
directions.
Individual statement of appreciation and observation are always
prized by children. Honest, non-judgemental, positive feedback is a
reward highly valued by students. These type of comments as quite
different from empty praise. It specifically tells students what the
teacher values in their task or behaviour. Children will often follow
the teacher’s example by commenting on good listening by their
peers.
Group Communication
Teacher-pupils communication and peer-group interaction falls
under group communication. Teachers’ skill in organisation and
conduction of interaction leads to various outcomes such as sharing
of ideas, opinions, information, settlement of differences, problem-
solving and so on. Children talk and listen better in informal settings
rather than in formal, impersonal settings such settings need to be
created. The length of time for which children can attend to any
communication depends in part upon the interest span and amount
of time children of a given age can remain physically inactive. The
duration of group activities needs to be carefully planned. To

stimulate attentive listening, children need to be motivated. Teacher
can use the skill of stimulus variation during communication, such
as change in speech pattern (change in tone, volume or speed) of
communication can make communication more effective and useful.
Interest can be created through a range of post-listening activities
which allow children to give personal expression to what they hear
- through asking questions, dramatisations, or expressing their ideas
with paper, paint and clay. Before beginning a story, the teacher
might say, “when I finish the story, let’s see if you know what
happend to the Rabbit?” Or she may stop occasionally to ask
questions that test attentiveness, as “why did the mangoes fall off
the tree?” Opportunities to talk over what they listened to or to
repeat important points increase the retention of material and give
purpose to listening.
MICROTEACHING
Microteaching is a training technique whereby the teacher
reviews a videotape of the lesson after each session, in order to
conduct a “post-mortem”. Teachers find out what has worked, which
aspects have fallen short, and what needs to be done to enhance
their teaching technique. Invented in the mid-1960s at Stanford
University by Dr. Dwight Allen, micro-teaching has been used with
success for several decades now, as a way to help teachers acquire
new skills.
In the original process, a teacher was asked to prepare a short
lesson (usually 20 minutes) for a small group of learners who may
not have been her own students. This was videotaped, using VHS.
After the lesson, the teacher, teaching colleagues, a master teacher
and the students together viewed the videotape and commented on
what they saw happening, referencing the teacher’s learning
objectives. Seeing the video and getting comments from colleagues
and students provided teachers with an often intense “under the
microscope” view of their teaching. Micro lessons are great
opportunities to present sample “snapshots” of what/how you teach
and to get some feedback from colleagues about how it was received.
It’s a chance to try teaching strategies that the teacher may not use
regularly. It’s a good, safe time to experiment with something new

and get feedback on technique.
Techniques
Since its inception in 1963, microteaching has become an
established teacher-training procedure in many universities and
school districts. This training procedure is geared towards
simplification of the complexities of the regular teaching-learning
process. Class size, time, task, and content is scaled down to provide
optimal training environments. The supervisor demonstrates the skill
to be practiced. This may be live demonstration, or a video
presentation of the skill. Then, the group members select a topic and
prepare a lesson of five to ten minutes. The teacher trainee then has
the opportunity to practice and evaluate her use of the skills. Practice
takes the form of a ten-minute micro-teaching session in which five
to ten pupils are involved
Feedback
Feedback in microteaching is critical for teacher-trainee
improvement. It is the information that a student receives concerning
his attempts to imitate certain patterns of teaching. The built-in
feedback mechanism in micro-teaching acquaints the trainee with the
success of his performance and enables him to evaluate and to improve
his teaching behaviour. Electronic media gadgets that can be used to
facilitate effective feedback is a vital aspect of micro-teaching.
DEVELOPMENT OF SPECIFIC TEACHING SKILLS
Teaching can be analysed in terms of teacher behaviour at least

at three levels, namely, teaching skills, general teaching behaviours
and specific teaching behaviours. At ‘the first level, teaching can be
analysed into component teaching skills. Following the analysis at
this level, teaching can be defined as a set of component skills for
the realisation of a specified set of instructional objectives. It means
teaching itself is a complex skill comprising of a set of teaching skills.
These teaching skills can be further analysed into sets of general
teaching behaviours at the second level. Thus, teaching skills can be
defined as a set of interrelated teaching behaviours for the realisation
of specific instructional objectives. The set of instructional objectives

to be realised by a particular skill will be limited in number as
compared to the totality of instructional objectives. These teaching
behaviours can be further analysed into specific teaching behaviours
at the third level of analysis. These teaching behaviours of a skill,
therefore, can be defined as a set of interrelated specific teaching
behaviours contributing to the realisation of some aspects of the
instructional objective to be realised by a particular teaching skill.
CONCEPT OF TEACHING SKILLS
“Teaching constitutes activities that are designed and performed
to produce change in student behaviour.” Komisar has pointed out
that various specific activities included in teaching are introducing,
demonstrating, citing, reporting, confirming, questioning,
elaborating, etc., which may be considered as constituent skills of
teaching. In simple words, teaching constitutes a number of verbal
and non-verbal teaching acts like questioning, accepting student
responses, rewarding, smiling, movements, gestures, etc. These acts
in particular combinations facilitate the achievement of objectives in
terms of student growth. A set of related teaching acts or behaviours
performed with an intention to facilitate students’ learning can be
called a teaching skill.
‘Teaching skills are specific instructional techniques and
procedures that a teacher may use in the classroom’. The Asian
Institute for Teacher Educators has defined teaching skills as
‘specifically those activities of teaching that are especially effective
in bringing about desired changes in students’. Mc Intyre and White
have defined the term teaching skills as ‘a set of related teaching
behaviours which in specified types of classroom interaction
situations tend to facilitate the achievement of specified types of
educational objectives’.
Teaching Skills
You have already understood the concept of a teaching skill.
Introducing a Lesson
When one introduces a stranger to you, your reactions towards

him/her or your responses during the conversation with him/her
depend upon the introductory statements that are made about him/
her.
Similarly, when a teacher introduces a lesson or a unit, he/she
gives a brief introduction about the lesson or the unit, in order to
draw the students’ attention to it. Generally, an introduction to a
lesson includes what the teacher does with or without the help of
the students upto the stage of stating the aim of the lesson. Teachers
differ from each other in the way they introduce a lesson. Studies
have shown that the students’ learning of the new lesson or unit
largely depends on the way the lesson is introduced. A teacher must
possess the necessary skill to introduce a lesson or unit in an effective
manner. The components of the skill of introducing a lesson are:
• Desirable behaviours:
– Using previous knowledge: The previous knowledge refers to
knowledge already possessed by the students. If any new
knowledge is to be added to the previous knowledge, there should
be a logical continuity between them. New knowledge should also
be relevant to previous knowledge of students. When we present
new knowledge to the students, we have to bring their previous
knowledge to their conscious level.
– Using appropriate devices: Here, ‘device’ refers to the technique
that a teacher uses while introdu-cing a lesson. Such devices can
be:
a. Use of examples
b. Questioning
c. Lecturing describing narrating
d. Story telling
e. Dramatisation
f. Audio-visual aids and
g. Experimentation. The appropriateness of the use of each of
these devices depends on its suitability to the maturity level,
age level, grade level, interest, experience of the students and
also on the lesson to be taught.
• Undesirable behaviours:
– Lacking in continuity: Continuity refers to the sequence of ideas
or information being presented. While introducing a lesson,
continuity breaks when the statements made for questions asked
by the teacher are not logically sequenced.
– Making irrelevant statements: A statement or a question which a
teacher makes while introducing a lesson, is said to be irrelevant
when it is not related to the aim of the lesson. Such statements
or questions do not contribute to the effectiveness of the skill in

terms of establishing rapport with the students. Sometimes such
statements also confuse the students.
Explaining
In our day to day life you find persons explaining some idea or
phenomenon by going deep into the matter with appropriate
examples, logically organising the ideas, using certain non-verbal
gestures, etc. You also find persons who cannot explain clearly. They
jumble up ideas. They not only confuse the audience but also get
confused themselves. This is because they do not present ideas in a
logical sequence.
In classrooms right from grade I through higher grades, a teacher
explains ideas and concepts. It is a most commonly used skill and is
the essence of instruction. When a student does not clearly
understand the ideas which his/her teacher tries to convey, he/she
generally asks for an explanation.
A teacher is said to be explaining when he/she is describing
‘how’, ‘why’ and sometimes ‘what’ of a concept, phenomenon, event,
action or condition. Explanation can also be defined as an activity
to bring about an understanding in someone about a concept,
principle, etc. Explanation involves filling up the gap in one’s
understanding of the new phenomenon by relating it to his/her past
experience. Thus, explanation depends on the type of the past
experience, the type of the new phenomenon and the type of
relationships between them.
In a classroom, an explanation is a set of interrelated statements
made by the teacher related to a phenomenon or an idea, in order
to bring about or increase understanding of the students about it.
While giving explanation, we generally explain causes of the
phenomenon, reasons for the action, various steps involved in
arriving at the particular result, or various events that have occurred
earlier resulting in the event being explained. All such causes,
reasons, steps, events, etc., are called ‘antecedents’. Such antecedents
result in the phenomenon, event, result or action. Each of these is
known as a consequent. Thus an explanation involves giving
antecedents to a consequent, which can be diagrammatically
presented as follows:
There are various techniques through which we can explain an

idea, phenomenon, etc. They are question-answer technique, use of
audio-visual aids or by making certain related statement concerning
what we have to explain. Sometimes we use all the techniques
simultaneously to make explanation more effective.
To summarise, the desirable teacher behaviours for effective
explanation should include, using only relevant statements, having
continuity in statements, using vocabulary which the students know,
being fluent in speech, avoiding vague words and phrases, using
beginning and concluding statements and testing students’
understanding by putting a few questions.
Questioning
Questioning is an important teaching skill that a teacher must
learn. A teacher needs to put meaningful questions to the students
during the teaching-learning process. You may be curious to know
more about ‘meaningful questions’.
Let us try to know what makes a question meaningful by considering:
• Structure,
• Process, and
• Product of questioning
Structure refers to the grammatical aspect and the content part
of the question.
Various criteria for a well structured question are:
• Grammatical correctness,
• Conciseness,
• Relevance, and
• Specificity.
Increasing Student Participation
You must be aware that when a student participates in the
learning process, His/her learning becomes more effective. A student
is said to participate when He/she takes active part which is
observable by responding to what the teacher asks for, by
contributing his/her own ideas related to the topic being taught by

the teacher or by reacting to others’ ideas in the classroom.
Student participation is an observable behaviour of students and
includes responding and initiating. When a student is listening to
the teacher he/she is not participating, because listening behaviour
of the student is not observable.
Student participation in the classroom is essential for the following
reasons:
• Students are more attentive towards the lesson when they are
participating.
• Students’ urges of social recognition and social acceptance are
satisfied.
• There will be better understanding on the part of the students when
they participate.
• A teacher can evaluate his/her teaching, that is, whether it is being
effective in bringing about learning or not.
Skill of increasing student participation involves integrating the
various components of the skill, namely, creating set, questioning,
encouraging student participation and pausing in such combinations
and proportions so as to maximize student participation.
These components are explained below:
• Creating Set: ‘Set’ in a class room may be defined as mental readiness
on the part of the students before learning any task. If the students
have to participate in the classroom discussion, they should be
mentally ready, emotionally as well as cognitively. This can be done
by posing to students a problem or situation which they discuss with
the help of the teacher.
• Questioning: A question is a stimulus in the classroom that elicits
student participation in terms of student response. You are aware
that a good question is well structured, i.e., precise, direct and
grammatically correct. It is also put with proper tone modulation and
made audible to all the students. To increase student participation
the teacher should:
– Avoid repeating questions,
– Avoid answering his/her own questions, and
– Avoid asking a number of questions.
• Encouraging Student Participation: In order to encourage student
participation, we use two types of behaviours— verbal and non-verbal.
Sometimes we may use both simultaneously. When the student gives
the correct response we may say ‘yes’, ‘correct’, ‘very good’ and such
other expressions. We may repeat student response to encourage. We

may nod, smile-and sometimes pat the student who has responded.
When the student gives a wrong response, we may say ‘think again’,
‘it is good that you have attempted’ and such other expressions. When
the student has not given any response, we may say ‘come on’, ‘try’,
etc.
• Pausing: Pausing can be defined as deliberate silence introduced by
the teacher during classroom interaction so as to increase student
participation. When the teacher pauses, the students are stimulated
to participate. Pausing should be accompanied by non-verbal cues
which would elicit more student participation.
Providing Reinforcement
You know that all the students need social approval for their
behaviour. When they are answering or responding in the class, they
are eager to know whether their answers or responses are correct or
not. When the students come to know that the answers given by
them are correct, they feel happy and get encouraged. Thus, their
participation in the class increases. In such a situation, we say that
the student’s behaviour of responding correctly is ‘reinforced’ or
strengthened. In other words, it may be said that there is positive
reinforcement in the student’s behaviour. In providing reinforcement
important points to be remembered are as follows:
• Positive reinforcement means strengthening of desirable behaviour.
It increases student participation in the class. Positive reinforces are
those behaviours of the teacher which encourage students to
participate more and more. ‘
• Negative reinforcement means weakening of undesirable behaviour.
It decreases students’ partici-pation in the class.
• Negative reinforces are those behaviours of the teacher which
discourage the students to participate. Skill of reinforcement involves
more and more the use of the positive reinforces and decrease the
use of negative reinforces so that the students participate to the
maximum.
– In positive verbal reinforcement the teacher gives positive
reinforcement through various verbal (with words) expressions.
The teacher makes encouraging remarks such as ‘that’, ‘good’,
‘right’, ‘yes’, ‘correct’, ‘excellent’, ‘well done’, ‘continue’, etc.
– Positive non-verbal reinforcement occurs when the teacher wants
to reinforce positively a desired student response. The teacher may
use certain non-verbal (without words) expressions like nodding of
head, smiling, moving towards the responding student, keeping

eyes on the student, writing the response of the student on the
blackboard or any other non-verbal action indicating pleasure at
the student’s response.
– Negative verbal reinforcement interferes with the learning of the
students. It affects learning negatively and decreases the
motivation of the students. We should avoid giving this type of
reinforcement. The teacher should avoid discouraging expressions
such as ‘you are not good’, ‘wrong’, ‘non-sense’, ‘incorrect’, ‘stop
it’, ‘do something else’, etc. The negative remarks of this type
should be avoided if the students are to participate more in the
class.
– Negative non-verbal reinforcement is given by using such
behaviours as moving away from the responding student, keeping
eyes on the student with discouraging looks, hard and
disapproving stares, not looking at the responding student, tapping
foot impatiently and walking around, etc. The teacher should be
conscious of such behaviours and avoid them as far as possible if
the skill of reinforcement is to be used effectively.
Using Teaching Aids
Sometimes it is difficult to convey the meaning of abstract ideas
or concepts to students. A teacher needs to know how to bring
clarity, simplicity and interest in his/her teaching. The skill of using
teaching aids helps in this regard. It involves the principle of securing
and sustaining attention of students and hence creates interest in
the lesson.
Teaching should not be tedious and boring to the students. In
the prescribed curriculum there are many abstract ideas, which a
learner has to learn. In order to convey these abstract ideas, concepts
and laws, the teacher needs to arouse interest and curiosity in the
students.
The skill of using aids involves describing an idea, concept or
principle as by using various teaching aids.
General advantages of using teaching aids:
• By using audio-visual materials, inaccessible processes, materials,
events and objects could easily be brought to the class.
• Use of audio-visual materials results in greater acquisition of
knowledge of facts and ensures longer retention of the information
gained.
• Use of audio-visual materials in the classroom can provide effective

substitutes for direct contact of students with environment.
• Use of audio-visual materials involves more than one sense and hence
it would be easy.to secure and retain attention of students.
• Audio-visual materials could be used to motivate and stimulate
interest of students to gain further knowledge.
Some important types of teaching aids are explained below:
• Objects: Real objects can be used as examples to clarify some concepts
and principles. Usage of parts of flowers and branches of trees in
botany lessons; cycle pumps, thermometers in science lessons; beads,
match sticks, etc., in mathematics lessons are the common examples
of objects being used during teaching.
• Models: Models are specially prepared to describe, illustrate an idea,
concept or principle. They are replica of reality. A good model should
have all the necessary characteristics of reality. When models are
specially prepared to illustrate a concept and can be detached in its
parts for closer examination, its value in a classroom can be more
than the original object itself. For example, use of a model of an eye
instead of the real one is more appropriate.
• Pictures: When objects are not available for use in classrooms, pictures
may be used for explaining an idea or concept or principle. Pictures
are handy and sometimes economical too. Pictures themselves can
be abstract, but they can help in illustrating a point with oral
explanation.
• Diagrams, maps and sketches: These are useful in teaching history,
geography, science, etc. They help in clarifying and bringing out
essential points in a lesson. In science lessons, diagrams and sketches
help a lot in describing an idea or principle. The teacher can draw
them on the blackboard. A teacher who wants to describe parts of the
body like eye, ear, muscular system, etc., can take the help of diagrams
and sketches.
• Practical demonstration: This is an important device in the teaching of
science and geography. In physics when a teacher explains a principle
or law, he/she call d:, it with the help of experimentation. In order to
describe the idea that sunlight is essential for plant in food preparation,
a teacher can conduct the required experiment.
Thus, there are various types of teaching aids. But none of them
can be effectively used without an oral explanation either by teachers
or by students. It is also essential to see that the teaching aid used is
appropriate to the age level, grade level, maturity level of the
students and to the topic taught.
Writing on the Board

You know that black board or chalk board is the visual aid most
widely used by the teacher for classroom instruction.
The components of the skill of using black board are:
• Legibility of handwriting
• Neatness in the black board work and
• Appropriateness of written work on the black board.
Now, let us discuss about them in detail:
• Legibility of handwriting: The handwriting is said to be legible when
there is maximum ease in reading it. This includes the following
points:
– Every letter should be distinct.
– There should be adequate spacing between two letters and two
words.
– Slantness of each letter should be as far as possible vertical.
– Size of the letters should be large enough to be read from the
farthest end of the room.
– Size of the capital letters should be just bigger than that of the
small letters
– All capital letters should be of the same size and all small letters
also should be of the same size.
– Thickness of the lines should be of same width.
• Neatness in blackboard: To decide about the neatness of blackboard
work the following points are to be considered. You will remember
here that the board can be black, white or green in colour.
– Words and sentences should be written in the horizontal lines
parallel to the base of the black board.
– There should be adequate spacing between the lines.
– There should be no overwriting that makes black board work
untidy.
– Relevant matter which is under focus of classroom discussion
should be retained on the black board.
• Appropriateness of work on the blackboard: The appropriateness of
the work includes continuity, brevity and simplicity and drawing
attention and focusing. The following are the important points to be
remembered regarding appropriateness of the content.
– Write only the salient points one after another as they are being
developed.
– The points written on the blackboard should have continuity (one
‘point logically linked with the previous one) in them.
– The blackboard summary should be brief and simple so that the

students can recollect the whole lesson at a glance.
– Underline only those points to which you want to draw the
students’ attention.
– Use coloured chalks sparingly to bring about contrast with other
matter presented on the blackboard.
– Illustrations and diagrams should be simple, large and clear
enough to convey the ideas presented.
Apart from the various components of good blackboard work,
we need to take care of the following points for the effective use of
black board:
• Check the condition of the blackboard for its use ability.
• Check the lighting. Light falling on the blackboard should neither be
dim nor too bright.
• Check whether the blackboard is clean before and after use or not.
• Keep required amounts of chalks - both white and coloured.
• Stand on one side of the blackboard and do not come in between the
students and the black board.
• Use a pointer, if needed, for exp1,aining the various points especially
in the diagrams.
• Avoid squeaking noise of the chalk while writing.
• Avoid committing mistakes in the content written on the blackboard.
Evaluating
Learning requires continuous evaluation. Evaluation is a

technique through which the teacher becomes aware of the factors
that affect his/her instruction. Evaluation helps to determine the level
of success. It identifies defects and failures. It also reveals the value
of methods, procedures, techniques, materials and equipment being
used and where they should be improved and supplemented. There
exists interrelatedness between objectives (end), learning experiences
(means) and evaluation (evidence). Objectives remain central to both
learning experience and evaluation. Evaluation comes in at the
planning stage when objectives are formulated. Learning experiences
are also planned in terms of objectives. At every point of learning,
evaluation is an attempt to discover the extent of effectiveness of a
learning situation in bringing about desired changes in students.
Thus, evaluation is concerned with what has been learnt. A variety
of devices and techniques should be used in the evaluation
programme. The evaluation tools include achievement tests,

psychological tests, questionnaires, checklists, etc. A variety of
techniques like anecdotal records, interviews, observations, etc., are
also used. Selection of a tool or technique of evaluation depends
primarily on the nature of the objective to be evaluated. Each
objective implies several behavioural changes. Therefore, no single
technique can effectively evaluate different types of behavioural
changes. Each behaviour may need a different kind of technique.
Hence, we may have to use as many different techniques as possible
to evaluate change in behaviour.
Proper records of work done by each student should be
maintained. Diaries of students, anecdotal and cumulative records
maintained by teachers are very good evaluation devices.
MICROTEACHING APPROACH
Microteaching technique was first adopted at Stanford
University, USA, in 1961 by D.W. Allen and his coworkers.
Microteaching is a training procedure aiming at simplifying the
complexities of the regular teaching process. You know that teaching
constitutes a number of verbal aid non-verbal acts. ‘A set of related
behaviours or teaching acts aiming at specific objectives and
performed with an intention to facilitate student’s learning can be
called a teaching skill.’ All these teaching skills which go to make
good teaching can be defined, observed, measured and controlled
by means of practice.
Microteaching concentrates on specific teaching behaviours and
provides opportunity for practicing these teaching skills under
controlled conditions. Microteaching is a scaled down teaching
procedure. A teacher trainee should not be exposed to real situation
in the beginning itself. He/she should teach in a less risky situation
where mistakes may be made without damage to students and to
him/her. The complex act of teaching is broken down into simple
components making the task more manageable. Only one particular
skill is attempted and developed during microteaching session. ‘How
to teach’ is considered more important than ‘what to teach’. This
technique is useful in pre-service as well as in service training of
teachers.
Microteaching provides teachers with a practice for teaching, in which

the normal complexities are reduced in terms of:
• Length of the lesson (a single concept is chosen),
• Scope of the lesson,
• Number of students, usually 4 to 6, preferably peers.
Microteaching involves a programme of the following type:
• A particular skill is defined to student teachers in terms of specific
teaching behaviours.
• Teacher educator gives a demonstration lesson to student teachers
where a particular skill is employed.
• Student teacher prepares a lesson plan based on the pre-decided
model on a suitable topic relating to the particular skill which he/she
proposes to practice.
• Student teacher teaches the lesson to a small group of students in a
simulated condition.
• Feedback is provided immediately to the student teacher by audio
tape or video tape recorder.
• In the light of feedback and supervisor’s comments, student teacher
re-plans the lesson in order to use the skill more effectively.
• The revised lesson is taught to a different but comparable group of
students.
• The lesson is again observed or video taped or audio taped and
observations are noted in the proforma. Feedback is again provided
to the student teacher. This step is called the re-feedback session.
The plan, teach, feedback, re-plan and re-feedback sessions will
constitute a single microteaching cycle.
Fig. Microteaching cycle

Supervisors play an important role in microteaching, particularly
in pre-service training programmes. Role of supervisor is one of
continuous consultation so that the trainee can perfect his/her
performance in the particular teaching skill.
PROBLEM SOLVING
Research on problem solving has had a varied history. Before
the 1930’s’ most textbooks still treated logic in considerable detail,
making it the basis for intelligent or rational behaviour. This was
quite natural since psychology was an offshoot of the philosophy of
mind. Later, imageless thought, associative ‘set’ and concept
formation were the subject matter or research in thinking.
Perhaps the greatest impetus to research in problem solving came
from studies of animals seeking to investigate into the rationality.
History reveals that philosophers had attributed reason and soul to
man alone. Thorndike initiated an experimental approach to the
analysis of problem solving behaviour by developing the problem
box and observing how cats found their way to food. This led to a
whole series of problem box investigations, and Watson described
problem box mastery as the development of motor habits and
grouped it with maze learning. The problem solving became
classified with learning. The method used in the problem solving
has been referred to as trial and error method.
Various types of puzzles have been used to study human
problem solving, as a result, trial and error has become a generally
accepted mechanism. Dewey used the concept to account for human
problem solving by describing a process he called mental trial and
error. In this way, the problem solving capacity of the trial and error
process was expanded. At the same time, it gave man a kind of
superiority over animals in that he could eliminate incorrect
alternatives without trying them out behaviourally.
It was only after World War II when research funds for
investigations of creativity and originality were made available, a
new name for a higher type of problem solving was accepted, the
implication being that creativity included more than learning and
intelligence. Although it had long been recognised that intelligence
and problem solving ability had a limited relationship, the recent
research had revived the importance of distinguishing between
intelligence (the ability to learn) and creativity. The work of Getzels
and Jackson, and Torrance reveal this trend, which lays emphasis
on unusual innovative types of personality.
This, of course, is required when an individual is faced with a

new situation that poses a problem. A problem becomes difficult
when its solution requires responses that deviate from the common
ones or from previously learned ones. Approached in this way, it
follows that the creative person should be a good problem solver
because he/she can solve not only routine problems but all those
that require more than a learning mechanism.
Problem solving methods being used are often classified as
‘traditional’ and ‘new’. Traditional methods are more rational and
logical while the new methods attempt to train the individual through
freeing him/her from his/her emotional inhibitions.
Generally problem solving method involves the following steps:
• Definition of the problem: It involves definition of the initial problem
as well as establishment of the problem.
• Searching for methods: It involves searching for different methods,
evaluating them and finally selecting the suitable method.
• Preparation of the design: An outline of the design is prepared, test is
conducted and evaluation is done.
• Results and solutions: It involves generalising the results and arriving
at the best solution.
Fig. Steps of Problem Solving

There are different techniques of creative problem solving such
as, attribute listing, brain storming, enquiry training and synectics.
These techniques facilitate solutions that are creative, i.e., solutions
characterised by freshness, appropriateness, imagination, new
relationship between even common place facts or ideas, and
significant transformation of the initial definition -of the problem.
ATTRIBUTE LISTING
The technique of attribute listing was developed by Robert Platt
Crawford. This is a useful technique for designing or redesigning a
specific product or activity or service. “Magic inspiration is not the

only, or even major source of creativity”. Much creativity arises from
changing the attribute of an object or an activity, or from grafting
on to the object or an activity, an attribute or attribute of some other
object and activity. For example, many years ago traveling bags used
to be made of metal to ensure durability; today durability is ensured
by making much lighter plastic substitutes.
In attribute listing, the attempt first is made to list the basic but
modifiable attributes or properties or specifications of a particular
object or activity. Then an attempt is made to search for alternatives
to the present attribute. An example of ‘attribute listing’ can be seen
in the search for a better method of cutting cheese. At first, the initial
problem is how to develop a better knife; this problem leads to
another problem, i.e., how to arrange attributes of a better wedge;
also the undesirable attributes are listed that are to be eliminated.
Finally, if any other problem arises, its attributes both desirable as
well as undesirable, are listed, and the undesirable are to be
eliminated to arrive at the best possible solution.
Attribute listing is a very powerful technique for improving
product design. The list of the modifiable attributes of a product-be
it a commercial product, or a service, or even some activity, often
leads to suggestions for improvement. So long as one thinks of a
comb, without thinking of various properties of a comb, one is not
likely to come up with better ideas about improving its design (easy
to keep, easy to clean, durable, sharp enough to massage the scalp
but not to hurt it, easy to handle, attractive in appearance, cheap,
etc.). A large number of alternative designs, colours, materials,
manufacturing processes, and so on, may come to mind. In this way,
generation of more ideas will lead to improvement of the product
design.
In attribute listing, it may very often be useful to list abstract
attributes of a concrete object or activity. This may help in generating
more ideas than if the concrete attributes are listed. For example, if
one wants to seek ideas for redesigning a cup, it may be better to
conceive it as a container than as a tea cup, for thinking of the cup
as a container makes possible designs that enable the use of a cup
not only for drinking tea but also a variety of other fluids, and not
only for drinking from but also to eat from, use as a flower vase,
cook in, etc. Similarly, it may be better to consider handling
conveniences as an attribute rather than the cup as having a handle
to ‘hold it. Next, seeking what function a current attribute serves,
and then looking for alternative ways- of meeting the function is a
way of thinking about the abstract properties or attributes of an object
or activity.
Crawford has laid down the following principles of attribute listing:
• Creation is not inspiration alone - it is largely adaptation and
experimentation.
• Creation is not just mechanically combing different ideas, rather it is
useful modification of an attribute, or assimilation of attributes of
other objects.
• Creation is not simple stating of ideas; it is continuing array of
modifications suggested by ideas in use which result over time into
greatly changed objects or products like the thousands of
modifications incorporated into the automobile over the years.
• It is desirable to, search for concrete alternatives during the process
of modifying the current attributes of an object. For example, if one
is seeking to change hard railway seats, he/she should think not of
just soft seats, but seats with the softness of a pillow or foam or vinyl.
• Creativity can be systematised by looking first for closely related
substitutes of the current attributes and then progressively going in
more and more for far out alternatives.
It is important to note that the attribute listing would give better
results when the object or activity one wishes to change is more
specific; when the modifiable attributes are separated from the
unmodifiable attributes of the objects in order to concentrate one’s
attention on the modifiable attributes.
Some important points that need to be considered in attribute listing
are explained briefly as under:
• First, list exhaustively all the obvious attributes of an object or activity
such as, the present size, colour, shape, function, weight, major
components, material, etc., for an object;’ and present duration,
function, steps, sub-programmes, etc., for an activity.
• Second, identify some of the attributes that can possibly be changed
without destroying the main function of the object or activity.
• Third, the changeable attributes may be stated in more abstract terms.
Thinking what functions these attributes perform and how critical
these functions are to be for the main use of the object or activity
would not only help an individual in listing necessary attributes in

abstract terms, but also help in fixing priorities of attributes and in
encouraging to look for alternative ways of satisfying functional
requirements.
MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
Morphological analysis is a variant of attribute listing. This
technique was developed by Fred Zincky in California. It facilitates
the imagination by enabling the individual to focus on one aspect of
the object or activity at one time. It involves combining the modifiable
attributes of the major variables of problem into grid so ‘that all
possible combinations can be considered.
The first task relates the identification of the major variables; next,
the attributes of the major variables are listed; and finally, the possible
combinations of the attributes are considered SO as to generate a large
number of ideas. Similarly, also other aspects of the problem are
analysed in regard to its attributes and possible combinations, which
ultimately lead towards the best possible solution of the problem in
question. For example, the problem may be how to fabricate a new
type of building material. First of all, the identification of attributes of
the material is done, followed by possible techniques of binding the
material; and finally, methods of fabricating are plotted into a grid
which may extend to any number of possible combinations.
In morphological analysis, the basic idea is to identify the critical
modifiable attributes, and listing several alternatives; for each of the
attributes enables one to generate a very large number of alternatives
of an object or an activity. As an example, consider dissemination of
daily news. Alternatives for the attribute of medium of disseminating
daily news can be done by newspapers, radio, television, fax,
telephone, or direct briefing. The second attribute can be frequency-
once a day, twice a day, thrice a day and so on. The third attribute
can be of coverage, i.e., local, regional, national, international. The
fourth attribute can be of content, i.e., Economic, Social, Political,
Scientific, Cultural. In this way, one can list these under ‘four’
headings where in six ‘medium alternatives’ are listed under one
heading; ‘three frequency alternatives’ are listed under the second
heading, and ‘four coverage alternatives’ are listed under the third
heading, and the ‘five content’ are listed under the fourth heading,
thus totaling 6 × 3 × 4 × 5 = 360 alternatives through which the daily

news can be disseminated.
Arnold has pointed out that there is one basic difference between
attribute listing and morphological analysis. Attribute listing works
best when the object, activity, product sought to be modified is very
specific such as ‘this chair’ rather than ‘chair’ in general. On the other
hand, morphological analysis can also be applied profitably to
modify general objects or activities, such as air transportation, health
care or political machinery, etc.
Attribute listing and morphological analysis are not mere
techniques, they embody important values and attitudes favouring
to creativity. The chief such value is one of trying out a new
combination which fosters experimental; innovative bent of mind
and also alerts one to possible new application of ideas.
BRAINSTORMING
Brainstorming is a popular method of group thinking. Alex
Osborn established the ‘Creative Education Foundation’ at the
University of Buffalo in 1957; it is here that he developed the method
of brainstorming. This method is widely used by businessmen,
scientists and others to tap the tremendous source of creative power.
It is a technique with which problem is attacked from all possible
angles to generate a large number of ideas in order to arrive at the
best solution.
Brainstorming has been widely used in American Government
and Industry; Osborn, the father of brainstorming, has cited several
examples. In one brainstorming session in a federal government
officers’ conference, the group brainstormed on ‘what can federal
employees do to give visitors to Washington a truer and better
impression of their government? Within 30 minutes, 121 ideas were
elicited. In another brainstorming session, some U.S. Treasury
personnel produced 103 ideas in 40 minutes on ‘How can we get
more federal employees to sell more U.S., saving bonds?’ In yet
another brainstorming session, the group brainstormed on ‘How to
reduce absenteeism?’ They produced 89 ideas in 30 minutes, and on
‘How to free bond-selling employees from office duties they
produced 61 ideas in 30 minutes. In a telephone company, a
brainstorming panel brought out over 100 new ways to recruit

employees.
In a brainstorming session, a group of people sits around a table
to brainstorm a specific problem. Each participant presents the ideas,
that come to his/her mind. No member of the group is allowed any
criticism on the idea put forward by another member. The objective
underlying this is that of freeing a person from the usual inhibitions
that operate to block his/her creative process.
Principles: The main principles of brainstorming are:
• Deferring evaluation during the idea production phase, especially
evaluation of a negative, critical kind. This means that the participants
must withhold adverse judgement of ideas put forward by other members
of the group.
• Free wheeling of ideas should be encouraged rather welcomed. The
participants must cheerfully accept even wild, silly and crazy ideas
put forward by other members. The more fantastic the ideas, the
better it is. A fantastic idea can be one that does not seem at all
practical but still it serves the important function of going off the
beaten track, i.e., thinking divergently instead of conventional patterns
of thinking. While the idea itself may not be practical, somehow it
may hit upon other ideas that might not only be novel but also useful.
• Quantity begets quality: The more the ideas are generated, the higher
will be the probability of hitting upon some brilliant ones. Participants
must express ideas that come to their mind readily and spontaneo-
usly. The objective is to generate more and more ideas, i.e., first
quantity and then it would lead to quality.
• Hitch-hiking on previously expressed ideas. Participants should aim at
building upon and improving each other’s suggestions. Besides
contributing their own ideas, the participants should suggest how ideas
of others can be turned into better ideas or how different ideas can be
joined together into new possible combinations to form new ideas.
Moreover, no participant should feel ashamed of in building on others’
ideas or one’s own previous ideas. This simply means one should be
open to the suggestive power of others or one’s own earlier ideas.
• In one session, one aspect of the problem should be brainstormed so
that a large number of ideas are collected.
In view of the usefulness and practicability of brainstorming,
educationists, teachers, and students can use this technique very
successfully to find out the best solutions to the, problems that are
faced by the existing system of education. For example, in the
classroom it can be used to promote discipline, teaching-learning

process; check delinquency, truancy, dropping out tendency of
students; causes as well as preventive measures can be identified in
regard to student unrest and copying in the examinations. This
technique can be of great help to the teachers in developing problem-
solving attitude among students and also in stimulating their
imaginative and creative powers.
This is possible only when teachers or others who wish to use
brainstorming are fully abreast with its inherent potential:
• Brainstorming is not useful as a technique where the solution of a
problem can be reached by analysis. For instance, if the problem is to
find the square root of 5000, there is no need of brainstorming. It is
particularly useful for problems that can have multiple solutions, of
which some may be better than others, such as, ‘how one can make a
child more interested in studies’.
• Brainstorming gives fruitful results when the topic selected for
brainstorming is specific. If the topic is vague, the brainstorming will
carry different frames of reference and the ideas generated will have
a diffused applicability. For instance, the topic ‘how to get ahead in
life’ is not clear. Different people will draw different meanings out of
it. No doubt, it may generate many ideas, but since what ‘to get ahead’
means to different people is not clear, the ideas generated are likely
to be too disparate. On the other hand, a topic like ‘how to get
promoted in a particular organisation’ is likely to yield more useful
and pertinent solutions.
• During the brainstorming session, the leader should encourage the
members to provide concrete suggestions or ideas instead of
abstractions. These abstractions sometimes become not only difficult
but also impossible to turn into practice. Sometimes members also
provide such suggestions, which are mere good intentions, but it is
difficult to put them to actual use. The members should, therefore,
be advised and encouraged to concretise their ideas. The concrete
ideas stimulate hitching and action orientation. They have an energy
charge that abstractions lack. It is better that the ideas expressed
should be concise, brief, clear and specific.
• In order to select the most useful ideas among the host of generated
ideas, it is necessary to identify a few ideas for more intensive
investigation. One useful technique can be to have each member of a
panel vote on the potential of each idea for solving the problem in
hand or the ideas can be grouped into classes and then each idea
within a group may be voted upon. Better it would be to formalise
the criteria first for assessing the potential of the ideas generated
before the ideas are voted upon.
If the ideas initially generated are large, voting may have to be
done more than once. That is to say, ideas voted the best in the initial
round of voting may again be put to a vote to get a small number of
high potential ideas. These ideas may then be taken up for much
more intense scrutiny. In this way, high potential ideas are selected
and put to use.
The research of Sidney Parnes indicates the positive effects of
‘brainstorming’. His research also provides evidence that creative
productivity can be developed by deliberate procedures. He studied
the development of creative behaviour by devising several courses
for the students of various streams. While evaluating the problem
solving course he demonstrated that the students who completed
the creative problem solving course performed significantly better
on six out of eight tests of creative thinking than did comparable
students who had not taken the course. His second observation was
that increased productivity in creative thinking produced by the
creative problem solving course persists for a period of eight months
or more after the completion of the course. His research also provides
evidence that individuals working along often accumulate more and
better ideas than they do when working in a group.
On the basis of research findings he mentions certain points that need
to be considered in the conduct of brainstorming sessions:
• The first of these is the principle of deferred judgement during the
idea production phase.
• Avoiding critical analysis of the idea after a quantity of alternatives is
listed.
• Extended effort in idea production; Extended effort in idea production
will lead to an increasing proportion of good ideas with increased
production. Since brainstormers are able to generate more (quantity)
and quality ideas in the second half than in the first half of the
brainstorming session, Parnes suggests that the session should be
broken into two halves. By doing so, Brainstormers learn from the
experiences of the first session and also are stimulated by each other’s
ideas. Thus, extended effort results in the production of new and
better ideas than the earlier ones.
To conclude, brainstorming facilitates the development of
divergent thinking abilities in human beings in more than one ways.
In a brainstorming session, people drop their defensiveness, and

instead of competing for power and status, they compete for
excellence and creativeness of their ideas. Secondly, brainstorming
reinforces a sense of participation especially if brainstorming is
followed by voting on the best ideas. As is well known, participation
increases commitment to implement the participatively chosen course
of action. The host of ideas it produces is a clear demonstration of
the power of the human mind to overcome obstacles.
ENQUIRY TRAINING
Enquiry training model was developed by Richard Suchman to
teach students a process for investigating and explaining unusual
phenomena. The main objective underlying the model was that the
scientific process skills are developed in the students to enable them
to organise data, reason about cause and effect, and build and test
theories. He modeled the model along the lines of the methods
employed by creative researchers especially scientists. He identified
the components of the enquiry process and built them into an
instructional model which he called ‘enquiry training’.
Suchman bases his enquiry training approach on four postulates.
First, children are curious and eager to grow by nature. He
emphasises that when children are faced with a puzzling situation
they naturally get motivated to explore the data surrounding the
discrepant event and think of arranging the data in a new way to
find answers to the problem. The general goal of enquiry training is
to help students develop the intellectual discipline and skills
necessary to raise questions and search out answers stemming from
their curiosity. Secondly, the process of enquiry can be taught to
students. Suchman believe that students can become increasingly
conscious of their process of enquiry, and that they can be taught
scientific procedures directly. He emphasises that we can not analyse
and improve our thinking unless we are conscious of it. Thirdly,
team approach is more useful than the individual approach to find
solution to a problem.
Suchman believes that the view point of a second person enriches
our thinking; and that it is the cooperative enquiry that leads to the
development of new knowledge. Fourthly, all knowledge is tentative.
Suchman emphasises that the students should be made aware of

the fact that all knowledge is tentative. Scholars constantly generate
theories and explanations. After sometime, these theories are
replaced by new ones, which conveys that there are no permanent
answers to problems; new and sophisticated ways are investigated
to’ reach the solution of the problem, or new ways are detected to
look at the problem itself.
Enquiry Training Process
In ‘Enquiry training’, the students are presented with a problem

situation such as, an episode, experiment, story, etc., and are asked
to enquire into it. In whatsoever form it is presented, it must
essentially carry a discrepancy leading to a puzzle. Since the ultimate
goal is to have students experience the creation of new knowledge,
the confrontation should be based on discoverable ideas.
After the presentation of a puzzling situation, the students are
encouraged to ask questions. These questions have to be worded in
the way that they are answered by a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The students are
not to ask the teacher to explain the phenomenon to them, however,
they can ask questions that are responded by the teacher only in a
‘yes’ or ‘no’. Whenever a question can not be replied in a ‘yes’ or
‘no’ response, the teacher reminds them of the rules, and waits until
they find a way of rephrasing the question in proper form.
Comments such as, ‘can you restate this question so that I can answer
it with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ are common teacher responses when students
slip out of the enquiry mode’.
Thus, at the first stage of the enquiry process, the students are
taught to verify the facts of the situation, i.e., the nature and identity
of the objects, the events, and the conditions surrounding the
puzzling event. As the students become aware of the facts, they form
hypotheses, which guide them in their future enquiry. Using their
knowledge about the behaviour of objects, students can turn their
questions to the variables in the situation.
This they can do by conducting verbal or actual experiments to
test these causal relationships, selecting new data, or organising the
existing data in a new way to see what will happen if things are
done differently. It may not be possible for the students to frame
proper questions to test the causal relationships between variables

unless they have sufficient information about the nature of the
problem situation and its elements, and it is likely that they are to
be overwhelmed by the many possible causal relationships.
Finally, the students try to develop hypotheses that will fully
explain what happened. In other words, it means that they reach
the final explanation. However, they need to be cautioned that there
can be many possible explanations, therefore, they should not be
satisfied with the first explanation that appears to fit the fact.
The main emphasis in this approach is on becoming aware of
and mastering the enquiry process and not the content of any
particular problem situation. The teacher also need not be too
concerned with subject matter coverage or ‘obtaining the right
answer’ for the reason that it would violate the real spirit of scientific
enquiry, which emphasises team approach of searching together for
more accurate and powerful explanations for every day phenomena.
Phases in Enquiry Training
There are five phases (steps) in the enquiry process. The first
phase is the student’s confrontation with the puzzling situation. The
second and third phases concern with the data gathering mechanisms
of verification and experimentation. In the fourth phase, students
organise the data and try to explain the discrepancy. Finally, in the
fifth phase, the students reflect on the problem solving strategies
they use during the enquiry.
These phases are explained in some more details given below:
• Phase-I: Encounter with the problem: In this phase, the teacher is
required to present the problem situation or puzzling event and
explain the enquiry procedures to the students. The teacher is
required to satisfy himself/herself that the students have understood
the enquiry procedure (pattern of the yes-no question) and also the
objectives fully. Then he/she can present problem situation to the
students, which should essentially carry a discrepancy. The problem
to be posed should be simple such as a puzzle, riddle, or magic trick
that does not require much background knowledge. However, every
puzzling situation can not be a discrepant event. It is, therefore,
important to note that distinguishing feature of the discrepancy events
is that it involves illogical phenomena that conflicts with the notions
of reality. A problem may be puzzling simply because we do not know

the answer, but simultaneously we do not need new concepts to
understand it and therefore we do not need to conduct an enquiry.
Thus, the problem to be taken for enquiry should essentially
accompany a discrepancy but care needs to be taken that it matches
with the cognitive level of the students.
• Phase-II: Data gathering verification: In this phase, students gather
information about the problem in hand through observation or
experience They are required to ask questions about objects,
properties, conditions, and events in order to verify the information.
Objects refer to determining the nature or identifying of objects.
Properties refer to verifying the behaviour of objects and events are
related to verifying the occurrence of an action. Wherever students
deviate from verifying all the aspects of the problem, the teacher
reminds them of the rules of the process and makes them aware of
the type of information they are likely to seek and put them to work
to change the questioning pattern.
• Phase-III: Data gathering experimentation: In this phase, students
introduce new elements into the situation to see if the event happens
differently. Exploration serves two functions, that is, exploration and
direct testing. Exploration refers to changing things in order to see
what will happen though it is not necessarily guided by a theory or
hypothesis, but it may suggest ideas for a theory. Direct testing refers
trying out a theory or hypothesis. The hypothesis determines the
direction of data gathering. If the gathered data do not support a
hypothesis, it is rejected and consequently alternate hypothesis is
formulated and the process is repeated. Although verification and
experimentation are described as separate phases of the enquiry
training approach, yet the students’ question usually alternate between
these two phases of data gathering. The teacher does not need to be
very rigid in following these two phases separately instead he/she
should encourage students to generate questions that pertain to data
gathering and consequently lead them to formulate the explanation.
• Phase-IV: Formulating an explanation: In this phase, the teacher calls
on the students to formulate an explanation. It is possible that
different students may put forward different explanations, however,
some students may have difficulty in making the intellectual leap
between the data they have gathered and a clear explanation. It is
also possible that they may give inadequate explanations omitting
essential details. It has been experienced that sometimes several
theories or explanations are possible based on the same information.
In view of this, it is useful to ask all the students to state their
explanations so that the range of differences is revealed. It is believed

that the groups together can shape the explanation that fully responds
to the problem situation.
• Phase-V: Analysis of the enquiry process: In this phase, the students
are asked to analyse their pattern of enquiry. This would help them
in finding out the questions that were most effective; the lines of
questioning that were most productive and those that were not; or
the type of information they needed but could not obtain. The teacher
asks students to recall the question they have raised and to identify
those questions that led them to explanation but not others. In this
way, the teacher goes on repeating the whole process of enquiry so
as to make students aware about the pattern of questions needed to
be raised during the phases of verification and experimentation that
have helped them to reach at final explanation and also making the
enquiry process conscious one so that steps are systematically taken
to improve it.
Enquiry training approach promotes active, autonomous
learning as the students themselves formulate question and test ideas.
It calls upon students to take courage to ask questions, and helps
them to become more proficient in verbal expression as well as in
listening to others and remembering what has been said. The chief
learning outcomes of this approach are the involvement of varied
processes such as observing, collecting and organising data,
identifying and controlling variables, framing and testing hypotheses,
formulating explanations and drawing inferences. The magnificent
integration of these several process skills into a single, meaningful
unit of experience is the chief characteristic of this approach.
This all depends when both the students and the teacher try for
their balanced roles. The teacher selects the problem situation in
accordance with the students’ cognitive level; acts as a referee
throughout the enquiry process; responds warmly to students’
question; brings them back on the right track if they deviate; facilitate
discussion and interaction among students; and finally helps them
to arrive at explanations.
The students on the other hand, actively participate in finding
out the discrepancy from the problem; raising pinpointed questions;
process data in a systematic sequence; tolerating ambiguity; and
formulating explanations.
SYNECTICS
The word ‘Synectics’ has been adapted from the Greek word
‘Synecticos’ meaning fitting together diverse elements. Synectics is
based on the use of metaphors and analogies within a systematic
framework to achieve creative results. The central idea is that better
understanding of a problem is attained when it is strange or
unfamiliar and allows us to think of an analogy or metaphor that
makes it more familiar and hence more amenable to a creative
solution. In synectics, then the problem as one is presented with, it
initially has to be restated and looked at in various ways through
the use of metaphors or analogies. During the course of this process,
the individual goes on what synectics proponents call an ‘excursion’
and as a result of such a trip creative solutions are attained.
Initial work with synectics procedures began about 1944 when
William J.J. Gordon undertook an intensive study of individual and
group processes in creativity. This was followed with a systematic
exploration of his ideas in 1948 with a group of artists and then went
on forming synectics groups in several companies. Finally, he and
his associates designed this new approach ‘synectics’ for the
development of creativity at Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1 961.
Gordon and his associates believe that the group process in
creativity is analogous to the individual process; that the creative
process can be understood, described and taught; and that
individuals can increase their creativity if they understand and use
the process. He also believes that creativity in arts is analogous to
creativity in sciences, and that emotional and intellectual, rational
and non-rational components are involved in creativity. In synectics,
non-rational processes are engaged through the purposeful use of
metaphors. Since many researchers have attempted to define the
roles of the preconscious and unconscious mind in the creative
process, the credit goes to synectics proponents who have so
systematically tried to engage these sources of creativeness. What
they have sought out to do is to imitate the processes of incubation
in the preconscious mind as incubation is thought to be the phase of
problem solving in which the preconscious mind is working out the
solution to a complex problem without the conscious and being
aware of this.
The preconscious mind does not think logically; it thinks

analogically, associatively and visually. Rational and logical
processes are also used in synectics. They too are valued, encouraged,
and enhanced in a group situation that is free, easy-going and
accepting. Moreover, regardless of the emphasis placed on non-
rational factors, the whole synectics process occurs within a
framework that has very practical goals.
Among the various factors that play important roles in synectics
are five psychological states involved in the creative process.
The five psychological states are:
1. Involvement and detachment: This state refers to the relationship
between the individual and the problem on which he/she is working.
Involvement refers to understanding and interacting with the
components of the problem. Detachment refers to detaching from
and becoming distant from the problem. By this we mean that the
creative process involves both the capacity of involvement of the
individual with the problem on the one hand and getting detached
from the problem on the other in order to view it objectively.
2. Deferment: Experience has shown that quick and immediate solutions
to a problem are likely to be premature and superficial. They should,
therefore, be deferred until best solutions are arrived at. Deferment
refers to the capacity of both the individual and the group to defer
these quick solutions until they have arrived at the best one.
3. Speculation: Speculation refers to the type of thinking in which
individuals are able to let their minds run free so that they can come
up with ideas, hypotheses and solutions.
4. Autonomy of object: As the creative process proceeds and a solution
is approached, there is a feeling that the solution has an entity and
demand quality of its own. The individual or group must be willing
and free enough to allow this feeling to develop and to follow it.
5. Hedonic response: Synectics involves, among other factors, play with
‘apparent irrelevancies’, to generate energy for problem solving and
to evoke new views of problems. One of irrelevancies is an emotional
factor referred to as ‘hedonic response’ which serves as an ‘irrelevance
filter’. The feeling involved in the hedonic response is very subtle
and is similar to the inspiration or intuition that is sensed prior to
arriving at a solution to a problem. It is the pleasurable sensation
that accompanies the feeling of being right about a hypothesis or a
solution before it has been proven correct. There are both aesthetic
and pleasurable elements in hedonic response. It is of great
importance, if an individual could learn how to recognise it, then he/
she would probably not waste so much of time and energy in the
creative process; the individual would have that ‘feeling’ aesthetic or
otherwise that would tell him when to follow up a hypothesis and
when to pursue a tentative idea to solution.
PROGRAMMED LEARNING
Programmed Learning or Programmed Instruction is a learning

methodology or technique first proposed by the behaviourist B. F.
Skinner in 1958. The purpose of programmed learning is to “manage
human learning under controlled conditions”.
Programmed learning has three elements:
1. It delivers information in small bites,
2. It is self-paced by the learner, and
3. It provides immediate feedback, both positive and negative, to the
learner.
It was popular in the late 1960s and through the 1970s, but
pedagogical interest was lost in the early 1980s as it was difficult to
implement and its limitations were not well understood by
practitioners.
It was revived in the 1990s in the computerised Integrated
Learning System (ILS) approach, primarily in the business and
managerial context. Programmed learning remains popular in self-
teaching textbooks.
The methodology involves self-administered and self-paced
learning, in which the student is presented with information in small
steps often referred to as “frames”.
Each frame contains a small segment of the information to be
learned, and a question which the student must answer. After each
frame the student uncovers, or is directed to, additional information
based on an incorrect answer, or positive feedback for a correct
answer.
CRITICISM
Programmed Instruction has been criticised for its inability to
provide adequate feedback on incorrect answers and for its lack of
student instigated conceptualisation opportunities. It works best in
basic courses which introduce the vocabulary of a discipline, heavily
fact-based courses, and rule-based technical courses.
SIMULATED TEACHING
Normal experiential learning that leads to an expert professional

in clinical practice is associated with prolonged exposure to that
practice. The over-riding idea is that by simulating clinical scenarios,
learning is accelerated by the debriefing/feedback session. The expert
knowledge is made explicit to the trainee and reinforced with video
and verbal feedback.
Simulation training can:
• Prepare students to cope with future roles.
• Provide practice in a safe environment with no risk to patient or
student.
• Test/challenge trainee’s technical and decision-making skills during
realistic patient care situations.
• Be an assessment tool.
• Lead to standardised teaching.
Skills that can be assessed/practiced using simulation:
• Interpersonal and communication skills.
• Critical thinking and decision-making skills.
• Practical skills.
• The use of equipment.
The Best evidence medical education (BEME) collaboration is an
international group of individuals, Universities and organisations
committed to the promotion of best evidence medical education.
They formed a topic group in 2002 that addressed the question:
“What are the features/aspects of high fidelity simulators that lead
to most effective learning?”
FEEDBACK
The absence of learner feedback was the greatest single factor
for ineffective simulation training.
The lack of feedback could lead to:
• Learning of the wrong learning objective.
• Not realising what the desired behaviours should be by not focusing
on them.
• Not transferring skills to clinical practice.
• Spending increasing time on only one aspect of training.
PRACTICE
A lack of opportunity for practice is also associated with a poor
educational outcome. This could often be attributed to insufficient
access to the simulator, as training sessions are usually time

dependent, and the simulator is often a hotly contested resource. In
addition, each learner is different, and some learners inevitably need
longer or more frequent sessions with the simulator to achieve the
same educational results as their co-learners.
VALIDITY
Poor validity is associated with a lack of realism. In some
simulators novices can out-perform an expert, which questions the
validity of that simulation. Typically, this would also lead to a lack
of correlation with other outcome measures.
FIDELITY
A common belief is that low fidelity simulation is better than high
fidelity. However the group concluded that all levels of fidelity should
be used based on the required outcomes. This is discussed by Maran
and Glavin, where the progression from low to high fidelity simulation
is compared to the progression through medical education. Their
conclusion is that the range of fidelity available is almost all potentially
useful, but that many simulators are underused due simply to a lack
of clear educational goals
‘SIMULATOR’ LEARNING
Students learn to master the simulator rather than the task. The
solution to this is to have multiple outcome measures for the task.
ASSESSMENT
There is current controversy about the use of simulators in high
stakes examinations. Issues of domain specificity and itemised versus
global scoring systems have bee raised. There is ongoing research
into all of these factors though, and it seems certain that simulation
will be included as part of high stakes assessment, along with other
outcome measures.
IN SUMMARY
If you are thinking of using simulation in teaching you have to think:
• Who am I teaching?
• What am I teaching them?
• What are they expected to learn?

The simulation scenarios should:
• Be as realistic an environment as possible.
• Should involve feedback/debriefing/video sessions.
• Well prepared with a back up plan for equipment failure.
• Involve the observers by getting to make notes on teamwork, situation
awareness, communication, etc.
Remember to create a relaxed teaching environment, as
simulation can be a stressful experience for students. There follows
a brief description of the reasons why simulation has become more
popular as a teaching and assessment tool.
MEDICAL SIMULATION
The first recorded use of a medical simulator is that of a manikin
created in the 17 Century by a Dr Gregoire of Paris. He used a pelvis
with skin stretched across it to simulate an abdomen, and with the
help of a dead fetus explained assisted and complicated deliveries
to midwives. In spite of this early start, medical simulators had not
really gained widespread use in the following centuries, principally
for reasons of cost, reluctance to adopting new teaching methods,
and scepticism that what was learned from a simulator could not be
transferred to actual practice. All of these reasons are still relevant
today, however the combination of improved technology and
increased pressures on educators have promoted simulation as one
option to address the following problems with traditional clinical
skills teaching.
An Alternative to “see one, do one”
In the past, health care professionals learnt on the job, which
some still believe is the best way to gain experience. However, there
are a number of barriers to this type of traditional clinical teaching.
These include:
• Humanitarian issues – practicing on patients is not ethical. We have
moved into an age of where learning on patients is not acceptable if
there is an alternative.
• There has been a decrease in the number of inpatients. In part due
to an increasing number of day case patients and also the fact that
chronic conditions are being cared for in the community. This has
led to a decrease in exposure and access of the trainees to ward
patients.
• The training time for postgraduate medical education has decreased

and will decrease further. With the implementation of new training
schemes, experience cannot be built upon over time as before.
• Some situations are so rare that to gain experience would take many
lifetimes.
• Legal/litigation issues. The possibility of educational establishments
being sued by patients and ex-students for not teaching and assessing
clinical skills as laid down by the regulatory bodies could arise.
• Record keeping, reproducibility, assessment and validity are issues
all brought to the forefront with clinical governance and revalidation.
Simulation is seen as away of addressing some of these issues.
• Students learn more effectively in a non-threatening environment.
• There is increasing emphasis on multidisciplinary learning, and
clinical skills’ teaching is an ideal forum for this.
• The increase in workload for health care staff means there is less
time to spend on traditional clinical teaching, which is compounded
by the increase in student numbers.
Recent Recommendations
Simulation training extends from part task trainers, procedural
training to the experience of full clinical situations. For example
canulation, basic and advanced life support to high fidelity
simulators.
However, they also include communication skills, how to take
consent, bereavement counseling and IT skills. In ‘Tomorrow’s
doctors: Recommendations on undergraduate medical education.’
GMC July 2002, there are lists of clinical skills that medical students
have to be competent in before graduation:
• “The essential skill that graduates need must be gained under
supervision. Medical schools must assess students’ competence in
these skills. The curriculum must stress the importance of
communication skills and the other essential skills of medical
practice.”
In ‘Unfinished Business: Proposals for reform of the Senior House
Officer grade.’ A report by Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer
for England, proposed changes in junior doctor training which were
considerable. With a shortened training period and the probable
division of service commitment from effective training time, the
provision of effective skills training and competency-based
assessment will have to be addressed.
• “An objective of the foundation programme would be to develop and

enhance core or generic clinical skills essential for all doctors (e.g.,
team-working, communication, ability to produce high standards of
clinical governance and patient safety, expertise in accessing,
appraising and using evidence as well as time management skills.)”
Multidisciplinary Teaching
As well as increased emphasis on clinical skill teaching, there is
increased emphasis on the multidisciplinary approach to learning.
Of interest during multidisciplinary teaching are human factors such
as decision-making and behavioural interaction, which is thought
to be of major importance in the occurrence of critical incidents.
As quoted in ‘Working Together – learning Together’ A Framework for
Lifelong Learning for the NHS. DoH, November 2001:
• “We are taking forward work to develop more pre-registration inter
professional education programmes which incorporate common
learning in core skills and knowledge. As a minimum we intend to
ensure that all health professionals should expect their education and
training to include common learning with other professions.”
This emphasises that predetermined health care groups deliver
many of the skills required by patients during their care, however
in the future who delivers these skills may well change. It is
envisaged that simulation teaching could provide packages that any
group could access and interact with other groups for relevant
multidisciplinary situations.
TEAM TEACHING
Team teaching is traditionally thought of as when more than

one teacher is involved in instruction within a classroom. There are
a few different models of team teaching, and more than one model
may be carried out within one class period. There are many positive
effects associated with team teaching, but there are also many things
that need to be considered before jumping into a team teaching
approach.
SIGNIFICANCE
Higher expectations are placed on students and teachers of the
21st century than ever before. Different studies have been conducted
that address different teaching methods for helping students meet

these expectations. Team teaching is just one of the methods that
has been explored. Additionally, as more attention is being brought
to including special education students into the regular classroom,
debates ensue about how that can be done effectively. Often, team
teaching is the answer.
TYPES
Traditional team teaching is a model in which two teachers
within a classroom take equal responsibility for teaching the students
and are actively involved at all times. One may be teaching while
the other is writing notes on the board. ”Supportive Instruction” is
a second model of team teaching in which one teacher teaches the
material and the other teacher provides follow-up activities. ”Parallel
Instruction” is a form of team teaching in which students are split
into two groups and each teacher is responsible for teaching his
group. ”Differentiated Split Class” team teaching involves splitting
students into two groups based on achievement. One teacher
provides remedial instruction to students who are struggling on a
skill while the other teacher provides enrichment to those who have
grasped the skill. The “Monitoring Teacher” is another form of team
teaching. In this model, one teacher assumes the role of instruction
while the other teacher walks around the class and monitors
students’ behaviour and progress. Different types of team teaching
may be used within one class period.
EFFECTS
When team teaching is organised and carried out effectively,
positive effects are felt by students, parents and school faculty.
Research shows that students taught using a team teaching approach
have higher levels of achievement. There is also more contact with
parents by teachers in a team teaching situation. Additionally, schools
that employ team teaching have teachers who are more satisfied with
their job, resulting in an improved work climate.
CONSIDERATIONS
• If team teaching is something you are thinking about implementing,
ask yourself these questions before proposing the idea to colleagues:
– Are the teachers involved open to trying new methods of

instruction?
– Are the teachers involved open-minded, optimistic people?
– Are the teachers involved resourceful, flexible, and able and willing
to communicate effectively?
– Are the team members honest, trustworthy, respectful people who
won’t be offended by constructive criticism?
WARNING
Teachers involved in team teaching need to define what team
teaching will look like in their classroom before implementing this
model of instruction. The definition needs to include everything from
goals and responsibilities to planning time. Lack of a unified
definition or vision for team teaching could result in confusion by
all involved, including the students. It could also result in an
inconsistent classroom environment in which students play one
teacher against the other.
COMPUTER-AIDED INSTRUCTION (CAI)
Computer-Aided Instruction (CAI), diverse and rapidly

expanding spectrum of computer technologies that assist the teaching
and learning process. CAI is also known as computer-assisted
instruction. Examples of CAI applications include guided drill and
practice exercises, computer visualisation of complex objects, and
computer-facilitated communication between students and teachers.
The number of computers in American schools has risen from one
for every 125 students in 1981 to one for every nine students in 1996.
While the United States leads the world in the number of computers
per school student, Western European and Japanese schools are also
highly computerised.
TYPES OF CAI
Information that helps teach or encourages interaction can be
presented on computers in the form of text or in multimedia formats,
which include photographs, videos, animation, speech, and music.
The guided drill is a computer programme that poses questions to
students, returns feedback, and selects additional questions based
on the students’ responses. Recent guided drill systems incorporate
the principles of education in addition to subject matter knowledge

into the computer programme.
Computers also can help students visualise objects that are
difficult or impossible to view. For example, computers can be used
to display human anatomy, molecular structures, or complex
geometrical objects. Exploration and manipulation of simulated
environments can be accomplished with CAI-ranging from virtual
laboratory experiments that may be too difficult, expensive, or
dangerous to perform in a school environment to complex virtual
worlds like those used in airplane flight simulators. CAI tools, such
as word processors, spreadsheets, and databases, collect, organise,
analyse, and transmit information. They also facilitate
communication among students, between students and instructors,
and beyond the classroom to distant students, instructors, and
experts.
CAI systems can be categorised based on who controls the
progression of the lesson. Early systems were linear presentations
of information and guided drill, and control was directed by the
author of the software. In modern systems, and especially with
visualisation systems and simulated environments, control often rests
with the student or with the instructor. This permits information to
be reviewed or examined out of sequence. Related material also may
be explored. In some group instructional activities, the lesson can
progress according to the dynamics of the group.
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
CAI can dramatically increase a student’s access to information.
The programme can adapt to the abilities and preferences of the
individual student and increase the amount of personalised
instruction a student receives. Many students benefit from the
immediate responsiveness of computer interactions and appreciate
the self-paced and private learning environment. Moreover,
computer-learning experiences often engage the interest of students,
motivating them to learn and increasing independence and personal
responsibility for education. Although it is difficult to assess the
effectiveness of any educational system, numerous studies have
reported that CAI is successful in raising examination scores,
improving student attitudes, and lowering the amount of time

required to master certain material. While study results vary greatly,
there is substantial evidence that CAI can enhance learning at all
educational levels.
In some applications, especially those involving abstract
reasoning and problem-solving processes, CAI has not been very
effective. Critics claim that poorly designed CAI systems can
dehumanise or regiment the educational experience and thereby
diminish student interest and motivation. Other disadvantages of
CAI stem from the difficulty and expense of implementing and
maintaining the necessary computer systems. Some student failures
can be traced to inadequate teacher training in CAI systems. Student
training in the computer technology may be required as well, and
this process can distract from the core educational process. Although
much effort has been directed at developing CAI systems that are
easy to use and incorporate expert knowledge of teaching and
learning, such systems are still far from achieving their full potential.
HISTORY
In the mid-1950s and early 1960s a collaboration between
educators at Stanford University in California and International
Business Machines Corporation (IBM) introduced CAI into select
elementary schools. Initially, CAI programmes were a linear
presentation of information with drill and practice sessions. These
early CAI systems were limited by the expense and the difficulty of
obtaining, maintaining, and using the computers that were available
at that time.
Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations (PLATO)
system, another early CAI system initiated at the University of Illinois
in the early 1960s and developed by Control Data Corporation, was
used for higher learning. It consisted of a mainframe computer that
supported up to 1000 terminals for use by individual students. By
1985 over 100 PLATO systems were operating in the United States.
From 1978 to 1985 users logged 40 million hours on PLATO systems.
PLATO also introduced a communication system between students
that was a forerunner of modern electronic mail (messages
electronically passed from computer to computer). The Time-shared
Interactive Computer-Controlled Information Television (TICCIT)

system was a CAI project developed by Mitre Corporation and
Brigham Young University in Utah. Based on personal computer and
television technology, TICCIT was used in the early 1970s to teach
freshman-level mathematics and English courses.
With the advent of cheaper and more powerful personal
computers in the 1980s, use of CAI increased dramatically. In 1980
only 5 percent of elementary schools and 20 percent of secondary
schools in the United States had computers for assisting instruction.
Three years later, both numbers had roughly quadrupled, and by
the end of the decade nearly all schools in the United States, and in
most industrialised countries, were equipped with teaching
computers. A recent development with far ranging implications for
CAI is the vast expansion of the Internet, a consortium of interlinked
computers. By connecting millions of computers worldwide, these
networks enable students to access huge stores of information, which
greatly enhances their research capabilities.
TV TRANSMISSION: EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION (ETV)
Educational television or Learning show is the use of television

programmes in the field of distance education. It may be in the form
of individual television programmes or dedicated specialty channels
that is often associated with cable television in the United States as
Public, educational, and government access (PEG) channel providers.
There are also adult education programmes for an older
audience; many of these are instructional television or “telecourse”
services that can be taken for college credit. Examples of these include
Open University programmes on BBC television in the UK. Many
children’s television series are educational, ranging from dedicated
learning programmes to those that indirectly teach the viewers. Some
series are written to have a specific moral behind every episode, often
explained at the end by the character that learned the lesson.
In the social aspects of television, several studies have found
that educational television has many advantages. The Media
Awareness Network, The Good Things about Television, that
television can be a very powerful and effective learning tool for
children if used wisely. The stage states that television can help
young people discover where they fit into society, develop closer
relationships with peers and family, and teach them to understand
complex social aspects of communication.
EXAMPLES
• Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)
• Annenberg Foundation (The Annenberg Channel)
The television medium can and has been used for a multitude
of educational purposes. Some television programmes are explicitly
educational, while others only incidentally so. Some formats blend
the two in the attempt to amuse but also retain some educational
value.
PRIMARILY EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION
Some television programmes are designed with primarily
educational purposes in mind, although they might rely heavily on
entertainment to communicate their educational messages. Other
television programmes are designed to raise social awareness. The
first ever television series produced in the Pacific Island country of
Vanuatu, entitled Love Patrol and launched in 2007, was praised as
an edutainment series, as it aimed to educate viewers on the issue
of AIDS, while simultaneously providing an entertaining story. One
form of edutainment popular in Latin America is the educational
telenovela. Miguel Sabido, a producer of telenovelas from the 1970s
on, has combined communication theory with pro-health/education
messages to educate audiences throughout Latin America about
family planning, literacy, and other topics. He developed a model
which incorporated the work of Albert Bandura and other theorists,
as well as research to determine whether programmes impacted
audience behaviour.
EDUTAINMENT
Some television shows incorporate a considerable degree of
historical or factual information while attempting to make the
presentation or framing of such content entertaining or exciting. By
making learning seem “exciting” they can be said to stimulate
curiosity. The presence of edutainment is especially evident in
children’s television series, such as Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer,

and Teletubbies. Discovery Channel is also known for its various
shows that follow that theme, including MythBusters. Sometimes
these programmes may be more entertaining than educational, and
may replace educational shows in the televisions programme lineup.
The History Channel has transitioned from producing primarily
factual and historical documentaries, to more sensational, dramatic,
and supposedly entertaining programmes, with educational content
a secondary concern.
The Children’s Television Act of 1990, which was first fully
enforced in 1996, requires broadcast television stations in the United
States to carry a minimum of three hours of “educational/
informational” programming geared directly at children. The move
prompted an exodus of non-educational children’s programming to
cable television and largely failed in its efforts to expand the amount
of educational television on the airwaves (in fact, children’s television
in general has declined significantly on broadcast television since
the act was imposed, although it can be argued that the E/I
regulations could very well be the only thing keeping children’s
television on broadcast airwaves in the 2010s).
INCIDENTAL EDUCATIONAL VALUE
Some programmes are primarily aimed at entertainment, but
may contain an incidental amount of educational content.
Educational content may be inherent to the design of the show, such
as with medical dramas where the plot invariably explores
anatomical and biological issues. The Sentinel Award, which is
administered by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg
Center for Communication, the CDC and the National Cancer
Institute (NCI), is given each year to programmes that address health
and medical issues in their storylines. 2006’s nominees/winners
include:
• Numb3rs - for a storyline about the shortage of organ donations.
• Grey’s Anatomy - for story lines about organ transplantation and
cancer.
• As the World Turns - for a breast cancer storyline that involved a
major character.
• George Lopez - for a storyline about a kidney transplant.
• Ben and Izzy - for a storyline about two children, Ben from America
and Izzy from Jordan, who form a close bond despite their different
cultural backgrounds.
While some programmes are typically “pure” entertain-ment,
they may foray into educational content at select times. For older
viewers, individual situation comedy episodes also occasionally serve
as educational entertainment vehicles. These episodes are sometimes
described in United States television commercial parlance as very
special episodes. The American sitcom Happy Days produced an
especially effective edutainment episode which was reported to have
prompted a 600 per cent increase in the U.S., demand for library
cards. As early as the 1950s, children-aimed shows like “Watch Mr
Wizard” were made which could be considered edutainment.
On the other hand some programmes may seem for the lay
public to contain educational content, but are actually completely
fictional. It is up to experts to figure out if a specific TV programme
uses realistic or fictional plots. One example for only seemingly real
programmes are mockumentaries.
4
Communication
THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS
Communication is a complex, ongoing process that brings us

into contact with the people in our world. Often communication is
viewed as a straightforward exchange of messages between a speaker
and a listener, but this is a naïve view. Communication is a symbolic
process of sharing meanings. A key to interpreting communication
is to find the meanings of messages, and those meanings are found
in people, not in words. Your friend’s meaning of trust or happiness
may be quite different than yours. Even a presumably simple,
concrete word can cause misunderstandings.
You may think of vacation as personal time spent away from
the workplace with no thought of your job. Your boss may think
vacation implies that employees will be away from the office but
continuously available to discuss work-related problems via cell
phone or e-mail. The closer both meanings are, the easier it is for
you to communicate effectively. Communication is a continuous
process that begins with a first encounter between people and does
not end until the last encounter in their lives. These encounters may
involve functional messages that serve practical purposes, or, in cases
of close ties, the encounters may also involve nurturing messages
that convey a sense of caring and personal connection.
Over time, members of a relationship develop increasingly
predictable communication patterns and, if they become close, create
a relational culture or similar worldview. Galvin and Wilkinson
address this complex issue, discussing the communication process
as a constant symbolic interaction of sharing, exchanging, and
coordinating meanings. Through various examples, they apply this
understanding of the communication process to explain the

difference between specific types of communication, like
interpersonal, impersonal, functional, and nurturing communication.
Finally, they explore relational culture, a very specific and unique
type of interpersonal communication, and discuss the communication
dynamics involved.
The analysis in this chapter answers the question “How does
communication work?” and establishes a basis of knowledge that
prepares the reader for the chapters to follow. As you read this
chapter, begin to formulate your answer to the question: What is
communication? How often have you heard someone say, “We just
can’t communicate,” or “We are having communication problems”?
These expressions appear regularly in everyday conversations as
people struggle to solve a problem, start a relationship, manage a
conflict, or find a new way of connecting in an established
relationship. Such struggles occur in all areas of life, in classrooms
and offices, at kitchen tables, and on athletic fields. In our society
people of different backgrounds come together to solve problems
or make things happen, and in those situations they can find
themselves frustrated because of “communication breakdowns.”
Although these dissatisfactions are not new, they are heightened
by the fact that we live in an information age in which effective
communication is expected and valued in all areas of life. Over time
we have had the opportunity to listen to many different people discuss
their interpersonal frustrations as we lead communication workshops
for family members, organisational employees, and community
groups. In all these cases participants are invested in improving their
handling of certain situations, in analysing their relationships, and in
developing new relational skills. As we discuss interpersonal
communication in our workshops, we also describe the communication
process and its elements as well as the specific characteristics of
interpersonal communication that distinguish it from impersonal
communication. We also address the concept of relational culture, or
the development of a highly unique interpersonal relationship
characterised by a unique system of meanings created and maintained
by the partners. Our hope is to encourage participants to develop their
knowledge and skills in relationship development and relationship

maintenance in various contexts.
THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS
Whenever we ask workshop participants how they would define
communication, we hear responses such as “transmitting ideas,”
“talking and listening,” or “sending messages using words and
movements.” Each person has some notion of what it means to
communicate with another and knows how it feels when
communication attempts are successful or unsuccessful, yet they have
not thought deeply about the communication process itself. People
seem to assume that communication works or it does not work, more
as a matter of fate than as a process that can be changed or improved.
Because communication itself is so complex, we could list multiple
elaborate and highly technical definitions of it. For our purposes,
however, a simple phrase is an appropriate starting point. As we
view it, communication is the symbolic process of sharing meanings.
Because this definition is almost deceptively simple, each of these
key words needs to be developed.
Symbolic
By saying that communication is symbolic, we mean that symbols
are used to transmit messages. Symbols are representations of a
person, event, place, or object. Words, or verbal expressions, are the
most commonly understood symbols, but symbolic actions also
include the whole range of non-verbal behaviours: facial expressions,
vocal tone, eye contact, gestures, movement, body posture,
appearance, context, and spatial distance. In addition, objects and
ideas can be used as symbols. For example, friends often exchange
gifts, food, or e-mails as symbols of connectedness. You have learned
to use verbal and non-verbal symbols both as a message creator and
as a message interpreter. As a speaker you create messages by
selecting the most appropriate symbols from a range of options in
order to reach your intended receivers most effectively. As a listener,
you attempt to interpret the symbols others convey to you. Although
exchanging appropriate symbols appears rather simple and
straightforward, we are constantly amazed at the communication
breakdowns that occur as symbols are misinterpreted. Effective

communicators are those who are able to select the most appropriate
symbols or messages for specific other persons and who are able to
interpret the intended message symbols of other speakers. As a child
you learned to encode one type of message to ask your father for
money and another to request a loan from your best friend. You
learned to interpret your brother’s gestures indicating if he is feeling
sad, worried, or exhausted. You have learned who will be enraged
if you roll your eyes at them, and who will decode your non-verbal
cue as humorous. For effective communication to occur, the speaker
and listener must share the same meanings for the symbolic messages
they exchange.
Process
Relational communication involves a process, a dynamic and
continuous process. Each relationship develops its own
communication history, a history that cannot be rewritten. Someone
once said, “It’s unfortunate you only get one chance to make a first
impression.” A relationship’s communication pattern begins at the
first moment of contact— at a party, in a classroom, in a meeting.
The relationship may start in any number of ways: a question, a
glance, an introduction, or a smile. Once contact is made, the
relationship begins to develop its history, which is constructed and
reflected by its communication patterns.
A relationship’s ongoing development may be interrupted by
physical or psychological distance; relational partners may move in
and out of each others’ lives over many years, but the history of the
relationship continues from that first meeting. Sometimes people say
they wish to wipe out a time period of their relationship or forget a
painful argument that occurred. Individuals may choose to
emphasise or deemphasise certain communication events throughout
their relationship history, but they can never go back to “how things
used to be,” or delete a piece of that history. Although some models
of the communication process portray it as a circular process, our
preferred model for understanding this process comes from the
thinking of Frank Dance, whoproposed a helical representation.
Imagine the form of a helix, in which the continuousness of the
process is represented by the infinity sign. This model depicts the

ever-widening scope of the relationships as participants continuously
reencounter each other, a process that continues indefinitely.
Whereas a circular model suggests that communication returns

to the same place, the helical model implies the ever-changing,
progressive, and evolving nature of relational interactions. The helix
representation provides support for the concept that “you can’t put
a relationship into reverse and erase a difficult period of time.”We
have stopped counting the times workshop participants say, “If only
things could go back to the way they were two years ago,” or, “I
want to wipe out the last six months of our marriage.” In reality
each encounter has inalterably added to their relationship, and this
history cannot be denied.
People in relationships cannot wipe out a huge hurtful fight, long
periods of verbal aggression or silence, or, in romantic situations,
the affair.
Yet most friends, partners or colleagues can learn to manage their
history in effective ways: through emphasising positives, talking
through the conflicts, and behaving in ways that affirm their ties.
A conflictual father and son cannot pretend they never hurt one
another with words or fists; friends cannot erase sarcastic comments.
All they can do is work through the issues that currently keep them
from dealing with each other in constructive or caring ways, and
attempt to change their present communication patterns as they
continue in their relational process.
People can always choose to change, to do things differently.
Such choices represent one of the most exciting parts of the relational
development process.
Sharing
Even though the words speaker and listener are commonly used
in communication terminology, communication is not a process of
trading messages. It does not resemble a poor tennis match in which
one Player A hits the ball and then just stands there until the Player
B hits the return. Symbolic messages do not travel from Person One
to Person Two and back to Person One again in some turn-taking
ritual. Rather, at its most basic level, communication requires mutual
and continuous involvement, sometimes referred to as the
transactional nature of communication. This mutual influence process
is similar to a skilled tennis match in which both players are always
in motion based on what they anticipate the other will do. Similarly,
in communication encounters both parties remain actively involved
in the process. For example, even though Michael may appear more
talkative, Vanessa conveys non-verbally that she is bored or pleased
or annoyed, thus influencing Michael’s choice of future message
symbols. Both are actively and continuously involved in every
moment of the interactions; thus, the mutual influence process that
characterises interpersonal interaction. Diagrammed, the
transactional nature of communication looks like Figure
As relationships develop over time, the transactional process

becomes more complex. Your perception of another person and that
individual’s perception of you combine to form a context for your
interactions. If you see Person X as warm and supportive, you will
relate to him or her in an open manner. Person X is then likely to
see you as open and friendly and relate to you with increasing
warmth or support. Thus, your perceptions of each other affect each
interaction as well as the overall perception of the relationship. The
situation can also be reversed, creating a negative context. If you
see another person as judgemental or sarcastic, this may lead you to
interact in a defensive or combative manner. You may be caught up
in a type of negative spiral. Each communication exchange occurs
within the context of a mutually constructed relationship. If the

definition of a relationship remains relatively unchanged, for
example boss and employee, romantic partners, and parent and child,
the nature of the communication process becomes fixed. Each new
encounter reinforces the good or the bad. A boss who constantly
relates to staff members as incompetent may stifle their attempts to
be innovative. A parent who treats children as responsible persons
fosters their ability to handle new situations. This process is captured
in the statement “Over time we create an image of another person
and relate to the image we create.” Individuals construct a reality of
themselves and of others through their interactions, and relate to
those realities they constructed. The attempt to understand and adapt
to another represents a communication challenge.
Meanings
Although verbal and non-verbal symbols permit us to transmit
thoughts and feelings, the symbols must be mutually understood
for the meanings to be truly shared. Common meanings make it
possible for us to communicate. Since there is no absolute standard
for all symbols, we are constantly trying to connect with people,
even our family members, who do not share exactly the same
meanings for the symbols that we use. Therefore it is important to
remember the expression “Words don’t mean; people do.”
Each person’s background, including physiological state, family and
cultural background, and unique experiences, influences how he or she
perceives the world and attaches meanings to symbols. The experience
of being nearsighted, athletic, extraverted, dyslexic, artistic, or shy affects
how you perceive the world and relate to others. Your family of origin
served as your first communication classroom, teaching you how to
interpret messages and how to use communication to manage key
relational issues such as intimacy and conflict. In addition, your cultural
background, socioeconomic level, and educational experiences influence
your perceptions. Based on your culture, you may interpret big hugs,
multiple-course meals, and shouting voices as symbols of caring. If you
grew up in a lower-middle-class neighbourhood, you will have different
meanings for money and security than someone who grew up in an
affluent community. Finally, your own unique circumstances influence

how you assign meanings.
A painful custody battle affects how you discuss divorce. Early
school experiences influence how you participate in college classes.
Living abroad affects how willing you are to interact with people of
different cultures. Fortunately, most people report many similar
experiences, but no two people develop the same set of meanings.
Each is a unique entity with particular meanings for certain symbols.
Ninety dollars may represent a large purchase to one person, but
her partner assumes that only purchases above $500 are large. A
nickname may seem funny to you and insulting to your friend.
Screaming may be viewed as an acceptable or terrible way to resolve
conflicts. Breakdowns in communication often occur because of
missed meanings. Only with knowledge and empathy can you walk
in someone else’s shoes, experience the world from a different
perspective, and create messages that reflect that point of view.
Frequently, focus is placed on the words rather than on the entire
range of verbal and non-verbal symbols that are constantly being
used to create and interpret the meanings of messages. Therefore,
at any point in time each person involved in communication is
contributing to the process—and experiencing the transactional
nature of the communication process.
Effective communication requires the psychological presence of
both parties—attention and connectedness are indicators that both
parties are focused on the encounter. We find the following simple
exercise very useful for demonstrating how individuals may differ
in translating the meaning of everyday terms. Imagine yourself saying
these phrases to a particular person. Think about exactly what you
would hope that other person would do if you said these words to
him or her.
Each of the italicised words receives many different responses.
Depending on the person responding, more respect may be indicated
by listening to me, asking for my opinion, or following my advice.
Trust may be indicated by keeping what I say confidential, telling
me your real feelings, or telling me when a painful event happens.
These are only examples of the many meanings that people have
for the two common terms respect and trust. Shared meanings are
critical because they help to create the context for a relationship in
which participants learn to predict how the other will react to
particular verbal and non-verbal messages.
INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION
Not all communication should be considered interpersonal
communication. Frequently, you are engaged in impersonal
interactions. When you ask for directions, pay for a purchase, or
call for a doctor’s appointment, you are not automatically involved
in interpersonal communication. If you ask a teacher for
clarification, discuss a project with a boss, or plan a family reunion
with a distant cousin, you may be involved in necessary, functional
interactions but you do not share a strong, significant relationship.
Interpersonal communication occurs when two or more people
engage in voluntary, ongoing, interdependent interactions that
involve meaningful interpretation of their verbal and non-verbal
behaviours.
In short, this implies a perception of the relationship as positive,
reflecting a choice to continue to relate to each other over time in
order to deepen the relationship and make it increasingly unique.
There may be exceptions to this description, such as when you
interact involuntarily with particular teachers or managers for a long
period of time, learn how to communicate effectively with them, and
eventually develop a voluntary interpersonal relationship. In the case
of involuntary but required relationships, it is likely that the person
with the less power is adapting to the person with greater power,
setting up a one-up/one-down interaction pattern. Such relationships
tend to remain impersonal, although, on occasion, these persons
develop a friendship. Relationships move from impersonal to
increasingly personal as closeness develops. Therefore, you need to
think about relationships on a continuum from impersonal to
interpersonal, understanding that a particular relationship may move
forward and backward at different times.
Patterns
In ongoing relationships, communication becomes patterned and
predictable. As you relate with another person, you begin to create
increasingly predictable interaction patterns. The more intense and
personal the relationship becomes, the more unique the relational
patterns. Relational patterns involve verbal and non-verbal
communication acts that are recurring and relationship defining.
Over time, while people in a relationship develop their own ways
of interacting, they evoke certain responses from each other and play
off them. For example, you may know that you and Tony will joke
around when you see each other, whereas you and Alberto will talk
about poker. You may share your romantic problems with Sarah
but never with Gail, who you know equally well. Observing an
ongoing significant relationship, you may see a remarkably complex
pattern, similar to a dance, emerge.
For example:
• X makes a statement; Y answers with a complaint.
• X responds with a kidding remark; Y counters with sarcasm.
• X retorts angrily; Y suggests talking is useless.
• One or the other stomps away.
In his book Couplehood, Paul Reiser describes numerous examples of
everyday patterns between partners:
• Like all businesses, couples engage in endless meetings to discuss areas
of management concern and division of labour.
• You know, we really should call the post office and tell them to hold
our mail while we’re away.
• We? You mean me, don’t you?
• No, I mean we. I didn’t say ‘you.’ I said ‘we.’ You or me.
• Oh, really? Are you going to ever call the post office?
• A moment to think. “No.”
• Then you mean ‘me,’ don’t you?
• Yeah.
As in many other areas of life, relationships become predictable;
these patterns tend to create or constitute the relationship.
FUNCTIONAL AND NURTURING COMMUNICATION
In many relationships, the bulk of everyday communication
tends to be functional rather than nurturing. Functional
communication involves managing day-to-day necessities and
exchanging impersonal information such as getting plans

coordinated, meals fixed, schedules arranged, and group projects
finished—all the details that keep life running smoothly. We estimate
that 90 percent of the communication that goes on between friends
or colleagues, parents and children, and even spouses or partners
tends to be functional communication. If the only communication
between closely connected persons is functional, that relationship is
severely limited.
If the necessary and desirable functional interactions are not
accompanied by communication that is more personal, distance will
characterise their ties, limiting their relationship. Nurturing
communication occurs when participants send messages that are
caretaking of the relationship—messages that indicate that the other
person and the relationship are valued. Such nurturing
communicationmayinclude a hug, a special birthday celebration, a
thinking-of-you phone call or IM, a deep conversation about feelings,
or a direct personal statement such as “I’m glad we’re friends.”
Nurturing communication involves emotional closeness and
carries the “I care about you” messages. People who nurture each
other confirm the other’s existence—” You are there; I recognise you;
I care about you.” Through our work with partners and families,
we have developed an informal guideline that states the following:
If there is 10 percent nurturing communication going on in any
relationship, that relationship is healthy. When 10 percent of the
behaviours in a relationship are nurturing, we believe the people
involved will feel cared for and valued. In our experience, when
individuals in relationships come for counseling, functional messages
account for about 95 percent of their communication and the
remaining 5 percent is negative, often openly hostile.
Nurturing messages disappeared from their relational life.
Nurturing takes different forms in different relationships, but no
matter what the form of expression, everyone needs to experience
it. Coworkers, friends, and family members can all be involved in
levels of nurturing communication. Individuals who have been
nurtured are likely to be good nurturers; those who have not been
nurtured can learn to nurture others, but often this takes conscious
effort and hard work. Nurturing communication serves as the
lifeblood of any relationship. Without it, the relationship remains

static and functional; with it, the relationship renews itself through
continual growth.
RELATIONAL CULTURE
Persons in strong, highly developed interpersonal relationships
eventually create their own relational culture. Relational culture
describes a jointly constructed worldview, a personally developed
set of understandings that affect the attitudes, actions, and identities
of the relational partners. Over time many partners or best friends
adapt to each other until they experience an evolving, unique set of
meanings that are reflected in their relational culture. These private
meanings, conveyed verbally and non-verbally, separate the
partnership from other relationships; nicknames, joint storytelling,
inside jokes, and code words contribute to the creation of a “world
built for two.”
We find Julia Wood’s description captures the essence of a
relational culture: “processes, structures and practices that create,
express and sustain personal relationships and the identities of
partners”. Communication patterns serve as the basis for relational
cultures as they are constructed, maintained, or changed through
communication. A strong relational culture is the hallmark of an
intense, intimate interpersonal relationship. In a world of many
stresses and changes, we need our relationships to sustain us and
nourish us as human beings. Communication is central to the process
of constructing meaningful and fulfilling relational support. The
ability to build and nurture such relationships is a critical life skill,
one to be learned and valued.
MODELS OF THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS
While the field of communication has changed considerably over

the last thirty years, the models used in the introductory chapters of
communication textbooks are the same models that were used forty
years ago. This is, in some sense, a testament to their enduring value.
Shannon’s model of the communication process provides, in its
breakdown of the flow of a message from source to destination, an
excellent breakdown of the elements of the communication process
that can be very helpful to students who are thinking about how
they communicate with others. It remains, however, that these texts
generally treat these models as little more than a baseline.
They rapidly segue into other subjects that seem more directly
relevant to our everyday experience of communication. In interpersonal
communication texts these subjects typically include the social
construction of the self, perception of self and other, language, non-
verbal communication, listening, conflict management, intercultural
communication, relational communication, and various communication
contexts, including work and family. In mass communication texts these
subjects typically include media literacy, media and culture, new media,
media industries, media audiences, advertising, public relations, media
effects, regulation, and media ethics.
There was a time when our communication models provided a
useful graphical outline of a semesters material. This is no longer
the case. This stage presents the classic models that we use in
teaching communication, including Shannon’s information theory
model, a cybernetic model that includes feedback, and the transactive
model. Few textbooks cover all of these models together. Mass
Communication texts typically segue from Shannon’s model to a
two-step flow or gatekeeper model.
Interpersonal texts typically present Shannon’s model as the
“active” model of the communication process and then elaborate it
with interactive and transactive models. Here as suggested, argue
the value of update these models to better account for the way we
teach these diverse subject matters, and present a unifying model of
the communication process that will be described as an ecological
model of the communication process. This model seeks to better
represent the structure and key constituents of the communication
process as we teach it today.
SHANNON’S MODEL OF THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS
Shannon’s model of the communication process is, in important
ways, the beginning of the modern field. It provided, for the first
time, a general model of the communication process that could be
treated as the common ground of such diverse disciplines as
journalism, rhetoric, linguistics, and speech and hearing sciences. Part
of its success is due to its structuralist reduction of communication

to a set of basic constituents that not only explain how
communication happens, but why communication sometimes fails.
Good timing played a role as well. The world was barely thirty
years into the age of mass radio, had arguably fought a world war
in its wake, and an even more powerful, television, was about to
assert itself. It was time to create the field of communication as a
unified discipline, and Shannon’s model was as good an excuse as
any.
The model’s enduring value is readily evident in introductory
textbooks. It remains one of the first things most students learn about
communication when they take an introductory communication
class. Indeed, it is one of only a handful of theoretical statements
about the communication process that can be found in introductory
textbooks in both mass communication and interpersonal
communication.
Fig. Shannon’s Model of the Communication Process.

Shannon’s model breaks the process of communication down into eight
discrete components:
• An information source. Presumably a person who creates a message.
• The message, which is both sent by the information source and
received by the destination.
• A transmitter. For Shannon’s immediate purpose a telephone
instrument that captures an audio signal, converts it into an electronic
signal, and amplifies it for transmission through the telephone
network. Transmission is readily generalised within Shannon’s
information theory to encompass a wide range of transmitters. The
simplest transmission system, that associated with face-to-face
communication, has at least two layers of transmission. The first, the
mouth and body, create and modulate a signal. The second layer,
which might also be described as a channel, is built of the air and
light that enable the transmission of those signals from one person
to another. A television broadcast would obviously include many more

layers, with the addition of cameras and microphones, editing and
filtering systems, a national signal distribution network and a local
radio wave broadcast antenna.
• The signal, which flows through a channel. There may be multiple
parallel signals, as is the case in face-to-face interaction where sound
and gesture involve different signal systems that depend on different
channels and modes of transmission. There may be multiple serial
signals, with sound and/or gesture turned into electronic signals, radio
waves, or words and pictures in a book.
• A carrier or channel, which is represented by the small unlabeled
box in the middle of the model. The most commonly used channels
include air, light, electricity, radio waves, paper, and postal systems.
Note that there may be multiple channels associated with the multiple
layers of transmission.
• Noise, in the form of secondary signals that obscure or confuse the
signal carried. Given Shannon’s focus on telephone transmission,
carriers, and reception, it should not be surprising that noise is
restricted to noise that obscures or obliterates some portion of the
signal within the channel. This is a fairly restrictive notion of noise,
by current standards, and a somewhat misleading one. Today we have
at least some media which are so noise free that compressed signals
are constructed with an absolutely minimal amount information and
little likelihood of signal loss. In the process, Shannon’s solution to
noise, redundancy, has been largely replaced by a minimally redundant
solution: error detection and correction. Today we use noise more as
a metaphor for problems associated with effective listening.
• A receiver. In Shannon’s conception, the receiving telephone
instrument. In face to face communication a set of ears and eyes. In
television, several layers of receiver, including an antenna and a
television set.
• A destination. Presumably a person who consumes and processes the
message.
Like all models, this is a minimalist abstraction of the reality it
attempts to reproduce. The reality of most communication systems
is more complex. Most information sources act as both sources and
destinations. Transmitters, receivers, channels, signals, and even
messages are often layered both serially and in parallel such that
there are multiple signals transmitted and received, even when they
are converged into a common signal stream and a common channel.
Many other elaborations can be readily described.. It remains,
however, that Shannon’s model is a useful abstraction that identifies

the most important components of communication and their general
relationship to one another. That value is evident in its similarity to
real world pictures of the designs of new communication systems,
including Bell’s original sketches of the telephone, as seen in Figure.
Fig. Bell’s Drawing of the Workings of a Telephone,

from his Original Sketches
Bell’s sketch visibly contains an information source and
destination, transmitters and receivers, a channel, a signal, and an
implied message. What is new, in Shannon’s model is a formal
vocabulary that is now generally used in describing such designs, a
vocabulary that sets up both Shannon’s mathematical theory of
information and a large amount of subsequent communi-cation
theory.
This correspondence between Bell’s sketch and Shannon’s model
is rarely remarked. Shannon’s model isn’t really a model of
communication, however. It is, instead, a model of the flow of
information through a medium, and an incomplete and biased model
that is far more applicable to the system it maps, a telephone or
telegraph, than it is to most other media. It suggests, for instance, a
“push” model in which sources of information can inflict it on
destinations.
In the real world of media, destinations are more typically self-
selecting “consumers” of information who have the ability to select
the messages they are most interested in, turn off messages that don’t
interest them, focus on one message in preference to other in message
rich environments, and can choose to simply not pay attention.
Shannon’s model depicts transmission from a transmitter to a
receiver as the primary activity of a medium. In the real world of
media, messages are frequently stored for elongated periods of time

and/or modified in some way before they are accessed by the
“destination”. The model suggests that communication within a
medium is frequently direct and unidirectional, but in the real world
of media, communication is almost never unidirectional and is often
indirect.
DERIVATIVE MODELS OF THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS
One of these shortcomings is addressed in Figure’s intermediary
model of communication. This model, which is frequently depicted
in introductory texts in mass communication, focuses on the
important role that intermediaries often play in the communication
process. Mass communication texts frequently specifically associate
editors, who decide what stories will fit in a newspaper or news
broadcast, with this intermediary or gatekeeper role. There are,
however, many intermediary roles associated with communication.
Many of these intermediaries have the ability to decide what
messages others see, the context in which they are seen, and when
they see them. They often have the ability, moreover, to change
messages or to prevent them from reaching an audience. In extreme
variations we refer to such gatekeepers as censors. Under the more
normal conditions of mass media, in which publications choose some
content in preference to other potential content based on an editorial
policy, we refer to them as editors, moderators, reviewers, or
aggregators, among other titles. Delivery workers also act as
intermediaries, and have the ability to act as gatekeepers, but are
generally restricted from doing so as a matter of ethics and/or law.
Fig. An Intermediary Model.

Variations of Figure’s gatekeeper model are also used in teaching
organisational communication, where gatekeepers, in the form of
bridges and liaisons, have some ability to shape the organisation
through their selective sharing of information. These variations are
generally more complex in depiction and often take the form of social
network diagrams that depict the interaction relationships of dozens
of people. They network diagrams often presume, or at least allow,

bi-directional arrows such that they are more consistent with the
notion that communication is most often bidirectional.
The bidirectionality of communication is commonly addressed
in interpersonal communication text with two elaborations of
Shannon’s model: the interactive model and the transactive model.
The interactive model, a variant of which is shown in Figure,
elaborates Shannon’s model with the cybernetic concept of feedback,
often without changing any other element of Shannon’s model. The
key concept associated with this elaboration is that destinations
provide feedback on the messages they receive such that the
information sources can adapt their messages, in real time. This is
an important elaboration, and as generally depicted, a radically
oversimplified one.
Feedback is a message. The source of feedback is an information
source. The consumer of feedback is a destination. Feedback is
transmitted, received, and potentially disruptable via noise sources.
None of this is visible in the typical depiction of the interactive model.
This doesn’t diminish the importance of feedback or the usefulness
of elaborating Shannon’s model to include it. People really do adapt
their messages based on the feedback they receive. It is useful,
however, to notice that the interactive model depicts feedback at a
much higher level of abstraction than it does messages.
Fig. An Interactive Model

This difference in the level of abstraction is addressed in the
transactional model of communication, a variant of which is shown
in Figure. This model acknowledges neither creators nor consumers
of messages, preferring to label the people associated with the
model as communicators who both create and consume messages.
The model presumes additional symmetries as well, with each

participant creating messages that are received by the other
communicator. This is, in many ways, an excellent model of the
face-to-face interactive process which extends readily to any
interactive medium that provides users with symmetrical interfaces
for creation and consumption of messages, including notes, letters,
C.B. Radio, electronic mail, and the radio. It is, however, a distinctly
interpersonal model that implies an equality between
communicators that often doesn’t exist, even in interpersonal
contexts. The caller in most telephone conversations has the initial
upper hand in setting the direction and tone of a telephone caller
than the receiver of the call. In face-to-face head-complement
interactions, the boss has considerably more freedom and power
to allocate message bandwidth than does the employee. The model
certainly does not apply in mass media contexts.
Fig. A Transactional Model

The “masspersonal” media of the Internet through this implied
symmetry into even greater relief. Most Internet media grant
everyone symmetrical creation and consumption interfaces. Anyone
with Internet access can create a web site and participate as an equal
partner in e-mail, instant messaging, chat rooms, computer
conferences, collaborative composition sites, blogs, interactive games,
MUDs, MOOs, and other media. It remains, however, that users have
very different preferences in their message consumption and
creation. Some people are very comfortable creating messages for

others online. Others prefer to “lurk”; to freely browse the messages
of others without adding anything of their own. Adding comments
to a computer conference is rarely more difficult than sending an e-
mail, but most Internet discussion groups have many more lurkers
than they have contributors. Oddly, the lurkers sometimes feel more
integrated with the community than the contributors do.
A NEW MODEL OF THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS
Existing models of the communication process don’t provide a
reasonable basis for understanding such effects. Indeed, there are
many things that we routinely teach undergraduates in introductory
communication courses that are missing from, or outright
inconsistent with, these models.
Consider that:
• We now routinely teach students that “receivers” of messages really
“consume” messages. People usually have a rich menu of potential
messages to choose from and they select the messages they want to
hear in much the same way that diners select entrees from a restaurant
menu. We teach students that most “noise” is generated within the
listener, that we engage messages through “selective attention”, that
one of the most important things we can do to improve our
communication is to learn how to listen, that mass media audiences
have choices, and that we need to be “literate” in our media choices,
even in our choice of television messages. Yet all of these models
suggest an “injection model” in which message reception is automatic.
• We spend a large portion of our introductory courses teaching
students about language, including written, verbal, and non-verbal
languages, yet language is all but ignored in these models.
• We spend large portions of our introductory courses teaching students
about the importance of perception, attribution, and relationships to
our interpretation of messages; of the importance of communication
to the perceptions that others have of us, the perceptions we have of
ourselves, and the creation and maintenence of the relationships we
have with others. These models say nothing about the role of perception
and relationshp to the way we interpret messages or our willingness to
consume messages from different people.
• We spend large portions of our introductory courses teaching students
about the socially constructed aspects of languages, messages, and
media use. Intercultural communication presumes both social
construction and the presumption that people schooled in one set of
conventions will almost certainly violate the expectations of people

schooled in a different set of expectations. Discussions of the effects
of media on culture presume that communication within the same
medium may be very different in different cultures, but that the effects
of the medium on various cultures will be more uniform. Existing
general models provide little in the way of a platform from which
these effects can be discussed.
• When we use these models in teaching courses in both interpersonal
and mass communication; in teaching students about very different
kinds of media. With the exception of the Shannon model, we tend
to use these models selectively in describing those media, and without
any strong indication of where the medium begins or ends; without
any indication of how media interrelate with languages, messages, or
the people who create and consume messages.without addressing the
ways in which they are. while these media describe, in a generalised
way, media,
The ecological model of communication attempts to provide a
platform on which these issues can be explored. It asserts that
communication occurs in the intersection of four fundamental
constructs: communication between people is mediated by messages
which are created using language within media; consumed from
media and interpreted using language.This model is, in many ways,
a more detailed elaboration of Lasswell’s classic outline of the study
of communication: “Who... says what... in which channel... to whom...
with what effect”. In the ecological model, the “who” are the creators
of messages, the “says what” are the messages, the “in which
channel” is elaborated into languages and media, the “to whom”
are the consumers of messages, and the effects are found in various
relationships between the primitives, including relationships,
perspectives, attributions, interpretations, and the continuing
evolution of languages and media.
Fig. A Ecological Model of the Communication Process

A number of relationships are described in this model:

• Messages are created and consumed using language
• Language occurs within the context of media
• Messages are constructed and consumed within the context of media
• The roles of consumer and creator are reflexive. People become
creators when they reply or supply feedback to other people. Creators
become consumers when they make use of feedback to adapt their
messages to message consumers. People learn how to create messages
through the act of consuming other peoples messages.
• The roles of consumer and creator are introspective. Creators of
messages create messages within the context of their perspectives of
and relationships with anticipated consumers of messages. Creators
optimise their messages to their target audiences. Consumers of
messages interpret those messages within the context of their
perspectives of, and relationships with, creators of messages.
Consumers make attributions of meaning based on their opinion of
the message creator. People form these perspectives and relationships
as a function of their communication.
• The messages creators of messages construct are necessarily imperfect
representations of the meaning they imagine. Messages are created
within the expressive limitations of the medium selected and the
meaning representation space provided by the language used. The
message created is almost always a partial and imperfect
representation of what the creator would like to say.
• A consumers interpretation of a messages necessarily attributes
meaning imperfectly. Consumers intepret messages within the limits
of the languages used and the media those languages are used in. A
consumers interpretation of a message may be very different than
what the creator of a message imagined.
• People learn language by through the experience of encountering
language being used within media. The languages they learn will
almost always be the languages when communicating with people who
already know and use those languages. That communication always
occurs within a medium that enables those languages.
• People learn media by using media. The media they learn will
necessarilly be the media used by the people they communicate with.
• People invent and evolve languages. While some behaviour expressions
occur naturally and some aspects of language structure may mirror
the ways in which the brain structures ideas, language does not occur
naturally. People invent new language when there is no language that
they can be socialised into. People evolve language when they need to
communicate ideas that existing language is not sufficient to.
• People invent and evolve media While some of the modalities and
channels associated with communi-cation are naturally occurring, the
media we use to communicate are not.
A medium of communication is, in short, the product of a set of
complex interactions between its primary consituents: messages,
people, languages, and media. Three of these consituents are
themselves complex systems and the subject of entire fields of study,
including psychology, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, media
ecology, and communication. Even messages can be regarded as
complex entities, but its complexities can be described entirely within
the scope of languages, media, and the people who use them. This
ecological model of communication is, in its most fundamental
reading, a compact theory of messages and the systems that enable
them. Messages are the central feature of the model and the most
fundamental product of the interaction of people, language, and
media. But there are other products of the model that build up from
that base of messages, including observation, learning, interpretation,
socialisation, attribution, perspectives, and relationships.
DISCUSSION: POSITIONING THE STUDY OF MEDIA IN THE
FIELD OF COMMUNICATION
It is in this layering of interdependent social construction that
this model picks up its name. Our communication is not produced
within any single system, but in the intersection of several
interrelated systems, each of which is self-standing necessarily
described by dedicated theories, but each of which is both the
product of the others and, in its own limited way, an instance of the
other. The medium is, as McLuhan famously observed, a message
that is inherent to every message that is created in or consumed from
a medium. The medium is, to the extent that we can select among
media, also a language such that the message of the medium is not
only inherent to a message, but often an element of its composition.
In what may be the most extreme view enabled by the processing
of messages within media, the medium may also be a person and
consumes messages, recreates them, and makes the modified
messages available for further consumption. A medium is really none
of these things. It is fundamentally a system that enables the
construction of messages using a set of languages such that they

can be consumed. But a medium is also both all of these things and
the product of their interaction. People learn, create, and evolve
media as a vehicle for enabling the creation and consumption of
messages.
The same might be said of each of the constituents of this model.
People can be, and often are, the medium, the language, or the
message. Fundamentally a person is none of these things, but they
can be used as any of these things and are the product of their
experience of all of these things. Our experience of messages,
languages, media, and through them, other people, is fundamental
in shaping who we become and how we think of ourselves and
others.
We invent ourselves, and others work diligently to shape that
invention, through our consumption of messages, the languages we
master, and the media we use.
Language can be, and often are, the message, the medium, the
person and even “the language”. Fundamentally a language is none
of these things, but it can be used as any of these things and is the
product of our use of media to construct messages. We use language,
within media, to construct messages, such as definitions and
dictionaries) that construct language. We invent and evolve language
as a product of our communication.
As for messages, they reiterate all of these constituents. Every
message is a partial and incomplete precis of the language that it is
constructed with, the medium it is created in and consumed from,
and the person who created it. Every message we consume allows
us to learn a little more about the language that we interpret with,
the medium we create and consume messages in, and the person
who created the message. Every message we create is an opportunity
to change and extend the language we use, evolve the media we
use, and influence the perspective that consumers of our messages
have of us. Yet fundamentally, a message is simply a message, an
attempt to communicate something we imagine such that another
person can correctly intepret the message and thus imagine the same
thing.
This welter of intersecting McLuhanesque/Burkean metaphors

and interdependencies provides a second source of the models name.
This model seeks, more than anything, to position language and
media as the intermediate building blocks on which communication
is built. The position of language as a building block of messages
and and communication is well understood. Over a century of study
in semantics, semiotics, and linguistics have produced systematic
theories of message and language production which are well
understood and generally accepted. The study of language is
routinely incorporated into virtually all programmes in the field of
communication, including journalism, rhetoric and speech, film,
theater, broadcast media, language arts, speech and hearing sciences
telecommunications, and other variants, including departments of
“language and social interaction”. The positioning of the study of
media within the field of communication is considerably more
tenuous. Many departments, including most of those named in this
paragraph, focus almost entirely on only one or two media,
effectively assuming the medium such that the focus of study can
be constrained to the art of message production and interpretation,
with a heavy focus on the languages of the medium and little real
introspection about what it means to use that medium in preference
to another or the generalised ways in which all media are invented,
learned, evolved, socialised, selected or used meaningfully.
Such is, however, the primary subject matter of the newly
emerging discipline of media ecology, and this model can be seen
as an attempt to position media ecology relative to language and
messages as a building block of our communication. This model was
created specifically to support theories of media and position them
relative to the process of communication. It is hoped that the reader
finds value in that positioning.
CONCLUSION: THEORETICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL VALUE
Models are a fundamental building block of theory. They are
also a fundamental tool of instruction. Shannon’s information theory
model, Weiner’s Cybernetic model, and Katz’ two step flow each
allowed allowed scholars decompose the process of communication
into discrete structural elements. Each provides the basis for
considerable bodies of communication theory and research. Each

model also provides teachers with a powerful pedagogical tool for
teaching students to understand that communication is a complex
process in which many things can, and frequently do, go wrong; for
teaching students the ways in which they can perfect different skills
at different points in the communication process to become more
effective communicators. But while Shannon’s model has proved
effective across the primary divides in the field of communication,
the other models Katz’ and Weiner’s models have not. Indeed, they
in many ways exemplify that divide and the differences in what is
taught in courses oriented to interpersonal communication and mass
communication.
Weiner’s cybernetic model accentuates the interactive structure
of communication. Katz’ model accentuates its production structure.
Students of interpersonal communication are taught, through the
use of the interactive/cybernetic and transactive models that
attending to the feedback of their audience is an important part of
being an effective communi-cator.
Students of mass communication are taught, through the
intermediary/gatekeeper/two-step flow model, that controlled
production processes are an important part of being an effective
communicator. The difference is a small one and there is no denying
that both attention to feedback and attention to detail are critical
skills of effective communicators, but mass media programmes focus
heavily on the minutiae of production, interpersonal programmes
focus heavily on the munitiae of attention to feedback. Despite the
fact that both teach both message production the languages used in
message production, and the details of the small range of media that
each typically covers, they discuss different media, to some extent
different languages, and different approaches to message production.
These differences, far more than more obvious differences like
audience size or technology, are the divides that seperate the study
of interpersonal communication from mass communication.
The ecological model of communication presented here cannot,
by itself, remediate such differences, but it does reconsitute and
extend these models in ways that make it useful, both pedogogically
and theoretically, across the normal disciplinary boundaries of the

field of communication. The author has made good use of the model
in teaching a variety of courses within several communication
disciplines, including on interpersonal communication, mass media
criticism, organisational communication, communication ethics,
communication in relationships and communities, and new
communication technologies.
In introductory Interpersonal Communication classes the model
has shown considerable value in outlining and tying together such
diverse topics as the social construction of the self, verbal and non-
verbal languages, listening, relationship formation and development,
miscommunication, perception, attribution, and the ways in which
communication changes in different interpersonal media.
In an Organisational Communication class the model has proved
value in tying comtemporary Organisational models, including
network analysis models, satisficing, and Weick’s model to key
organisational skills like effective presentation, listening, and
matching the medium to the goal and the stakeholder. In a
communication ethics class it has proved valuable in elaborating the
range of participants in media who have ethical responsibilities and
the scope of their responsibilities. In a mass media criticism class it
has proved useful in showing how different critical methods relate
to the process of communication and to each other. In each course
the model has proved valuable, not only in giving students tools
with which they can decompose communication, but which they can
organise the course materials into a cohesive whole.
While the model was originally composed for pedagogical
purposes, the primary value for the author has been theoretical. The
field of communication encompasses a wide range of very different
and often unintegrated theories and methods. Context-based gaps
in the field like the one between mass media and interpersonal
communication have been equated to those of “two sovereign
nations,” with “different purposes, different boundaries”, “different
methods”, and “different theoretical orientations”, causing at least
some to doubt that the field can ever be united by a common theory
of communication. The author repeatedly finds these gaps and
boundaries problematic
It may be that complex model of the communication process that

bridges the theoretical orientations of interpersonal, organisational,
and mass media perspectives can help to bridge this gap and provide
something more than the kind of metamodel that Craig calls for.
Defining media directly into the process of communication may help
to provide the kind of substrate that would satisfy Cappella’s
suggestion we can “remake the field by altering the organisational
format”, replacing contexts with processes that operate within the
scope of media. This perspective does exactly that. The result does
not integrate all of communication theory, but it may provide a useful
starting point on which a more integrated communication theory
can be built. The construction of such theory is the author’s primary
objective in forwarding this model for your comment and, hopefully,
your response.
THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION
Communication is easily overlooked, but the ability to

communicate effectively is necessary to carry out the thoughts and
visions of an organisation to the people. The importance of speech
and words whether through a paper or a voice is a communication
medium to convey directions and provide synchronisation. Without
communication, there is no way to express thoughts, ideas and
feelings. There are many ways to provide communication from the
organisation to the people of your community. Whether through a
phone, fax, e-mail, letter, web site, instant message softwares, social
networking web sites and etc… you are able to communicate your
organisation to the world. Things can be expressed, ideas can be
shared, and thoughts can be joined. The ability and the importance
of communication become much more crucial when you are on a
mission or need to fulfill a goal. Without a means to communicate,
your organisation will become isolated. The ability to effectively
communicate is very important when it is usually underestimated
and overlooked. Communication is a necessity as we use it to
network, spread ideas, and promote. Communicate effectively
through well known mediums and convey it simply and precisely.
The importance of communication is crucial to the success of your
organisation because you need to reach out in order to fulfill your

mission.
COMMUNICATIONS CHANNEL
In telecommunications and computer networking, a

communication channel, or channel, refers either to a physical
transmission medium such as a wire, or to a logical connection over
a multiplexed medium such as a radio channel. A channel is used to
convey an information signal, for example a digital bit stream, from
one or several senders to one or several receivers. In information
theory, a channel refers to a theoretical channel model with certain
error characteristics. In this more general view, a storage device is
also a kind of channel, which can be sent to and received from.
CHANNEL MODELS
A channel can be modelled physically by trying to calculate the
physical processes which modify the transmitted signal. For example
in wireless communications the channel can be modelled by
calculating the reflection off every object in the environment. A
sequence of random numbers might also be added in to simulate
external interference and/or electronic noise in the receiver.
Statistically a communication channel is usually modelled as a triple
consisting of an input alphabet, an output alphabet, and for each
pair of input and output elements a transition probability p(i, o).
Semantically, the transition probability is the probability that the
symbol o is received given that i was transmitted over the channel.
Statistical and physical modelling can be combined.
For example in wireless communications the channel is often
modelled by a random attenuation of the transmitted signal, followed
by additive noise. The attenuation term is a simplification of the
underlying physical processes and captures the change in signal power
over the course of the transmission. The noise in the model captures
external interference and/or electronic noise in the receiver. If the
attenuation term is complex it also describes the relative time a signal
takes to get through the channel. The statistics of the random
attenuation are decided by previous measurements or physical
simulations. Channel models may be continuous channel models in
that there is no limit to how precisely their values may be defined.

Communication channels are also studied in a discrete-alphabet
setting.
This corresponds to abstracting a real world communication
system in which the analog->digital and digital->analog blocks are
out of the control of the designer. The mathematical model consists
of a transition probability that specifies an output distribution for
each possible sequence of channel inputs. In information theory, it
is common to start with memoryless channels in which the output
probability distribution only depends on the current channel input.
A channel model may either be digital or analog.
Digital Channel Models
In a digital channel model, the transmitted message is modelled
as a digital signal at a certain protocol layer. Underlying protocol
layers, such as the physical layer transmission technique, is replaced
by a simplified model. The model may reflect channel performance
measures such as bit rate, bit errors, latency/delay, delay jitter, etc.
Examples of digital channel models are:
• Binary symmetric channel, a discrete memoryless channel with a
certain bit error probability
• Binary bursty bit error channel model, a channel “with memory”
• Binary erasure channel, a discrete channel with a certain bit error
detection probability
• Packet erasure channel, where packets are lost with a certain packet
loss probability or packet error rate
• Arbitrarily varying channel, where the behaviour and state of the
channel can change randomly
Analog Channel Models
In an analog channel model, the transmitted message is modelled
as an analog signal. The model can be a linear or non-linear, time-
continuous or time-discrete, memoryless or dynamic, time-invariant
or time-variant, baseband, passband, real-valued or complex-valued
signal model.
The model may reflect the following channel impairments:
• Noise model, for example
– Additive white Gaussian noise channel, a linear continuous
memoryless model
– Phase noise model

• Interference model, for example cross-talk and intersymbol
interference
• Distortion model, for example a non-linear channel model causing
intermodulation distortion
• Frequency response model, including attenuation and phase-shift
• Group delay model
• Modelling of underlying physical layer transmission techniques, for
example a complex-valued equivalent baseband model of modulation
and frequency response
• Radio frequency propagation model, for example
– Log-distance path loss model
– Fading model, for example Rayleigh fading, Ricean fading, log-
normal shadow fading and frequency selective fading
– Doppler shift model, which combined with fading results in a
time-variant system
– Ray tracing models, which attempt to model the signal
propagation and distortions for specified transmitter-receiver
geometries, terrain types, and antennas
– Mobility models, which also causes a time-variant system
TYPES OF COMMUNICATIONS CHANNELS
• Digital or analog channel
• Baseband and passband channel
• Transmission medium, for example a fibre channel
• Multiplexed channel
• Computer network virtual channel
• Simplex communication, duplex communication or half duplex
communication channel
• Return channel
• Uplink or downlink
• Broadcast channel, unicast channel or multicast channel
MULTI-TERMINAL CHANNELS, WITH APPLICATION TO
CELLULAR SYSTEMS
In networks, as opposed to point-to-point communication, the
communication media is shared between multiple nodes. Depending
on the type of communication, different terminals can cooperate or
interfere on each other. In general, any complex multi-terminal
network can be considered as a combination of simplified multi-
terminal channels.
The following channels are the principal multi-terminal channels which

was first introduced in the field of information theory:
• A point-to-multipoint channel, also known as broadcasting medium:
In this channel, a single sender transmits multiple messages to
different destination nodes. All wireless channels except radio links
can be considered as broadcasting media, but may not always provide
broadcasting service. The downlink of a cellular system can be
considered as a point-to-multipoint channel, if only one cell is
considered and inter-cell co-channel interference is neglected.
However, the communication service of a phone call is unicasting.
• Multiple access channel: In this channel, multiple senders transmit
multiple possible different messages over a shared physical medium
to one or several destination nodes. This requires a channel access
scheme, including a media access control protocol combiend with a
multiplexing scheme. This channel model has applications in the
uplink of the cellular networks.
• Relay channel: In this channel, one or several intermediate nodes
cooperate with a sender to send the message to an ultimate destination
node. Relay nodes are considered as a possible add-on in the upcoming
cellular standards like 3GPP Long Term Evolution.
• Interference channel: In this channel, two different senders transmit
their data to different destination nodes. Hence, the different senders
can have a possible cross-talk or co-channel interference on the signal
of each other. The inter-cell interference in the cellular wireless
communications is an example of the interference channel. In spread
spectrum systems like 3G, interference also occur inside the cell if
non-orthogonal codes are used.
• A unicasting channel is a channel that provides a unicasting service,
i.e., that sends data addressed to one specific user. An established phone
call is an example.
• A broadcasting channel is a channel that provides a broadcasting
service, i.e., that sends data addressed to all users in the network.
Cellular network examples are the paging service as well as the
Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service.
• A multicasting channel is a channel where data is addressed to a group
of subscribing users. LTE exampels are the Physical Multicast Channel
and MBSFN.
From the basic multi-terminal channels, multiple access channel
is the only one whose capacity region is known. Even for the special
case of the Gaussian scenario, the capacity region of the other 3
channels except the broadcast channel is unknown in general.
BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION
Barriers to communication are things people say or do that are

obstacles to good conversation or good interpersonal interaction.
They are hurdles that do not bring discussion satisfaction. They are
high-risk responses whose impact on communication is frequently
negative. These hindrances are more likely to be destructive when
one or more persons who are interacting are under stress. These
roadblocks frequently diminish the other’s self-esteem. These
roadblocks tend to trigger our defensiveness, resistance, and
resentment. They can lead to our dependency, withdrawal, feelings
of defeat, or of inadequacy. They decrease the likelihood that as
suggested, find the solution to our problem. Each roadblock is a
feeling-blocker.! They reduce the likelihood that as suggested,
constructively express our true feelings. The repeated use of barriers
can cause permanent damage to a relationship. These twelve ways
of responding are viewed as high-risk responses, inevitably
destructive elements of all communication. They are more likely to
block conversation, thwart the other person’s problem solving
efficiency, and increase the emotional distance between people than
other ways of communicating.
COMMUNICATION THEORY
MEANING IN THE WORDS: LANGUAGE AND SEMIOTICS
The Signs Specialists: Saussure and Peirce
The early work on human communication theory began with a
focus on language, and on how language is used to generate
meaning; meaning is believed to be engendered by the words
themselves. The first serious work in this field appeared in the early
1900s with the development of the field of Semiotics. Ferdinand de
Saussure, a French linguist working in the early 1900s, was one of
the first to develop a semiotic theory. Working in the same domain
and at much the same time was Charles Sanders Peirce, an American
philosopher/logician, who developed models that were related to,
but somewhat different from those of Saussure.
Saussure developed the idea that a language is a system of signs,
where words are used to signify objects. The language itself is an
abstract system, which can exist independently from real-life objects.

It is through the spoken or written word that language systems are
applied to real-life situations. Saussure argued that no actual link
exists between the sign and the object; rather it is an interpretative,
or arbitrary link. Saussure also argued that words in a language
become connected into large communicative units, according to
relations between the words. The way that this is done is determined
by a “sign system”, or set of grammatical rules.
Peirce’s semiotic model was similar to, but more complex than
Saussure’s. Peirce’s model also became more strongly associated with
American thinking on semiology, while Saussure is more often
represented in European works on the subject. The principle distinction
between Peirce and Saussure is that Peirce’s model is based on theories
of logic, philosophy and mathematics, rather than on linguistics alone.
A key feature of Peirce’s semiotic theory is his creation of three semiotic
categories, which he named: firstness, secondness and thirdness. The
precise meanings of these categories are too complex to explain fully
here, but in essence, Peirce described semiosis as a relationship
between a sign, an object and an interpretant. Since there were three
categories, which were each related to each other, they could be
represented in a triangular fashion, as shown in Figure.
Fig. Peirce’s Notion of the Triangular Relationship Between an Object, what it is Signified by,
and how this is Interpreted.
So, concurrently, but independently of each other, Saussure and
Peirce developed a line of thinking that treats languages as sign
systems, which are governed by rules. For languages such as English,
the rules take the form of grammar, syntax, etc. Similarly in visual
languages, such as signing for the deaf, the rules take the form of
sequences of gestures/hand actions, etc. each of which has specific
meaning. The rules of each sign system form coding systems. In
languages such as English we have grammar books and dictionaries
that prescribe the coding schema. Cohan and Shires suggest that the
relationship between sign system and code is analogous to that
between driving and the Highway Code.
Cohan and Shires also point out that the rules of a language system
are only applied to real-life contexts through discourse. In discourse,
the rules of the sign system may be broken, or adapted. So, if language
is the code, discourse represents the real-life application of the code.
Saussure was the originator of this line of thought, as he made a
distinction between “language” and “speech”. Cohan and Shires
develop this idea to suggest that meaning is only developed through
the application of language through discourse. Discourse, they say,
consists not only of the spoken words of a language, but also the nuances
of verbal articulation, and of non-verbal communication such as body
language.
Saussure recognised that one role of communication is to convey
meaning between minds. Nevertheless, it does seem to me that his
approach was deeply rooted in a classical analytical worldview. Both
Saussure and Peirce treated language as being made up of distinct
units - words, sentences and so on.
These units, they argued, could be studied independently of their
“real life” contexts, as systems in their own right. This view, I believe,
reflects the reductionist approach to studying phenomena, where
objects are removed and studied in isolation from their environments.
MEANING IN THE TRANSFER OF INFORMATION: SYSTEMS
AND CYBERNETIC THEORIES OF COMMUNICATION
Systems Theories of Communication
Although semiotics still exists as a field of linguistics today, many
other approaches to human communication have been developed
after Saussure and Peirce. Systems theory was one field of study
that played a significant role in the development of communication
theory. Up until the time that Bertalanffy, Wiener and others
developed systems and cybernetics theories, much of the focus in
human communication studies had been on language, linguistics and
semiotics. With the advent of these new systems viewpoints however,
communication systems were re-considered in a new light: as
integrated systems. Significantly, human communication was no
longer dealt with as entirely separate and distinct from other

communicative processes. Systems theory treated human
communication in the same manner as all other communicative
processes, be they engineering systems, physical communication
phenomena such as light or energy transfer processes, living
biological systems, or entire social systems.
These new systems theories made little distinction between the
precise communication processes that were involved in these
different kinds of system, rather they looked at the overlying
principles of communicative transfer and the influence of
communicative relationships within systems. Bertalanffy argued that
communication often concerns the flow of information within a
system. He suggested that in many cases, although not always, the
flow of information relates also to a flow of energy.
Bertalanffy also maintained that communication can be treated
like any other system, containing features such as feedback processes
and other aspects of control theory.
Fig. Sinple Communicative Feedback Scheme

Wiener, one of the founding fathers of the field of Cybernetics,
also regarded feedback processes as highly significant in
communicative systems. Like Bertalanffy, Wiener argued that the
fundamental principles of communication are the same regardless
of whether one is dealing with man-made machines and systems, or
living organic beings; indeed he argued that human society itself is
bound together by the same kinds of communicative principles as
any other system.
Weiner maintained that communication is one of the principle
means by which systems are coupled to their external environments;
and if a system communicates with its external environment, this is
one of the features which identifies is as an open system, rather than
closed.
Information Theory
In 1949, Shannon and Weaver, inspired by developments in
systems theory and cybernetics, introduced a new communicative
model that they called “information theory”. In information theory,
information is viewed as a measure of the entropy or uncertainty in
a system. In the information theory model of communication, a
source produces a message, this message is passed along a channel,
to a receiver that interprets the message.
The channel has bandwidth that affects the level of information
that can be transmitted; bandwidth is a measure of communicative
capacity. For example, in modern terms, if we connect to the Internet
via a modem, its bandwidth affects how fast we can download data.
A channel’s bandwidth may also be limited by the form that the
communication has. For example, when speaking on a telephone,
the channel is limited to audio-only data; visual information isn’t
communicated.
Wiener points out that the effectiveness of communication in
such a model is dependent on quality of channel. A high quality
channel transmits only the information that the sender
communicates, whereas a poor quality channel may be contaminated
by extraneous information, or what Wiener referred to as
background noise.
Fig. Shannon and Weaver’s Information Theory Model of Communication

In the information theory model, meaning is in the message; this
message transmits from point to point in a linear fashion, self-
regulated via feedback loops between source and receiver. This
concept of meaning was taken to an extreme level of analysis by
Osgood, who developed a mathematical model for finding where
meaning is located. Osgood created the concept of “semantic spaces”,
which are effectively cognitive locations of meaning, and analysed
the relationships between these spaces through a process of “factor
analysis”.
Shannon and Weaver’s information theory has had a significant

influence on the development of communication theory. There are
however a number of drawbacks to their model. Significantly, the
information theory model disregards the influence of contexts and
environments on communication.
It assumes that all communication travels from point to point,
either from one source to one receiver, or from many sources to many
receivers. Rather than being viewed as contextual influences,
extraneous information is considered to be noise, which the receiver
must filter out in order to discern the meaning of the message.
Essentially, Shannon and Weaver’s information theory reflects a
cybernetic view of communication that is entirely focussed on
“nodes”, which are connected only to each other and not with their
contexts.
Shannon and Weaver’s model has been respecified in terms of
biology by Atlan. Atlan argues that unlike in the engineering systems
that Shannon and Weaver were originally working with, where they
considered noise to be extraneous information that must be filtered
out, in biological contexts the redundant information that creates noise
is an essential feature.
In a biological system noise is an indication of background
complexity, from which emergent features may arise. The background
complexity essentially comprises redundant information, but without
this redundancy in the system, the mutations which lead to evolution
could not occur. Atlan has therefore adapted Shannon and Weaver’s
original model so that some aspects of a natural system’s context has
been accounted for.
Atlan’s model also subtly shifts the location of meaning in
communication. In Shannon and Weaver’s original model, meaning
was in the message alone. By contrast, as Atlan explains, in his model,
meaning is “never intrinsic to the message; the meaning is in the
relationship of the message to some reference point outside of the
information borne by the message”. In other words, meaning arises
not only from the information in the message itself, the also from
the process of its transmission and the context in which the message
is interpreted.
MEANING EMERGES THROUGH DIALOGUE BETWEEN

SPEAKERS AND HEARERS
Conversation Studies
Starting in the 1960s, and based in part on Information Theory
concepts, a new approach to human communication began to be
developed. In this new approach the focus is on what happens in
conversational speech; it is based on the principle that meaning in
communication is co-created between speakers and hearers through
their dialogue. It is the interaction of the speakers and hearers that
generates meaning in their communication. Since the models that apply
this approach are concerned mostly with human dialogue, I shall refer
to them as “dialogic models”.
A key feature of dialogic models of communication is their view
that human communication is governed by conversational “rules”.
The philosopher H. Paul Grice was a major proponent of this view,
which he first presented in a series of lectures at Harvard University
in 1967. Grice argued that a conversation is a co-operative event,
whose structure is organised by the speakers according to implicit
and unspoken rules. Grice called these rules conversational maxims;
he identified nine of these, organised into four general categories.
Grice’s Conversational Maxims:
• Quantity
– Make your contribution as informative as is required
– Do not make your contribution more informative than is required
• Quality
– Do not say what you believe to be false
– Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence
• Relation
– Be relevant
• Manner
– Avoid obscurity of expression
– Avoid ambiguity
– Be brief
– Be orderly
On first appearance these rules seem to be broken in practically
any real life dialogue. This however seems to be the particular point
that Grice was making, as he argued it is when the rules are not
adhered to, or broken that we may learn most about how
conversation works. For example, if someone says, “It’s raining cats

and dogs”, they are apparently breaking the rule of “do not say what
you believe to be false”. When one understands, however, that the
speaker has used a metaphor, the rule holds, and the conversation
makes sense.
Turn Taking
Turn taking is a feature of conversation that has had much

attention from dialogue researchers. Sacks, Schlegoff and Jefferson
identified a “turn-taking mechanism”, by which those engaged in
conversation negotiate who takes the turn to speak. In any
conversation a “turn” is identified by who holds the floor. The
speaker whose turn it is has the right to speak, and also the right to
transfer the turn should they wish to do so.
This transfer may be indicated by a “current speaker selects
next” technique, for example a speaker may transfer a turn by
asking a question, such as: “What do you think Bob?” Other ways
a turn may be transferred are through a new speaker interrupting
the current one, or if the current speaker simply ceases to speak,
so that his turn ends. In both these latter turn-switching
mechanisms, the next speaker self-selects by choosing to take the
next turn themselves.
Sacks et al suggest that one of the main mechanisms by which
turn-exchanges are negotiated is through “adjacency pairs”. An
adjacency pair is a pair of utterances where the first utterance, spoken
by one speaker, is naturally followed by the second, which is spoken
by a different speaker.
An example is the “greeting-greeting pair”, where the first
speaker greets another, while simultaneously handing over the turn
in the expectation that the second speaker will use his turn to return
the greeting.
Other common adjacency pairings include:
• Question - Answer
• Offer - Acceptance/rejection
• Request - Compliance/protest/refusal
• Order - Obeyance/protest/refusal
• Accusation - Admittance/confession/defence/denial
Common Ground
Another concept that is often referred to in dialogical models of
communication is that of Common Ground. To establish “common
ground” in dialogue means to set the context for one’s communicated
message. For example, if two people are meeting for the first time
they will probably spend a proportion of their conversation time
exchanging information about where they are from, what they are
doing there, whether they have anything in common with the person
they are talking to. Eventually they will resolve how much of what
they have to say to each other they have in common, and how much
they have to explain so that the message can be understood. This is
known as “grounding”. Other examples include describing a
situation that someone may or may not know about, by using
grounding questions a speaker can establish how much the person
they are talking to already knows about the topic, and how much
they need to explain, as in the dialogue below:
• Joe: You know Mary was at the party the other day?
• Fred: What party?
• Joe: Jane’s party, you know the one that you couldn’t go to.
• Fred: Oh yes, what happened?
• Joe: Well Mary got really drunk, you should have seen it…
When Joe asks whether Fred knew Mary was at the party, he is
trying to establish how much Joe already knows, and how much he
needs to explain. Fred asks “What party?”, so that he can work out
what situation Joe is talking about, and his answer to Joe confirms
that they have established the common ground in terms of talking
about the same event. The message doesn’t appear until the last
statement, when Joe passes on the information that Mary was drunk.
It is hardly ever necessary for speakers to treat each and every
conversation as if the speakers are starting from the beginning with
no shared knowledge at all. Often it is assumed by speakers that a
certain amount of ground is shared through what he terms “common
knowledge”. The extent of this shared knowledge, says Wardhaugh,
is affected by the circumstances of the speakers. For example, two
physics researchers will assume a different level of common ground,
to the knowledge they share with non-physicists. Nonetheless, even
when we apparently share specialised knowledge with others, we
do have to take care when referring to things outside of our shared

specialised areas of knowledge. To quote Wardhaugh directly, “we
cannot rely on others knowing what we know”.
For this reason, to establish what is shared knowledge and what
is not, most conversations involve a degree of repetition and checking
up that one has been understood. In dialogic models, these
“checking” procedures are considered important not only for
grounding purposes, but to check that one is being understood in
general. One such method of checking is the “back channel”.
A back channel refers to the way that people acknowledge the
communication that they are receiving. Examples include interjected
comments such as “oh I see”, “ah”, and “hmm?”, or body language
or expression such as nods, grimaces and frowns. Back channels are
classic means by which feedback occurs in communication. If a
speaker receives a positive response from the hearer via a back
channel, such as a nod, or a smile of acknowledgement, they will
believe that their point has been understood, and continue with their
utterance. If, however, they receive a negative response, such as a
frown, or a verbal utterance such as “huh?”, they will know that
they have not been understood and that there is a need to restate,
or expand upon what they said.
Conversation Analysis
So, dialogical models propose that human communication is
based upon predetermined rules. These models, suggest that
communication could be analysed for adherence to the rules, and
have therefore paved the way for the development pf practical
methodologies for communication research. One such methodology
that has become widely established is “conversation analysis”.
Conversation analysis is a way of describing “people’s methods for
producing orderly social interaction”.
Sacks, who with Schlegoff and Jefferson developed the concepts
of turn-taking, and other conversational rules, gave a series of
lectures in 1964 and 1965 that prepared the foundations for
conversation analysis as it stands today. Significantly, in these
lectures Sacks argued that talk could be studied as a system in its
own right, independently of other processes. He also claimed that
ordinary everyday talk is organised according to structural and social

rules, and that no detail in conversation, no matter how small, should
be overlooked. Sacks et al were also influential in the development
of CA methodologies. For example, they developed a method of
transcribing recordings that was phonetic, and which took into
account non-verbal utterances. Subsequently, transcription processes
have been the focus of much attention, as there are many different
ways it can be done, so today, transcription is considered to be an
important part of the CA process.
One significant feature of conversation analysis is that it centres
on talk as data. Moreover, only the data that are directly derived
from talk are used for analysis. Assumptions are not made about
the motivations, orientations or backgrounds of the speakers, unless
they arise as a direct result of analysing the talk that has been
recorded.
In terms of the practicalities of how CA is done, Silverman mentions
the following features as some that conversation analysts may look for in
their data:
• Turn-taking and repair
• Conversational openings and adjacency pairs
• How “institutional talk” builds upon the structures of ordinary
conversation
The final point, regarding institutional talk, highlights one of the
ways that conversation analysts try to deal with contexts in their
analyses. As Silverman points out, although CA is centred on the
content of the data, it does appreciate that the context of the data
may also play a role in communication. The CA approach suggests
that, while conversational structures are not necessarily entirely
dependent upon context, it may have an influence. For example,
certain situations are conversational “institutions” that guide and
direct the kind of language and conversational forms that may be
used.
Examples include courtrooms, TV interviews, workplace
situations, etc. Silverman says that the communication in these
“institutions” is shaped by certain constraints, and these situations
are often associated with particular ways of reasoning.
A Critique of Dialogic Models

Although dialogic models are no longer explicitly about the
“transfer of information”, which is the way that Information Theory
deals with communication, I would argue that they are similarly
rooted in cybernetic models of communication. Through their
searches for turn-taking rules, conversationrepair and so on, they
are seeking cybernetic features such as “control factors” and
“feedback loops”. This, however, means that some of the problems
inherent in the cybernetic paradigm are also apparent in dialogic
models. Most significantly, there is no implicit connection between
the communicators and their environments, or contexts. A number
of workers have explained that context is not excluded from dialogic
models, for example the concept of “Institutional Talk” in
conversation analysis explicitly seeks to connect communicators with
their contexts. However, the fact remains that for context to be a
factor in these dialogic models, it has to be explicitly added or re-
instated, rather than being regarded as an inherent aspect of the
system.
MEANING EMERGES THROUGH CO-RELATION BETWEEN
COMMUNICATORS AND THEIR SOCIAL CONTEXTS
A Holistic Approach
Many communication researchers think that communicative
meaning lies much deeper than in dialogue alone. Rather, they believe
that meaning in communication arises from the relationships between
communicators, their dialogue and their contexts; it emerges from the
interactions between communicators, society, culture, history,
environment, dialogue, and whole raft of other factors. I touched on
this view earlier in my discussion of Atlan’s work.
Others have expressed similar views, for example, Budd and Raber
say that:
• “Meaning has formative aspects that include the linguistic, the social,
the political, and others.”
The term that has been applied to this broader concept of
communication is discourse. Discourse has been defined as a three-
dimensional concept that encompasses language use, the
communication of beliefs and social interaction. Van Dijk suggests
that if we are to explain discourse, we need to look not only at the

structure, production and effect of our language, but also at the
relationships between our discourse and the society of which we
form a part. Littlejohn meanwhile goes further than this; he says
that anything that is created through human interaction could be
studied from a communication perspective. Human endeavours such
as architecture, clothing, literature and so on are all expressions of
people functioning and communicating in a social world. These
different forms of expression also vary according to the social context
in which they have been created.
Discourse Analysis
Discourse then, could be understood to be a term for any socially
situated communication. To study discourse from this perspective
therefore, requires a more holistic approach than for other methods
such as conversation analysis. The study of discourse requires
consideration of contexts, whether they be social, cultural or
temporal.
This perspective has been developed into a methodology for the
practical study of discourse, known as “discourse analysis”. Who is
a specialist in discourse analysis, “discourse studies are about talk
and text in context”
A key feature of discourse analysis is that it works with “texts”.
A text may be a written piece of communication, such as a story, a
journal entry, or a newspaper article, but it can also represent verbal
communication, since the spoken word can be transcribed. Rather
than being broken down into “utterances” as in conversation
analysis, these texts are usually studied in their entirety, as whole
units of communication. The analyst is looking for patterns in the
data, such as what social functions the text achieves, or how an
argument is structured.
At the core of discourse analysis is the concept of “versions”.
People create “versions” of their world through their discourse.
These versions are distinguished by variations in language. For
example, the courtroom record will form one analysable version of
a case, the transcript of evidence given by a witness will form
another, while the account of a member of the public in the audience
will form another. All these versions will say something not only
about the event itself, but also about the situation and perspective
of the producer of the text.
The range of different materials that can be analysed through
discourse analysis can be extremely diverse. While conversation
analysis relies on talk as its data source, discourse analysis can be
much more catholic with regards to analysable materials. Journal
entries, or newspaper articles may become subjects for discourse
analysis, as may transcripts of television programmes, radio
interviews, and even web page content. This means that discourse
analysis could cover subjects such as the rhetorical structure of the
media, or the patterns of communication in Web forums.
A Critique of Discourse Analysis
Unlike semiotics, which is concerned with reducing language to
its components, or information theory and conversation analysis,
which take a cybernetic view of communication, discourse analysis
deals with whole systems. It treats language, society and cognition
as irreducibly interrelated, and to study one aspect of discourse, one
must take account of the others. What we are seeing in discourse
analysis then, is a holistic view of communication.
The implications of the holistic viewpoint, where it was pointed
out that, while a holistic view obviates some of the problems
associated with reductive analysis, it is not without its own
limitations. In communication theory, discourse analysis is a holistic
approach. With its focus on “versions” as irreducible whole accounts
that are inseparable from their contexts, it is my view that discourse
analysis severely limits the scope of applicability of one’s findings.
Every “version” of a discourse exists as an irreducible, and
unrepeatable account. This means that, in the extreme sense, the
findings from the analysis of each and every version can only apply
to that version; they cannot be extrapolated to other versions of
events as these too are unique.
We may learn something by comparing analysis of different
versions of the same event, for example, things may be learned by
comparing the text produced in a judge’s discourse with that of the
defendant. But even so, the results still apply only in a very specific
sense to “courtroom” discourse, and more widely applicable patterns

of communicative structure may not become apparent through this
kind of analysis.
Another issue is that of validity of the analysis. There is a
recognised risk that in qualitative analysis of the kind conducted in
discourse analysis that researchers might “cherry pick” data to
support their theorising, but which is not necessarily representative
of the overall situation. Silverman discusses a number of ways in
which the question of validity can be addressed. One method,
suggests Silverman, would be to analyse the entire dataset, rather
than selected excerpts. Yet often this is impractical because of the
large volume of data involved in many discourse studies.
Another method is to monitor the applicability of one’s findings
about one part of the dataset to its wider context, through a process
of back checking and cross-comparison throughout the analysis. This,
says Silverman, is known as the “comparative method” and ensures
that the researcher has assessed whether their assumptions about
the data have wider application, or whether they are restricted to a
particular instance in the dataset. Yet another method that Silverman
describes is to actively seek out cases in the data that deviate from
the pattern one is trying to describe. Comparison between the deviant
and non-deviant cases can, suggests Silverman, strengthen the
validity of the analysis.
In overall terms however, I feel that the discourse analytic
approach is limited by the way it fails to distinguish boundaries
within a communicative system. Only one boundary is identified,
that of the entire system.
Smaller units within the discourse system, such as choice of
words, structuring of sentences and so on, are given less emphasis,
indeed they are regarded as insignificant in comparison with the
contextual influences on dialogue. While this may tell us much
about the context of the dialogue, this information about context
is perhaps gained at the expense of knowledge of structural detail
of the dialogue, and indeed at the expense of detail on how
structural relationships in dialogue emerge through the co-relation
of speakers.
NEW COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES
New communications and information technologies have created

a global revolution in communications, access to information, and
media delivery. These new communications and information
technologies are facilitating the sexual exploitation of women and
girls locally, nationally and transnationally. The sexual exploitation
of women and children is a global human rights crisis that is being
escalated by the use of new technologies.
Using new technologies, sexual predators and pimps stalk
women and children. New technical innovations facilitate the sexual
exploitation of women and children because they enable people to
easily buy, sell and exchange millions of images and videos of sexual
exploitation of women and children.
These technologies enable sexual predators to harm or exploit
women and children efficiently and, anonymously. The affordability
and access to global communications technologies allow users to
carry out these activities in the privacy of their home.
The increase of types of media, media formats, and applications
diversifies the means by which sexual predators can reach their
victims. This stage will not attempt to categorise all the types and
uses of this new technology. However, this stage will describe the
most common and newest of these technologies, and how they are
used for the sexual exploitation of women and children.
NEW AND OLD TECHNOLOGIES COMBINED
Older technologies, like television and cable are now combined
with modern technologies to create new ways of delivering
information, news, and entertainment. Web TV combines the
television with the Internet. New cable networks use satellite
transmission to deliver hundreds of channels and pay-per-view
delivers content on demand.
Presently, there is a high demand for pornographic videos,
through mainstream communication networks such as cable TV.
Only one of eight major cable companies in the United States does
not offer pornographic movies. Satellite and cable companies say
that the more sexually explicit the content the greater the demand.
ADULT VIDEO NEWS reports that pornography offerings on TV

by satellite or cable are increasing video store sales and rentals, not
decreasing them, as might be expected. The explanation is that
pornography on TV is advertising pornography and finding new
buyers.
The mainstreaming of pornography is increasing the exploitation
or abuse of women and children used in making pornography.
Owner of ADULT VIDEO NEWS, anything sells:
• There are so many outlets that even if you spend just $15,000 and
two days – and put in some plot and good-looking people and decent
sex – you can get satellite and cable sales. There are so many
companies, and they rarely go out of business. You have to be really
stupid or greedy to fail.
Another producer said:
• [A]nyone with a video camera can be a director – there are countless
bottom feeders selling nasty loops on used tape. Whatever the quality
or origin of a product, it can at the very least be exhibited on one of
the 70,000 adult pay Web sites, about a quarter of which are owned
by a few privately held companies that slice and dice the same content
under different brands.
As a result of the huge market on the web for pornography and
the competition among sites, the pornographic images have become
rougher, more violent, and degrading. One producer claimed that
there were “no coerced” performances in pornography videos,
although she immediately acknowledged that “there are little
pipsqueaks who get their disgusting little videos out there.”
The “misogynistic porn” this producer refers to involves
degrading images, such as ejaculation on the woman’s face, real pain,
and violence against women that results in physical and emotional
injuries. In the last ten years, some American and European
pornography producers have moved to places such as Budapest,
Hungary because of the availability of cheap actors from Eastern
and Central Europe. Budapest is a destination and transit city for
women trafficked from Ukraine, Moldova, Russia Romania, and
Yugoslavia.
There are hundreds of pornographic films and videos produced
each year in Budapest. Budapest is now the biggest center for
pornography production in Europe, eclipsing rivals such as
Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Most Western European producers

of sex videos use Eastern European actors whenever possible. An
executive at Germany’s Silwa production company explained: “They
cost less and do more. Even excruciating or humiliating acts usually
cost only two or three hundred dollars.”
The postal service, traditionally the most anonymous and
popular way to transmit pornography, is still used by collectors and
producers of child pornography to distribute the pornography. Now,
sending materials through the mail is combined with internet
technology. Raymond Smith, U.S., Postal Inspection Service, who
handles hundreds of cases of child pornography, has found that the
rise in internet use by sexual predators has also increased their use
of the U.S., mail. He said that from the time they first started
investigating child pornography in the early 1980s until five years
ago, they have almost eliminated the distribution of child
pornography. But since the internet became publicly available, the
number of cases connected to the internet has steadily increased. In
1998, 32 percent of cases were related to internet.
In 1999, 47 percent were internet related, and in 2000, 77 percent
of the child pornography cases were internet related. Producers of
child pornography advertise their videos on the internet and
distribute them through the mail. Men in chat rooms trade small
files, still images and short movie clips on the internet, but longer
movies are sent by mail. Stalkers talk to children in chat rooms, ask
them to take pictures of themselves, and send them through the mail.
When stalkers convince children to travel to meet them, they send
them bus and plane tickets through the mail. Scanners and video
digitisers are used to turn old pornographic images, films, and videos
into electronic formats that can be uploaded the internet.
About half of the child pornography online is old images from
films and magazines produced in the 1960s and the 70s. Digital
cameras and recorders enable the creation of images that do not need
professional processing, thereby eliminating the risk of detection.
These new types of equipment also make it technically easier for
people to become producers of pornography. Digital media formats
are not static nor independent.
One format can be quickly converted into another. Videos are

still the primary production medium for child pornography, and the
still images for the Internet are produced from video captured
images. From one video, 200–300 still images can be captured, and
then uploaded to a newsgroup or to a web site.
Production of child pornography still combines older methods of
production, while using new internet technologies for distribution:
• It is safe to say that the number of manufactures has increased over
the years with the availability of new medium. Home development of
black and white 35MM film, self-developing Polaroid film, video
cameras, camcorders, computer scanners, CUseeme technology and
now computer cameras have made child pornography easier and easier
to produce and reproduce.
One police analyst noted that prior to the internet the majority
of collectors of child pornography were not distributors because
duplication technology was not readily available. Now, making
copies of image files “involves a few clicks of any computer mouse
allowing for effortless distribution.” Therefore, collectors of child
pornography have quickly and easily become distributors.
NEW TECHNOLOGIES FOR SEXUAL EXPLOITATION
Digital Video Disk
One new technology is Digital Video Disk (DVD), which
provides high quality videos and interactive capabilities for the
viewer. While making the videos, scenes can be shot from multiple
angles, and all points of view can be added to a CD ROM. The viewer
can then choose the version, point of view, or camera angle he/she
prefers.
Viewers can watch the movie in chronological order, moving
from one character to the next, or watch the movie from one
character’s point of view. Viewers can interact with DVD movies in
much the same way they do with video games, giving them a more
active role.
According to one producer:
• If a viewer wants something different, we give it to him. The viewer
can go inside the head of the person having sex with, male or female.
He can choose which character to follow.
He can re-edit the movie. It’s a great technology. The following

is a description of a recent pornographic movie recorded on DVD:
• Chasing Stacy from VCA Labs, is a choose-your-own-adventure flick
that follows Stacy the porn star as she signs autographs, drinks coffee,
works out at the gym and takes a shower. At various points, a small
green icon appears in the corner of the screen and Stacy looks straight
at the camera. That’s when viewers get the chance to ask Stacy out
on a virtual date by pressing the Enter button on the DVD remote
control. The date scenes are filmed so that the viewer feels like he’s
sitting directly across a glass table from Stacy, who provides insights
into her personal life. Later, the viewer can select whether to take
Stacy back to her house, to her office, or to another locale for a tryst.
With the remote control, the details can be chosen as the action
unfolds.
The pornography producer, VCA, released this DVD in July 2000
and sold more than 12,000 copies by January 2001, making it the
fastest selling title they have. Although technologies like this have
many applications and enable creativity and interactivity, when used
in pornographic films, these raise the question of the impact on
people, their relationships, and expectations about relationships.
A portion of men who use pornography and seek out women in
prostitution do so either because their lack of social skills or their
misogynistic attitudes prevent them from establishing relationships
with their peers. Technology such as this may further distance and
alienate some men from meaningful and realistic relationships. There
are a number of venues and media formats with different technologies
for the transfer of files and communications, including Usenet
newsgroups, World Wide Web, e-mail, live synchronous
communication, bulletin or message boards, Web cams for live
transmission of images or videos, live video conferencing, streaming
video, peer to peer servers, and file sharing programmes. All forums
and applications offer ways to engage in the sexual exploitation of
women and children. How each is used for sexual exploitation
depends on the legality of the activity, which varies from country to
country, the techniques adopted by the sex industry or individual
users, and the level of privacy or secrecy attempted by the users.
Perpetrators have taken advantage of new technologies and
applications to stalk victims, transmit illegal materials, and avoid
detection by law enforcement.
Newsgroup
Usenet newsgroups are still popular sites for the exchange of
information on how to find women and children for sexual
exploitation. Although much media attention is given to child
pornography rings and cases that use sophisticated technologies to
keep their activities secret, such as the Wonderland Club that used
a Soviet KGB code to encrypt all its communications, the older public
newsgroups are still commonly used to upload and download child
pornography. The COPINE Project reports that over 1000 child
pornographic images are posted on newsgroups each week.
Web Sites
Web sites are used in various ways to assist in the sexual
exploitation of women and children. Web sites are the most popular
venue for the distribution of pornography online. Large legal sex
industry businesses have sophisticated web sites with subscription
fees that bring in millions of dollars per year. There are also tens of
thousands of free pornography sites that are maintained by amateurs
or someone making a relatively small amount of money from
advertising banners for larger sites and businesses.
Web sites offer streaming videos that can be viewed with web
browser plug-ins. The most recent versions of web browsers come
packaged with these plug-ins. Pimps and traffickers use the web to
advertise the availability of women and children for use in making
pornography.
One example includes prostitution tourists and Western
producers of pornography who have been traveling to Latvia since
the early 1990s to find vulnerable children and young adults to
sexually exploit in their videos. In August 1999, the Vice Police in
Latvia initiated criminal proceedings against the owners of Logo
Center, a “modeling agency,” for production of pornography and
the use of minors in the production of pornography.
The two managers of the Logo Center provided women and
children to foreign prostitution tourists and foreign pornography
producers. They had several web sites with pornography,
information about minors, and photographs of their “models” in
different sex acts. During the time these pimps operated they
exploited approximately 2000 women, men, girls and boys, resulting

in 174 juveniles relying on prostitution for their basic livelihood. The
Logo Center supplied women and children for pornography
production in other countries. In one case they supplied “porno
models” to a Swedish pornography producer who made videos in
Finland. The Logo Center Web site had links to other sites with
bestiality and child pornography.
After being arrested, the two owners were charged with distribution
of child pornography.
• Pimps also use web sites to advertise their brothels or escort services
directly to men. These sites are often used to attract foreign
businessmen or tourists. The following is from a web site in Prague,
Czech Republic: Would you like to spend an exciting night in Prague
with a beautiful young girl? She will do everything for your pleasure.
She will make you happy with kissing you on your mouth, French
sex and sexual intercourse. During your stay, you can visit the “Golden
City” with your girl. The girls are pupils and students, who are
financing their education.
Increasingly, prostitution web sites include photographs of the
women, sometimes nude. This practice exposes women, identifying
them to the public as prostitutes. Many of the photographs look like
modeling photographs, and the women may never have intended
for those photographs to be used to advertise them as prostitutes.
Some of the women may not even know their photographs are on
web sites.
Women suffer from the stigma placed on them for being in
prostitution. This public display and labeling further harms women
in prostitution.
Web based message boards and bulletin boards are increasingly
popular for an exchange of information by perpetrators of sexual
exploitation. They are used in much the same way as newsgroups,
but can be private and protected by passwords. Using these
applications, men can book sex tours and “appointments” with
women through the web, e-mail and chat rooms. Message boards
on brothels’ web sites enable men to post “reviews” of the women
for other men, and communicate with pimps about the women’s
appearances and “performances.”
On sites where the women’s photos are displayed, men can evaluate
the women:
• Alina´s new photos indicate that she has gained some extra weight!!
Please advise what is her weight currently. Thanks and regards...
Another example includes:
• Dear Milla:
– What happened to Alina? She seems that she gained some weight
since the last time she was with you. She must not be 52Kg as
written on her page. Please advise her exact weight.
Men use message boards to make reservations for their
upcoming visits. A Web site for a brothel in Prague, Czech Republic
had the following message and request:
• Hallo Mila ! I found your page on the Internet. I´m going to Prague this
summer and probably will visit your establishment. How long time before
do one have to make reservations ? Could you please put out som more
photos of the girls. Is there also possible to have analsex with the girls if
you stay overnight ? See you !/Peter
Another posting included:
• I understand from our talk, by telephone you have, 6 girls our more,
ATT the time, girls are from Ukraine. I will be in Praha, late August
2000, So I will arrive to Praha, late at night, if I remember rite, me
flights is from Iceland to Copenhagen and from Copenhagen to Praha.
do you have some taxi our pick up from the airport? I wold like to
stay in your house the first 2 nights when I am testing your girls after
that I will know which of your girls I like. I will chosen one of them
to stay in me hotel four 2 nights, so I will have one of your girls, one
hour at the time in your house before I chosen which one I chosen
to stay with me in me hotel, is that ok with you? I understand you
have 6 girls, I wold prefer to have sex with all of them, and then
chosen one of the to stay in me hotel four 2 night after thatch, is
thatch ok with you? Are your girls shaved? Ragnar
Web sites are also used to market images and videos of rape
and torture. Slave Farm, a web site registered in Denmark, claims to
have the “world’s largest collection of real life amateur slaves.” Men
are encouraged to “submit a slave to the picture farm.”
The images include women being subjected to sexual torture,
bondage, and fetish sadism. Description of images include: “needle
torture,” “hot wax,” “extreme hogtie,” “hanging bondage,” “tits
nailed to board,” “drunk from the toilet,” and “pregnant bondage.”
Live chat is available where men can “command the bitches.” A
number of images are available free, but full access requires payment
of a subscription fee.
The women in the images and videos are visibly injured, with
cuts, burns, bruises, welts, and bleeding wounds. Another web site
registered in Moscow, Russia advertises itself as “the best and most
violent rape site on earth.” It claims to have “Several Hunders of
rape pics.” Subscribers are offered 30,000 hardcore porn images, 500
online video channels, and 100 long, high quality videos. There are
images and videos of “violent rapes, ass rapes, mouth rapes, gang
rapes, nigger rapes, torn vaginas, and tortured clits.”
A free 13 MB video and audio movie can be downloaded in 12
segments, each about 1 MB. The film shows a hooded perpetrator
raping a woman in an office. Previously, few people had access to
such extreme material.
As one consultant explained:
• [f]ormerly men used to have to remove themselves from their
community by three levels [to find extreme, violent pornography].
First, they had to go somewhere, physically, then know where to go,
and then know how to find it. The Web makes it very easy to get
that far removed very quickly.”
The resurgence of child pornography through the internet is a
priority for some law enforcement agencies, resulting in unparalleled
international cooperation to break up the rings. In contrast, the
pornography of adults and post adolescent teens has been ignored.
In the United States and Europe, there are very few cases of
prosecution of producers of adult and post adolescent teen
pornography. A lot of the pornography is extremely misogynistic,
with women portrayed as seeking and enjoying every type of
humiliation, degradation, and painful sex act imaginable. Women
and children are harmed physically, sexually, and emotionally in
the making of pornography. Although, there is less information
about women in pornography, it is likely that many women are
coerced into making pornography just as they are coerced into
prostitution. In addition, by filming the violence and sex crimes
against women and post adolescent teens, thereby turning it into
pornography, images of these violent crimes can be distributed
publicly on the internet with no consequences to the perpetrators.
The percentage of degrading, violent, misogynistic pornography

continues to increase, and the images and videos become more
readily available. However, there doesn’t seem to be anything new
in the content of pornography; perpetrators have always raped and
tortured women and children in the making of pornography. What
is new is the volume of pornography produced and the fact that an
average person with a computer, modem and search engine can find
violent, degrading images within minutes, a search that could have
taken a lifetime, just fifteen years ago.
The increase in video clips with audio and streaming video
makes the action and harm come alive. New techniques, such as
shockwave flash movies, enable the creation of animated videos.
Skilled amateurs can create snuff films for distribution on the Web.
One person I interviewed said that “[w]ith virtual film, it is possible
to produce a snuff film from animation, but very difficult to tell it is
not real. Now, we are limited only by our imaginations. There is
nothing that can’t happen on the Web.”
Chat Rooms
Real time synchronous communication, or “chat,” is a popular
means of communication on the internet. Chat is available through
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels, Instant Messaging, such as ICQ,
Web based chat sites which are accessed through browsers, Multi-
User Dimension (MUD) or Multi-User Simulated or Share
Hallucination (MUSH) programmes.
There are over 100,000 chat rooms available to users worldwide.
Some of these formats and the “rooms” users create are open to the
public, some are private and require passwords, and others are used
for one to one communication. No messages are archived or stored
and no log files are maintained, as is done with e-mails or web
accesses, so stalkers use them to look for victims without the danger
of being traced by law enforcement authorities.
There have been numerous cases in the United States and the
United Kingdom, where predators contact children for both online
and physical meetings. Often, during these meetings, the children
are emotionally and sexually abused. There have also been numerous
cases of online stalking of adults that began with conversations in
chat rooms, which led to physical meetings that turned into sexual
assaults. In chat rooms, perpetrators engage children in sexual
conversation or expose them to sexual material, including adult and
child pornography. Predators sexually exploit children online
through this sexual talk.
Perpetrators ask children to send them pictures or sexual images
of themselves or their friends. They may encourage the children to
perform sex acts on themselves or friends for the stalker’s sexual
satisfaction. Stalkers use these activities as part of a grooming process
to entice children into more direct contact, such as telephone
conversations and eventual physical meetings. When the child
stalkers use voice chat the predators and stalkers encourage the
children to get headphones to reduce the risk of someone else in the
house hearing the voices.
They suggest that children get web cameras for their computers
and move their computers to their bedrooms where the stalker can
encourage sexual touching and masturbation while they watch via
a Web cam.
• A typical ruse employed by paedophiles is when the predator asks
the victim what she is wearing. This is usually followed by asking her
to take something off such as her underwear. The more cunning
paedophile will say something more innocuous like ‘do you enjoy
taking showers,’ swiftly followed by ‘do you touch yourself in the bath?’
It is also commonplace to ask the girl if she has pubic hair in order
to build up a mental picture of her level of physical maturity. The
intention of most paedophiles is to engage the girl in cybersex
activities.
In one transnational case, Franz Konstantin Baehring, a thirty-
sevenyear- old German man living in Greece, contacted a fourteen-
year-old girl from Florida in a chat room. He followed his Internet
communication with letters by mail and telephone calls. After a year
of corresponding, he convinced the girl to run away from home and
travel to Greece.
To assist the girl in leaving her home, Baehring contacted a
woman at a mobile phone store and convinced her to assist an
“abused girl in leaving home.” The woman met the fourteen-year-
old, gave her a programmed cell phone and drove her to a local
airport. The girl flew to Ohio, where Robert Arnder, a convicted
child pornographer and one of Baehring’s contacts, assisted the girl

in getting a passport and leaving the United States: Baehring paid
Arnder $2000 dollars for his assistance. Police were able to trace the
girl’s travels and her contacts by examining the e-mail messages left
on her computer at home. Upon investigation of Robert Arnder, who
assisted the girl in Ohio, they found that Arnder had pornographic
images and videos of his own thirteen and seventeen-year-old
daughters on his home computer.
He had sexually abused his daughters for at least five years.
Arnder has since been indicted on 147 counts of rape, 145 counts of
sexual battery, two counts of compelling prostitution, six counts of
pandering obscenity involving a minor, four counts of pandering
sexually oriented material involving a minor, three counts of child
endangerment and one count of interference with custody. In Greece,
Baehring kept the fourteen-year-old girl under control by locking
her in an apartment in Thessaloniki. She was not permitted to answer
the phone or the door.
The girl’s friends received e-mail messages sent from Internet
cafés in Athens and Thessaloniki saying that she was happy.
Baehring told his mother that he felt pity for her because she suffered
from leukemia and he was trying to make her happy. He told the
girl that he was a child psychologist who specialised in hypnotherapy
and ran a youth center.
When authorities found Baehring, he was charged with
abduction of a minor with malicious intent, sexual assault and
exposing a minor to improper material. Investigation of Baehring’s
home revealed child pornography of other girls. He is suspected of
involvement with pornography rings on the internet. The girl
suspects that Baehring may have had other girls under his control
and used them in making pornography.
The international effort to find the missing girl involved the Polk
County Sheriff’s Office in Florida, the U.S., State Department, the
U.S. Customs Department, U.S. Postal Inspectors, the FBI, Interpol,
the U.S. Embassy in Greece, the Greek Consulate and the police in
Greece. The international cooperation has been praised, but the
intensity of these efforts also highlights the resources needed to find
one girl, and there are thousands of girls missing each year from
parts of the world where such resources and cooperation don’t exist.
File Transfer Protocol
Although File Transfer Protocol (hereinafter FTP), is one of the
oldest ways of exchanging files on the Internet, it is still popular
with child pornography collectors for one-to-one exchange of child
pornography. FTP allows users to have direct access to another
person’s computer hard drive to upload and download files.
This technique of file exchange is more likely to occur between
child pornography collectors who have met in other venues and have
come to trust each other.
Live Video Chat
Every venue on the internet is used to transmit images of sexual
exploitation. The number of video clips is increasing and streaming
video is available for those with high-speed Internet connections.
Live Web broadcasts have become common. In 2000, a case of human
smuggling and trafficking was uncovered in Hawaii, U.S.A., in which
Japanese women were trafficked into Honolulu to perform live on
the Internet for audiences in Japan.
Due to more restrictive laws concerning pornography in Japan,
the men decided to operate their web site from Hawaii and broadcast
the live shows back to Japan. The Japanese men in Hawaii placed
ads in Japan for “nude models.” Upon their arrival in Hawaii, the
women were used to make pornographic films and perform live
Internet sex shows. The entire operation was aimed at a Japanese
audience. The web site was written in Japanese.
The women performed strip shows by web cam and responded
to requests from men watching in Japan. They used wireless
keyboards for live sex chat with the men at a rate of $1 per minute.
The Japanese men, operating as Aloha Data, used digital cameras to
capture the live video chat, then transmitted it to a server in
California run by a “not respectable, but not illegal” Internet service
provider called Lucy’s Tiger Den. Japanese viewers accessed the
performance through the California server. The U.S. Immigration
and Naturalisation Service pursued the case, not because of the
pornographic content of the broadcast or the sexual exploitation of

the women, but because of immigration violations.
This case offers some twists in crime, human smuggling or
trafficking and new technologies. James Chaparro, Director of the
Anti-Smuggling and Trafficking Unit, U.S. Immigration and
Naturalisation Service, characterised the case in this way: “The
Japanese men violated U.S., immigration law by smuggling/
trafficking Japanese women into the U.S., in order to circumvent the
Japanese law against pornography.”
Omer Poirier, U.S. Attorney in Honolulu, who handled the case
described it in this way: “Japanese men were smuggling women into
the U.S., from Japan to provide services for men in Japan.”
Peer-to-Peer Networks and File Swapping Programmes
In the last two years, a new technology was developed and
released as freeware that can create a network of peer computers.
The result is an open, decentralised, peer-to-peer system. File
swapping programmes are used to find files on the network. Using
the programme the user designates one directory on his/her
computer that will be open to the public and another for downloaded
files. When the user logs onto the internet, he/she will be
automatically connected to all other people running the same
programme.
All available files are indexed into a large searchable database.
When keywords are entered the request moves from one computer
to the next returning links to files. At that point, the programme
can download the requested files from other members’ network
computers. It is toted as a revolution in how computers and people
communicate with each other on the internet. Examples of these peer
to peer networks include: Napster, Scour Exchange, Gnutella,
Freenet, Imesh.
These programmes create a decentralised system, meaning there
is no central server through which all communications pass.
Consequently, there are no logs of transmissions, and transmissions
are not traceable because each site can only trace the connection back
one level. You can enter the public network or create a private one
of your own.
These features this new information technology so attractive to

perpetrators:
• [S]oftware that turn[s] your PC into both a client and a server. They’ll
create a true Web by allowing users to easily connect directly to each
other.... Download Gnutella and you can trade any type of file, pirated
or not, with anybody else on the Gnutella network in virtual
anonymity.
Gnutella has a monitoring feature that allows users to monitor
the searches of others to see what people are searching for. U.S.,
Customs Cyber Smuggling Center “most searches on these networks
are for adult and child pornography.”
TECHNOLOGIES FOR ANONYMITY AND DISGUISE
For those engaging in criminal activity or sexual exploitation,
anonymity and disguise are critical. Criminals in general are using
new communications technologies, such as mobile phones, to avoid
police tracing of their phone calls.
Mobile phone services often offer free or cheap phones for
signing up for their services. Criminals use these phones for a week,
and then discard them. Pre-paid phone cards enable anonymous use
of landline telephone systems. Users of cellular and satellite phones
can be located far away from their home bases and still be able to
use their phones. Mobile phones can be programmed to transmit
false identification.
Those engaging in international sexual exploitation use new
technologies for ease of communication and to avoid detection.
Criminals can avoid being traced by sending their communication
through a series of carriers, each using different communication
technologies, such as local telephone companies, long distance
telephone companies, internet service providers, wireless networks,
and satellite networks.
They can send the communication through a number of different
countries in different time zones. This complicated routing of
communication makes it difficult to trace the perpetrator. In addition,
criminals can avoid identification by transmitting their messages over
the Internet through a series of anonymous re-mailers that strip off
identifying headers and replace them with new ones. One remailer
service removes identifying features from the header, holds all
incoming message until five minutes after the hour, and then resends
them in random order to make tracing an individual message more
difficult.
Messages can pass through up to twenty other re-mailer services,
with at least one located in a country known for its lack of
cooperation with the global community and law enforcement.
Perpetrators can also utilize technologies that do not save
incriminating evidence. New technologies like Web TV, in which web
communications are displayed on a TV, do not have a file cache,
like browsers installed on a computer.
Therefore, illegal material is not accidentally left in the cache to
be discovered by the police. Encryption is a technology used to
disguise the content of either text or graphics files. Currently, there
is a debate among lawmakers around the world about whether law
enforcement agencies should be provided with encryption keys so
they can decode messages if there is evidence of its use in committing
a crime. Several law enforcement officials in the United Kingdom
and the United States indicated that at this point the capabilities and
threat of encryption seem to be talked about more than they used to
for cases of trafficking and sexual exploitation. Encryption
programmes are not easy to use, and other methods of hiding activity
or content are more popular and easier to manage.
TECHNOLOGIES OF CYBER HIJACKING
The sex industry uses techniques such as “page jacking” to
misdirect or trap people on pornographic web sites as page after
page of pornography opens up. Page jacking is a technique the sex
industry uses to misdirect users so they mistakenly come to their
web sites. The web sites include false key-word-descriptions so that
the search index will bring these individuals on to pornographic web
sites.
The users will then click on the link of their chosen topic, only
to find themselves on a pornographic web site. Another technique
used by the sex industry is called “Mouse-trapping.” “Mouse
trapping” occurs when the sex industry web page designers disable
browser commands, such as “back” or “close,” so that viewers cannot
leave a pornographic site. Once intended or unintended viewers are
on pornographic sites, they are trapped on the pornographic sites

because the “back” or “close” buttons/icons are disabled so that when
clicked, another pornographic web site opens up, resulting in an
endless number of web pages opening up on the viewer’s screen.
In addition, pornographic web sites can change the default
homepage setting on a web browser, so the next time the user opens
the browser he/she is taken directly to the pornographic site.
Furthermore, the sex industry has no idea who they are trapping on
their web sites, whether they are children or adults who fervently
4do not want to view pornography. Pornographers are very
aggressive about using popular current events and search subjects
to misdirect viewers. The sex industry has exploited just about any
topic on the web to trap people onto its web sites. Pornographers
will even exploit the arrests of other pornographers.
MODES OF COMMUNICATION: AUDIO-VISUAL AIDS
By audio-visual aids, we usually mean the most modern or the

most recently used of these methods. This is a summary identification
of very old methods and very modern instruments, and one should
react against it. Visual aids are far older. They correspond to a
profound tendency among the immense majority of men: to
materialise their thoughts in the form of graphic or sonorous images
or to give their thoughts a concrete frame of reference. Plato himself
took care to set the scenery of his dialogues, and he used concrete
words and concrete comparisons as foundations for his most abstract
ideas. In France, the Très riches heures du duc de Berry bring out
the importance which ‘illustration’ can take in a work which would
have otherwise sunk into oblivion. Xylographic images preceded the
printing press by three-quarters of a century and the first illustrated
book by nearly a century. The tremendous success of the ‘images of
Epinal’ in books peddled from door to door in France was only a
manifestation of popular taste in a society where illiterates continued
to be in a majority and where images went with oral literature. Films,
radio and television, considered as educational instruments, have
merely developed – at a rapid rate – alongside older means whose
importance remains considerable. Their common denominator lies
in their function as aids.
This is not a theoretical conclusion, for it is confirmed by the

very attitude of the educator. The educator basically must contribute
to the training of the individual with a view to his integration into a
given society and teach new ideas, facts and techniques to a specific
public. It is thus relatively easy to define the goals at which the
educator aims. Achieving these goals is another task which brings
him face to face every day with the basic problem of pedagogy –
that of transmitting or communicating ideas or information. To solve
this problem, the educator resorts to infinitely varied means, among
them audiovisual aids. If our purpose, therefore, is to aid the
educator, we must then offer him as complete an arsenal as possible
of these means. But it is the educator and the educator alone who
chooses the means which is best adapted to his subject, his audience
and his circumstances. It is thus clear that audio-visual aids cannot
be separated from educational materials in general.
This tendency towards the use of concrete examples has
developed through a complex process. At first, graphic
representation was probably only a way to enable man to capture
fleeting thoughts and the sole way of transmitting thoughts,
compared to oral transmission which was subject to rapid distortion.
The invention of writing, a perfect example of a visual aid at its
origin, proceeded from the same necessity. It would be interesting
to study, for example, in the light of Mayan writing – of the Codex
Troano – how man progressed from the talking image to the letter.
We can therefore conclude that ‘illustrations’ were looked upon at
first, at least by the most educated persons, as a minor complement
to thought. The entire history of publishing until the end of the
eighteenth century confirms this. But, in the twentieth century,
powerful means of reproduction, associated with radio, cinema and
television, have changed the aspect of the problem.
Sound and visual ‘illustrations’ are no longer mere minor
complements to thought but they directly influence the thoughts and
the very conduct of millions of individuals. It was therefore inevitable
that a desire should spring up to master such a powerful instrument,
to discipline it for better or for worse. But this coveted mastery is
still rather crude: it is often reduced to the creating of a few
conditioned reflexes, satisfying the merchant but not the educator.
Certain of these audio-visual aids are both means of education and

media for information and propaganda, and it is not always easy to
draw the line between what belongs to the educator and what is
within the province of information or propaganda.
It is also probable that the child is more affected by the violence
of street posters and by the shock techniques of radio and television
at home than by the visual aids used in school. Should we conclude
then that these means are harmful and should we condemn them?
This negative attitude would be most unrealistic. The only possible
conclusion is to accept the need for basic research in these fields. It
should bear essentially upon psychology and upon the social
sciences. We educators have already ventured forth, but timidly, onto
this terrain. Systematic establishment of contacts with research
workers and specialised institutes is the duty of all those who are
responsible at the national level for audio-visual services.
It can be reasonably hoped that this basic research will lead to a
better use of audio-visual aids and to more scientific pedagogy based
upon them. It is not difficult to observe that their use is continuing
and developing outside the pale of any research. As a result, a
pragmatic pedagogy is taking shape and not necessarily in
contradiction to the results of the most scholarly research.
Establishing or stimulating closer collaboration between research
workers and educators, stimulating the writing of theses or
documents containing the fruits of the work of both, and publishing
and distributing the results of this work should also be the common
task of pedagogical and audio-visual services.
Until now, the problem of the use of audio-visual aids has been
examined from an intellectual angle. It also includes important
practical and technical aspects. To tell the truth, techniques cannot
and should not be separated from pedagogy. We have seen that
audio-visual aids cannot be separated from educational materials as
a whole, this conclusion being thrust upon us by the attitude of the
user when confronted by these materials. Now this same user –
whether a teacher, a professor or an adult educator – does not act
any differently when pedagogy and techniques are involved. He can
never be purely a pedagogue or purely a technician. It is clear,
therefore, that the pedagogy of audio-visual aids cannot be separated
arbitrarily from audio-visual techniques. No one can hope to achieve

good results unless he is a sensitive pedagogue and a skilled
technician. The problem must be solved globally.
Unfortunately, this initiation into techniques is not always carried
out in the institutions where future educators are trained. In
underdeveloped countries, the lack of qualified personnel is the most
frequent obstacle to such an initiation. But it is not the only one
because similar shortcomings are often found in more favoured
countries. Routine, lack of initiative and administrative delays are
the main factors responsible for educational sluggishness. There is
no doubt that audio-visual aids produce their best results when they
are used in connexion with active teaching methods. Here, the task
of educators is to draw the attention of their governments to these
methods and to the recommendations of previous seminars
concerned with the introduction of an initiation into film and radio
techniques into normal schools and similar institutions.
Finally, there are other questions which should be taken up in
thorough and specific studies. They are related to the use of radio
and television in the teaching of reading and writing and of
languages. A great deal has been said about the ‘singular, specific
and irreplaceable services’ which can be rendered, for example, by
‘teaching by radio’. A great many hopes were stirred as a result of
statements repeated with such warm conviction that one could have
believed them to be dictated by experience. First of all, we should
note the ambiguity of the term ‘teaching’. In the context of the
statements to which we refer, this term covers both the teaching of
subjects such as science and history as well as the teaching of reading
and writing.
One of the greatest problems which remains to be solved is the
liquidation of illiteracy. Following hasty conclusions, a belief has
grown that, thanks to radio, illiteracy can be liquidated quickly, easily
and cheaply. But what do we know about it objectively? Until now,
the number of experiments has been limited. Some of them were
frankly admitted failures. Fortunately, as suggested, soon be in
possession of an exhaustive report of the results obtained during
the best known of these experiments, the one at Colombia. One of
our experts has made a global study of these results from which we
think that as suggested, be able to derive valuable lessons, if not

definitive conclusions.
A few complimentary remarks should be made here. The first
concerns the basic difference between teaching notions of history,
geography, science, etc., by radio and the teaching of reading and
writing. We say teaching by radio because the problem of teaching
reading and writing by television is infinitely simpler and the results
already acquired are sufficiently convincing. At any rate, it can never
be said too often that the global use of audio-visual aids always gives
the best results. Opposing radio to television or both to films is a
typical example of a false problem. In an educational campaign
organised and carried out at a national level, all complementary
means must be used if possible. It is also virtually certain that results
are proportionate to the means employed in a geometrical, not an
arithmetical, progression. In other words, overly strict economy does
not pay.
There lies a source of misunderstanding. Too often, it has been
believed that making an expert and $10,000 worth of equipment
available to a government was enough to solve the problem of audio-
visual aids in a given Member State. Audio-visual aids do not have
this magic quality. They require serious study and, first of all, serious
thought about the place which they should occupy in a budget.
Pedagogical problems always end up by leading into budgetary
problems – that is, in the long run, economic, social and political
problems.
The educator must play his pedagogical role. The tool which is
offered to him – and this is the case of audio-visual tools – can
multiply the activity of the educator in large proportion. Therefore,
the political authorities must be convinced of the necessity of a
financial effort which is often considerably large. That is a point of
view which often escapes the educator: he must also educate
administrators and political authorities. Many mistakes begin here.
So far, we have talked about audio-visual ‘aids’ and ‘means’.
Educators obviously consider them from this angle in the best of
cases. But will this tremendous development of mass information
media which we continue to allow itself to be domesticated? Let us
go to the heart of the matter: must we continue to consider these

information media as blind forces whose unleashing – and, as far as
the educator is concerned, the unleashing begins where his own
control ends – would be an educational and cultural catastrophe?
Or, to put things in a less impressive but equally embarrassing way,
cannot audio-visual ‘means’ be allowed to play their role without
the help or simply the intervention of the educator? Before issuing a
condemnation without any possibility of appeal, perhaps it might
be wise to remember that films, radio and television can only be
arbitrarily separated from the social, economic and cultural context
which gives them their means of existence. No doubt, the study of
these problems takes us a long way from modest film strips,
flannelgraphs, and even traditional black-boards which are still a
luxury for thousands of schools.
Let there be no misunderstanding. We know the importance of
pedagogy in the use of audio-visual aids. We know that the training
of good educators – in this case, good users of these didactic means
– is a long and difficult matter. We know that we must think about
the desperate problem of training teachers. But pedagogy itself is
only a means whose end is education. And education, in the long
run, is only a contribution – naturally, of capital importance – to the
integration of the individual into a given society. It is in this
perspective – from their production to their final use – that we must
look at audio-visual aids and the various questions which they raise.
TEACHING AIDS
Practical Examples: Connecting Theory with Applications
Students have expressed concern regarding the need for more
industrial and practical examples to reinforce theory in the classroom.
The use of practical examples can help you connect engineering
theory with practical applications for more effective teaching and
learning. The introduction of practical examples does not imply an
elimination of theory, but rather an enhancement of the theory taught
in the classroom. It is important to simultaneously develop a
theoretical and a practical base since neither is useful without the
other.
The use of practical examples in the classroom is targeted at the

following two main goals:
1. Help illustrate and explain new material making the theoretical basis
of the material more accessible to the students. Practical examples
help students understand the new concepts being introduced.
2. Teach students how to apply their knowledge of course material to
new situations that are not directly covered in class. The goal here is
to show the students not only that what they are learning has practical
applications, but more importantly, how to apply their understanding
of the basic principles to real engineering problems.
Scope
Practical examples can be included at all levels of the engineering
curriculum. When determining examples to be used for instruction it is
important to make the examples as clear and straight forward as
possible. The key is to make the examples as simple as possible, and to
make sure that they isolate the desired principle. Whenever possible,
the examples should be designed so that the students’ physical senses
are brought into play. Examples that are likely to be enjoyed by the
students include those that require them to use their sense of sight,
feeling, hearing or smell.
The following guidelines should be remembered when implementing
practical examples:
• Understand the example given and be able to explain it. If you cannot
provide a clear explanation to the example, the example will confuse
the students more than help them.
• Before giving a demonstration or take home assignment, carry out
the assignment yourself. This will ensure that you know exactly what
the students will “see”. It will also help you to anticipate your students’
questions. Giving an assignment or demonstration that doesn’t work
is frustrating to the students and is bad for your credibility.
• Choose examples that are relevant to the students. Examples that
the students can observe first hand as opposed to those in a film or
on TV are better. Try and find examples that the students can observe
on campus or at home. Pull examples from current events like, for
instance, explaining the cause for a design failure of a collapsed bridge
recently in the news. Explain the basic principles behind a new or
commonly used product like the fluid mechanics aspects of a Bernoulli
disk drive in a computer.
• Allow ample time in class to discuss the example.
• Consider having the students prepare a written report to document

what they have learned. Have them include a list of the basic principles
involved.
Categories and Types of Practical Examples
Practical examples can be grouped into two broad categories:

A) those that help in the Explanation of Theory and New Concepts,
and B) those that illustrate the Application of Basic Principles. In
addition, practical examples can also be broken down into different
types based on the format in which they are used.
For example, one can design practical examples that are based on:
• Analogies,
• Observations,
• Demonstrations (experimental or mathematical),
• Sensing phenomena, and
• Observing secondary effects.
Explanation of Practical Example Types
Analogy
The analogy is a very helpful tool for explaining new concepts.
Here, the instructor links the new concept to an idea which the
students can easily picture in their minds. An example of an analogy
would be to explain the concept of the conservation of energy in
terms of money in a bank. One can imagine the money in a checking
account as being analogous to kinetic energy. Similarly, money in
the savings and money market accounts can be thought of as being
analogous to pressure and potential energies, respectively. Just as
money can be transferred between the three different accounts, so
can energy between the three different forms. The concept of
frictional energy losses can now be easily related to the debiting of
money from the accounts.
Observations
Observations that the student can make outside of class can help
demonstrate basic principles being currently studied in class. The
example can be carried out as a take home assignment where the
students are required to go and observe a phenomena that they can
readily see, feel, hear and smell, and later summarise their
observations. The students bring their observations to class and the

instructor leads a discussion of what the students observed and what
those observations mean. This type of exercise not only helps with
the understanding of a new concept or basic principle but teaches the
students how to observe a phenomena before trying to analyse it.
Demonstrations: (Experimental or Mathematical)
The demonstration example can be done either as an
experimental exercise carried out in class with small experimental
models, or as a mathematical exercise carried out on the
“chalkboard” to explain a physical phenomena. This can be
particularly instructive when the students are aware of the
phenomena but are not able to explain the science behind it.
Experimental: An experimental demonstration requires physical
equipment. While finding the right equipment may not always be
possible, some examples require materials as simple as a paper clip
or piece of paper. For instance, the factors affecting the aerodynamic
drag and lift forces on an object can be demonstrated with a simple
piece of writing paper. Hold a flat sheet of paper parallel to the floor
and drop it observing its rate of decent. Then take the same sheet of
paper crumple it up, drop it and observe its rate of decent. In both
cases you have the same material, the same mass, and the same
gravitational force acting on the system. Therefore, these parameters
can be eliminated from consideration. By further eliminating other
parameters, the students can be lead to understand that the
important parameter is the aerodynamic drag acting on the two
different objects. Similarly, important governing parameters in other
systems could be deduced. For instance, tests could be run with the
same object shapes but with different projected areas. By observing
how the time of fall depends on the various parameters, the students
could arrive at the main governing parameters.
Mathematical: The purpose of a mathematical demon-stration
would be to explain, using the theory developed in class, the science
behind some phenomena that the students have seen or heard of.
This can be particularly enlightening if the phenomena is such that
everyone knows about it, but few realise what really is happening.
For instance, the term valve float in an Internal Combustion engine
can be explained by modeling the valve as a train of solid links and

springs, and then writing the equations of motion for the valve.
Sensing
Sensing examples are designed so that students can “feel” the
science behind the phenomena. The goal here is to have the students
carry out experiments that allow them to sense the different
parameters that enter into the theory. An excellent example of this
would be to study the relationship between speed and torque for a
gear system using a ten-speed bicycle. The students’ assignment
would be to flip their ten speed bicycle upside down, switch through
all the gear combinations while pedaling it by hand, and physically
sense how the speed and torque for a particular gear setting are
related. Clearly, the emphasis in this technique is not to teach or
explain a new concept but to give a known concept more meaning
by having the students sense it.
Secondary Effects
Secondary effects demonstrate the fact that sometimes the
explanation of an engineering phenomenon is not obvious. The
purpose here is to get the students to really consider all the possible
explanations besides the most obvious one. A classic example of this
would be the observation of the direction of movement of a helium
balloon tied to the floor of a car when the car accelerates. Typically
one would expect the balloon to move backwards when the car
accelerates due to the inertia of the balloon.
This would be the case if a steel ball were to be suspended from
the ceiling of a car. In reality, the students will notice that the balloon
moves forward as the car accelerates. An investigation of the forces
acting on the balloon can be done either as a homework assignment
or as a class discussion. By doing so, the students should eventually
come to realise that the balloon is pushed forward by the buoyancy
force acting on it. As the car accelerates, the air in the back of the
car is compressed slightly, resulting in a density gradient from the
front to the rear of the car. The helium in the balloon is lighter than
air and therefore experiences a buoyancy force in the horizontal
direction.
Show and Tell: Reversing Student Roles

The “Show and Tell” technique is another form of the “Practical
Examples” technique. However, in this technique the role of the
student is reversed to that of a teacher, thereby changing their
perspective of the problem. The basic premise of the “Show and Tell”
technique is that if one can explain a concept to someone else then
he/she truly understands the concept.
Scope
A typical “Show and Tell” project would require a student or a
group of students to explain a given theory or phenomenon to the
rest of the class and also demonstrate a physical example that helps
visualise the phenomenon. Almost any example that you can
convincingly demonstrate in a classroom would be appropriate for
a “Show and Tell” project. However, it should be remembered that
as with the case of the “Practical Examples” technique, the concept
to be explained by the students should be relatively simple and
straight forward. The purpose of this exercise is to challenge the
students to come up with a creative solution to the problem at hand
without overwhelming them. In order to avoid embarrassing
situations and to ensure that the demonstrations are useful to the
entire class, it is also important for you to know before hand what
the students plan to present.
Example: Explain and Demonstrate the Magnus Effect
The magnus effect is a fluid dynamics phenomena observed
when a projectile in flight is spinning. The spinning projectile moves
in a direction perpendicular to both it’s main path and rotation axis.
Goal
The student or group would be given the assignment to both
explain and demonstrate the magnus effect in class. The level of the
expected explanation would depend on the level of the course and
the philosophy of the teaching assistant. This particular example
could be explained using potential flow theory (mathematically) or
more intuitively using the ideal of streamlines and Bernoulli’s
principle without rigourous proof.
For the demonstration the students use whatever equipment or

apparatus that they can access. In the present case, one possible idea
would be to use a cardboard tube from a paper towel or toilet roll
and a piece of string. The student would wrap the roll with the string,
stand on a chair holding the free end of the string and let go of the
roll, causing it to unwind from the string and move down. In
addition to imparting a downward velocity, the unwinding of the
roll also causes the roll to spin. When the string is completely
unwound, the roll will tend to move perpendicular to the spin axis
(horizontal to the floor) as it falls to the floor. The horizontal direction
of movement of the roll will depend on the direction of rotation of
the roll.
The students could demonstrate this by starting with the
string wound in clockwise or anti-clockwise directions. Other
variations of this demonstration would be to bring in a ping pong
ball and paddle and demonstrate the magnus effect by hitting
the ball with different types of spin and watching the trajectory
of the balls. The same idea could be demonstrated outdoors by
pitching a baseball.
Case Studies: Bringing “Real-Life” Scenarios Into the Classroom
An engineering case study is an account of an actual engineering
activity, event, or problem containing some of the background and
complexities actually encountered by a practicing engineer. Since
cases are accounts of “real-life” engineering activity, they help the
students to better relate theory to the “real-world”. Cases often
involve concepts from other disciplines like marketing and
management, concepts that a practicing engineer needs to know
anyway. In addition, the case method promotes discussion in class
and feedback from the students.
Scope
Engineering case studies can be included at all levels of the

engineering curriculum. The hardest part of using case studies is
finding cases that fit with the class material. This however should
not deter you from using the case method as there are over 200 cases
in Wendt Library alone, not to mention many more texts on case
studies. Professors, other TAs, or contacts in industry are other great

ways to find cases. With a little work, it should not be too hard to
find a good case for any class.
Strategies
Students are usually given written material regarding a case and

asked to read it and answer a series of questions pertaining to various
aspects of the case. The students can be required to work either
individually or in groups.
The following are some tips to remember when using a case study:
• The case study questions may increase the amount of work the
students have to do outside of class. Care must be taken to balance
this extra workload against other homework assignments.
• When using case studies found in the library, do not stick to using
the questions given with the case. Generate new questions that directly
fit the topics covered in class.
• While the questions that are assigned form the basis of the discussion,
be prepared with other questions in order to guide the discussion.
• The goal of the case should be kept in mind at all times. Keep the
discussion from drifting away from this goal.
• Be thoroughly prepared for the discussion. Poor preparation will lead
to frustration among the students.
Example: Design Change for a Walkway
The case study that follows was used in a design course taught
in the College of Engineering. The case helped students discuss how
changes in a design caused during manufacturing and construction
can affect the safety of the overall design. The students considered
the following problem: The on-site engineers want to know if they
can change part of a design to ease construction.
Guided Design Projects: Introducing Practical Design Experience in
Classrooms
Guided designs projects aim to bring practical design experience
into the classroom. Often conducted over a period of a semester,
the projects give students an opportunity to work in a team
environment, apply theory learned in the classroom, and learn about
industrial design methodologies.
Scope
Guided design projects are appropriate for any level, but are often
reserved for junior and senior levels. As with the case method, choosing
a project is typically the hardest part. Using guided design projects
usually requires a lot of preparation by the TA. One of the best ways to
have students appreciate the industrial design methodology is to have
them redesign existing systems or products.
Strategies
The following are some tips to remember when using a guided design
project:
• Realise that the project is not as important as the thought processes
that go into determining a design. It is not important that the students
determine an optimum design. What is important, however, is that
they experience the design process.
• Starting before the semester, determine the scope of the projects and
the goals for the class. It is important that the scope of the project is
reasonable, and care must be taken to ensure that the students are
not overloaded.
• When possible, divide the design into sections. This spreads the work
for the students and the grading duties over the semester. Design
teams of two or three students are frequently used. This allows for
in-depth projects, reduces the grading load of the TA, and promotes
interaction among the students.
Example: Redesign of a Parking Garage Gate
The following guided design project was used in a course on

the mechanics of materials. The goal of the project chosen for this
class was to redesign a gate at a parking garage so that it deflected
on impact from a car. The gate is required to deflect upon impact in
order to avoid serious structural damage to the car.
The project was divided into three parts so that the work would
be spread over the semester. The first part involved brainstorming
to determine the best methods to meet the requirements. The
students worked together in teams generating ideas. Then the entire
class spent part of a lecture discussing the various ideas. In the
debate, the TA guided the class towards a consensus about a design
that would satisfy all requirements and yet be easy to complete. The
student assignment for the first part was to write up and hand in a
summary of their two best designs, the advantages and
disadvantages of each, and which design that they would choose
and why.
The second part of the project involved determining the loads
on the gate. This required the students to synthesise knowledge from
several courses that they had taken earlier.
Also, the TA had to devote extra time in class and during office
hours to explain methods for determining loads on a structure. The
final part of the project involved actual measurements and safety
considerations.
Having determined the loads, the students proceeded to
complete the final part of the project where they determined the
actual sizes of the various components used in the design. As a last
step, the students used failure theories discussed in class to ensure
the safety of the design.
Open-Ended Labs: Making Students Think Deeper
Open-ended laboratory classes can be broadly defined as classes
where the students are encouraged to design their own experiments
or devise their own experimental strategy, rather than required to
follow a rigid set of experimental guidelines specified elsewhere as
in a lab manual, for example.
Scope
Laboratory classes can be made open-ended to varying degrees

depending on a number of factors including the autonomy that the
TA has in changing the course structure, the facilities available, and
the degree of difficulty that the TA perceives to be appropriate for
the class.
One can think of three general areas where a laboratory class can be
made more open-ended:
1. The experiment setup itself where the students design an experimental
setup to achieve certain goals,
2. The experimental design where the students decide the scheme to
be followed for data collection to achieve a prescribed goal, given a
certain experimental setup, and
3. Data analysis and report writing, where the students decide how the
data is to be analysed and reported. Additionally, the TA can consider
making the laboratory briefing session open-ended.
Open-ended Experiment Setup
A simple but effective example of an open-ended lab setup comes

from a mechanics of materials course. A few weeks into the semester,
the TA divided the class into teams of two or three students. As a
part of a course project, the teams were required to experimentally
test the material properties of any household object that they were
interested in, write a report, and present their results to the rest of
the class.
The TA initially offered suggestions regarding the different
experiments (like tensile testing, compression testing and bending
tests) that could be run, different materials that could be tested (like
golf balls, beer cans, eggs, plastic bags, scotch tape and fishing line),
while also encouraging the students to exercise their creativity in
finding test materials or experiments. The teams were allowed
complete freedom in choosing the equipment, experimental
parameters, and the data analysis methods. The TA mostly acted as
a consultant, offering hints and suggestions. As expected, the project
presented many challenges forcing the students to come up with
creative means to solve the problem. For example, how can the
thickness of a sheet of plastic be measured?
Student Response
At the end of the semester the students felt satisfied that they
actually designed an experiment and performed “hands on” work.
It was also satisfying to the TA that the students were able to apply
theoretical concepts to practical applications, and develop a sense
of appreciation for the difficulties involved in designing and
executing an experimental project.
Time Constraints
The biggest problem with this method is that it is time-intensive.
For safety reasons, the TA had to be in the lab at all times when
students were testing samples.
Open-Ended Experiment Design

As an example of the open-ended experiment design lab,
consider the following experimental setup available for performing
heat transfer experiments in a junior level chemical engineering
laboratory. A large cylindrical tank equipped with a heating coil, a
stirrer with adjustable speed of rotation, baffles for efficient mixing,
an external heat exchanger through which fluid in the tank can be
circulated, a pump to circulate fluid through the external heat
exchanger, a thermocouple at the bottom of the tank to measure the
temperature, a source of low-pressure steam and equipment to
measure the flow rates. More equipment such as additional
thermocouples and insulation are available in the lab stockroom.
In the standard lab format, the class is divided into groups and
assigned specific experiments to be performed by each group. The
goals of the experiments, the experimental procedure to be followed,
the calculations to be performed, and the report format (including
specific quantities or observations to be reported) are discussed in
detail before the students perform the experiments.
In an attempt to make the lab more open-ended, one of the TAs decided
to run the lab as follows:
• Students were asked to briefly study the experimental setup and arrive
at an exhaustive list of experiments that could be performed. Clearly,
this required the students to recollect all the heat transfer theory
that they had studied and to involve themselves in collective brain-
storming. The TA merely coordinated the brain-storming exercise,
and offered hints and suggestions. For example, if additional
thermocouples could be rigged up, the temperature distribution in
the tank could be measured. The effect of evaporative losses could
be determined if the tanks could be covered with insulating material.
• Next, the students were asked to briefly discuss the goals of each
experiment and rank them according to their usefulness with respect
to information content or time required to perform the experiment.
For example, the students concluded that the experiment to study
the effect of steam was more important than the experiment that
would measure the heating effect of the pump. Therefore, they
decided that they would perform the latter experiment only if time
permitted.
• Subsequently, the students were asked to organise themselves into
groups and select a subset of the experiments to work on. The groups
were asked to briefly sketch the details of each particular experiment

such as the flow rate or stirrer speed to be used, or making sure the
right parameters are changed during the experiment. The TA acted
as a consultant, reviewing the experimental plans proposed by each
group and offering suggestions. After a briefing about general safety
procedures the groups proceeded with the experiments.
• Finally, the students were required to turn in group reports in
whatever format that they thought was appropriate. In addition, each
group was required to briefly present their results to the class the
following week.
Student Feedback
Student feedback regarding the open-ended lab was encouraging.
Most of the students enjoyed the freedom they had in designing the
experiments, and the opportunity to exercise their creativity. Some
students were initially uncomfortable about the lack of direction and
specific instructions, while a few expressed a preference for the
standard lab protocol.
TA Response
From the viewpoint of the TA, the open-ended lab was a big
success. The lab format forced the students to think deeply about
the theoretical concepts that were to be applied, to generate ideas
and evaluate them, and to design and successfully execute an
experimental plan.
Open-Ended Data Analysis and Report Writing
Students in most lab classes are given detailed instructions
regarding data analysis, and report formats such as specific quantities
to be reported, and specific figures to be plotted. This traditional
approach reduces the workload of the TAs. They have to spend less
time explaining data analysis procedures. Grading lab reports with
a standard set of protocols is easier. However, it does not allow the
students to think deeply about the material or give them an
opportunity to express their creativity. In an effort to make the lab
report writing process more open-ended, a COE TA adopted the
following strategy:
• Hand out very brief information about expected report formats.
Suggest possible calculations, tables, and figures to be presented.
• Have the students work on a rough draft or outline of the report and
discuss their report outline with the TA during office hours.
• Suggest modifications and have the students turn in the final draft
during lab the following week.
Student Response
As can be easily guessed, the initial student response was marked
by frustration and pessimism, for the simple fact that they hadn’t
done anything like this before. The students’ attempts at designing
their own reports were half-hearted, and the students required a lot
of hand-holding. However, as time progressed, they grew more
confident and came to believe that they were capable of producing
good quality work.
TA Response
The open-ended report writing format forced the students to
think about different report writing schemes and evaluate them for
their effectiveness in communicating the results. At the technical
level, it forced the students to think deeply about the data analysis
procedures and the interpretation of the results, in contrast to merely
churning out numbers using a calculator.
Caveats
It should be noted that making the lab report writing process
open-ended does not imply a “hands off” policy. Indeed, a TA stands
to be perceived by the students as being uncooperative, or more
damagingly, as trying to shirk his or her responsibilities, if such a
policy were to be adopted.
It is important for the TA to provide meaningful and constructive
feedback to the students, lest the students get discouraged and
frustrated with the system.
Open-Ended Laboratory Briefing Sessions
Often it is not feasible for the TA to make a lab class open-ended.

In this case, the goal of forcing the students to think deeply about
the application of theoretical concepts and the design of the
experimental plan can be achieved by making the laboratory lecture
open-ended.
The thought process that goes into designing an experiment can

be simulated in a lecture by adopting the following strategy:
• The TA introduces the goal of the experiment and organises a
brainstorming session by posing questions such as, “The goal of today’s
experiment is to measure the viscosity of glycerol as a function of
temperature. Can you suggest a few ways of doing this and explain
the operating principle ?” The TA then collates the ideas generated,
has the students discuss the pros and cons. At this point, the TA
directs the students’ attention on the technique prescribed in the
syllabus by saying, “Now that we have discussed the different possible
methods, let us focus on the method that as suggested, be using today,
the capillary viscometry technique”.
• In the next stage of the lecture, the TA generates a discussion of the
details of the experimental apparatus and the experimental technique
by posing questions such as: “Why is the capillary designed in such a
fashion”, “How is the pressure drop problem addressed in this design”,
“Why and how can we calibrate the viscometers”, “How can we
maintain the viscometers at different temperatures”, “How should we
process the data”, “What quantities do we plot in order to obtain the
viscosity”.
• Finally, after a brief recap of the important aspects of the experiment
the students are allowed to proceed with conducting the experiment.
Student Response
Most of the students agree that this technique “makes them
think” and “helps them appreciate the science behind the
experiments”. It also calls for a lot of class participation by the
students. Occasionally, if the call for a discussion does not evoke
sufficient responses, the TA may be required to call on students to
answer questions or generate ideas. It should be remembered that
some students dislike being called on to answer questions in class.
Asking students to share ideas with a partner or in small groups
first, generates more ideas and makes the students feel more
confident about sharing their ideas.
Time Constraints
Organising brain-storming sessions in lieu of the standard
briefing sessions is bound to cut into the time available for
conducting the experiments. However, the pay-off in terms of the
improved students’ comprehension of the “science behind the
experiments” makes the open-ended lecture technique well worth

the investment in time.
The Flowchart Technique: Organising the Flow of Thought
The technique of flowcharting, as applied to a classroom scenario,
is a tool for precisely and concisely representing the flow of
information among various stages in the development of a theoretical
concept or in the formulation or analysis of an engineering problem.
Flowcharts are a tool to organise the flow of logic and thought in a
classroom, much in the way that flowcharts help in presenting the
flow of materials between various units of an industrial process.
Scope
Flowcharts are one of the most indispensable tools that practicing

engineers use to organise large amounts of information. One cannot
imagine even the smallest unit of a manufacturing concern being
constructed or operated without the aid of flowcharts. Flowcharts
can be equally useful and effective in conveying and presenting
engineering information in a classroom or laboratory.
Flowcharts in Laboratory Instruction
Consider the following experiment in a junior level chemical

engineering laboratory to determine the viscosity of a solution of
glycerol in water using a capillary viscometer. In this method, a
known volume of fluid is allowed to flow through a capillary of
known dimensions, and the time taken for the fluid to flow a certain
distance is related to the viscosity using a proportionality constant
called the viscometer constant.
One of the main steps in this experiment is to determine the
viscometer constant by running the experiment with a fluid of known
viscosity such as sucrose. The sucrose solutions are prepared by
dissolving crystals of sucrose in water and, therefore, have to be
analysed for the sucrose concentration. An easy method for
determining the concentration of sucrose is to measure its density
and convert it to a concentration using published correlations. The
density in turn is measured using a device called the pycnometer.
The pycnometer is a carefully constructed volumetric flask which
allows the weight of a constant volume of fluid to be measured and

related to the density. The volume of the pycnometer itself needs to
be calibrated using a fluid of known density such as distilled water.
The viscosity of sucrose can be interpolated from published tables
once the density is known. This in turn allows the viscometer
constant, and subsequently the viscosity of glycerol (the goal of the
experiment) to be determined. Finally, as a check of consistency, the
experimentally determined viscosity of glycerol is compared with
published values. The published values of viscosity can be
interpolated from tables if the concentration is known. The
concentration of glycerol is determined along the same lines as that
for sucrose.
As an exercise, imagine that you are a student who has just been
briefed about these experiments in the standard lecture format. Now,
try to recall the sequence of steps involved in the experiment.
Student Response
The students strongly agreed that the flow chart technique was
more effective in communicating the overall goals of the experiment.
In their words, they could now “see more clearly where they were
headed”. The students felt more confident doing the experiments
since they had a “road map” in front of them. Additionally, the
students found that the flowcharts greatly helped them subsequently
while analysing the data and writing the lab report.
Comments
It is possibly better to derive the flowchart on the chalk board
during the lab briefing session and distribute previously prepared
ones at the end of the class. This allows the students to “see where
the TA is coming from” or understand why the flowchart looks the
way it does. Better yet, the students can be required to create their
own flowcharts during the briefing sessions.
Flowcharts in Lectures
Students often express concerns about not being able to

understand where a lecture is headed or how the concepts taught in
previous lectures relate to the concepts being presented in the current
lecture. Flowcharts can be used effectively to address this concern.

Flowcharts are very useful in emphasising the flow of thought in a
presentation, or in relating previously covered topics to the present
material. One COETA has made flowcharts an integral part of every
lecture.
The lecture starts off with the TA partitioning the chalkboard
into two sections; one for presenting the lecture and the other for
developing a flowchart as the lecture progresses. At the start of the
lecture the flowchart consists of a single block where the goals of
the lecture are clearly spelled out. As each concept is presented and
the lecture proceeds towards the goals, the flowchart is updated by
adding more blocks to indicate the significant concepts and arrows
connecting the blocks to indicate the flow of thought. Since the
flowchart always stays in a corner of the chalkboard, the students
are constantly reminded of the goals of the lecture and the concepts
that have been covered in the lecture. The flowchart, which is
essentially a summary of the lecture, also makes it easy for the TA
to recap the lecture at the end of the class. For the same reason,
flowcharts come in handy for students to review lecture material
before exams.
Student Use of Flowcharts to Tackle Engineering Problems
Flowcharts can be especially helpful in solving open-ended

problems. Students can prepare flowcharts alone or in groups to
show processes and help solve open-ended problems. A new module
to help students create flowcharts will be available for 1995-96 from
the Technical Communication Division, Department of Engineering
Professional Development. The module was developed with support
from IBM.
Open-Ended Quizzes: Moving Students Away From Memorisation
The open-ended quiz is intended to stimulate students’ creativity
and to help students to think deeply about the material covered in
lectures. In contrast, straightforward “Given this, calculate that” or
“Plug and chug” type of quizzes merely encourage students to
memorise equations and formulae.
Scope
As in the case of the other open-ended teaching methods, the
scope of the open-ended quiz method is only limited by the creativity
of the instructor and the constraints imposed by the system.
Examples
An interesting example of the open-ended quiz method comes

from Dr. Felder, professor of chemical engineering at the North
Carolina State University.
For one of the mid-semester quizzes in a Graduate level course
in chemical reactor design, Professor Felder gave a five-week take-
home exam that asked students to make up and solve a final
examination for the course!
The students were told that if they produced a straightforward
“Given this and that, calculate that”, they would receive a minimum
passing grade, and that to receive more credit, they would have to
demonstrate a deeper understanding of the material, the ability to
apply techniques from other disciplines, and the ability to evaluate
the value of a design, product, or system.
The example, while probably one of the most open-ended
exercises that can be thought of, is also time consuming. The goal of
making students think deeply about the material can be achieved
even in a 15 minute quiz.
For example, students can be asked to solve problems that do
not specify all the information that is needed to arrive at the answer.
The students are then forced to think about what other information
may be needed, and how they might go about obtaining the needed
information.
Some other variants of open-ended questions are:
• Make up a problem which has more information than what is needed
to solve the problem. The students must now think about what pieces
of information are critical to solving the problem at hand.
• Make up a problem that has the students come up with a list of
different ways to accomplish a specific task. For example, come up
with different ways to measure the flow rate of water in a pipe. The
discussion of the feasibility of various methods will help students
acquire the ability to critically evaluate different solutions.
• Have the students assume that they are teaching the class and come
up with creative ways to teach that class. In addition to helping the
students think creatively, this also provides useful feedback about the
direction that the students would like the TA to take.
• Have the students come up with creative quiz questions.
• Have students come up with different analogies to teach difficult
technical concepts.
• Assign or make up a problem that requires the students to use their
engineering judgement.
Brainstorming: Encouraging Creativity
The brainstorming technique is widely used in industry and
academia to encourage participants to generate ideas in an
unhindered manner. In an academic context, brainstorming
encourages students to participate actively in idea-generation
exercises and experience benefits of a multi-dimensional approach
to analysing problems or solutions.
Scope
The brainstorming technique is applicable to all levels of the

engineering curriculum and to all teaching scenarios - labs, lectures
or discussion sections. It is especially useful in design courses since
it calls for a multiple-answer-multiple-dimension methodology rather
than the usual single-answer approach to problems. The
brainstorming technique can be implemented in a number of
different ways as follows:
• Structured: The whole class is given a topic to discuss and each
student is called upon to contribute an idea. The advantage of this
method is that all students participate and the more vocal students
tend not to dominate the discussions. The disadvantage is that the
discussions usually do not flow freely as in an unstructured session,
and can make some students feel pressured and uncomfortable.
• Unstructured: Students are allowed to contribute ideas as and when
they think of them. This approach allows for a freer flow of ideas
and a more relaxed environment. The drawbacks to this approach
are that it can lead to the students not responding at all or to a few
students dominating the discussions.
• Group: This is a structured approach except that the class is broken
into small groups and each group presents its ideas after an allotted
amount of time. The advantage of this method is that the students are
likely to be more at ease and willing to express their ideas. This also
promotes synergy and communication among the students. One
obvious drawback to this method is that it more time-intensive than
the other two methods.
Guidelines
The following guidelines should be followed with any of the above

methods:
• Make sure that everyone agrees on the question or issue being
brainstormed. Write it down on a chalkboard, for example, or give
handouts.
• Never criticise students’ ideas or allow students to criticise each other.
• Do not allow students to reject ideas initially. Ideas should not be
weeded out until the brainstorming is completed. This keeps the
solution path from becoming prematurely narrowed.
• Write every idea down. Use a flip chart, blackboard, overheads, post-
it notes, or other visual methods.
• Use the words of the speaker when recording; do not interpret.
Examples of Brainstorming Applications
Analysis of Lab Equipment
In the ME 370 “Energy Systems Laboratory”, Senior level ME
lab course, students run experiments using equipment that have
complete computerised data acquisition systems. While data
acquisition systems allow the students to collect a large amount of
precise data, they also reduce the creativity and thought that is
required of the students to run the experiments. To better involve
the students in the experiments and to help them think more deeply
about the experimental setup, the TA initiated an impromptu
brainstorming session on the instrumentation for an Ingersol Rand
double-acting reciprocating air compressor.
Specifically, the TA asked the students to consider the following
questions:
• What is the important performance parameters needed to characterise
the performance of the compressor?
• What measurements are necessary to determine or measure the
important performance parameters?
• What instrumentation could be used to take the necessary
measurements?
The students initially considered the first question and suggested

several ideas. The TA then initiated a discussion of the generated
ideas and guided the class towards a consensus about the correct
set of parameters. The class then moved on to consider the second
and third questions using the same brainstorming format. After
discussing the final question the class proceeded to review the actual
equipment instrumentation and compare it with the instrumentation
scheme that they had arrived at.
The entire brainstorming exercise required only 45 minutes. It
served as a review for the students, and proved to be a very
interesting learning experience for both the students and the
instructor. The students came away with an appreciation for the
amount of detail and planning that goes into designing experiments.
Optimal Design of a Journal Bearing
The critical step in optimal design is in determining the proper
objective function that is to be minimized or maximized. The
objective function is an equation in the independent variables and
design parameters of the problem. The objective function is
minimized or maximized by varying the independent parameters
within the given constraints while keeping the design parameters
constant.
The independent variables, the design parameters and, the
constraints imposed on the design are summarised in the table below:
Independent Variables Length of the bearing - L
(to be optimised) Radius of the bearing - R
Radial clearance between journal
and bearing - C
Design Parameters Load to be supported - F
(to be kept constant) Speed (or speed range) bearing
must operate at - N
Constraints on design Minimum oil film thickness
(physical or other limitations) allowable - hmin
Maximum oil temperature
allowable - Tmax
Bearing stability criteria
The goal of the brainstorming session was to determine the

proper objective function U = f(L, R, C; F, N) which can be minimized
or maximized by varying the three independent variables L, R and
C. A summary of the class responses are given below:
• Minimize the oil flow rate (Q) required for lubrication

• Minimize the maximum temperature rise of the bearing (∆T)
• Minimize the overall volume of the bearing (V)
• Minimize frictional losses encountered while running the bearing. The
frictional losses are equivalent to the energy generated in the oil (=
Q.∆T)
All of the solutions were on the right track, but were not
complete. At first glance, it appears that the minimization of the
friction losses is the best strategy since the function of a bearing is
to minimize frictional losses. However, Professor Seireg showed that
the best objective function was one that combined two of the four
factors suggested by the class. The objective function U = Q + K.∆T,
where K is an empirical constant, accounts for the costs associated
with pumping the oil and cooling hot oil back to the original
temperature.
It can be seen from the description of the problem that the task
of determining the optimal design of a journal bearing is not trivial.
There are a number of variables and parameters that enter the
calculations, and it not very obvious what the best objective function
is. However, the process of brainstorming allowed the students to
discuss various solutions and understand the pros and cons of each
approach.
Question-and-Answer Method: Encouraging Student Participation
The goal of the question-and-answer method is to draw students
into active participation in teaching and learning processes. The
technique also encourages students to move beyond memorisation
to higher levels of learning that require clarification, expansion,
generalisation, and inference. Often students are conditioned to
simply sit in class, take notes and then study and learn the
information on their own. With the question-and-answer
methodology, the students can learn in real-time, as they are being
taught, which helps them understand and integrate the material
better.
Scope
The question-and-answer methodology is useful in any teaching

environment. The approach used in applying this methodology is
of course influenced by the course being taught and the teaching

style of the instructor. This methodology can be used to structure
an entire class, where the class consists entirely of a question-and-
answer session. This approach is especially useful for discussion
sections and exam reviews.
Effective and efficient use of this method requires that you have
a thorough understanding of the material being discussed. It also
requires that you devote time and thought into devising a set of
appropriate questions for use during a presentation. It is a good
strategy for you to anticipate student responses to your questions
so that you can stay “a step ahead” of the students.
Goals
Thoughtful questioning attempts to achieve one or more of the following

goals:
• Stimulate analytical thought
• Diagnose student difficulties
• Determine progress towards specific goals
• Motivate students
• Clarify and expand concepts
• Encourage new appreciation and attitudes
• Give specific direction to thinking
• Relate cause to effect
• Encourage student self-evaluation
• Encourage the application of concepts
• To arouse interest and curiosity
• To focus attention on an issue
• Promote thought and understanding of ideas
• Manage or remind students of a procedure
Guidelines
A well-planned list of questions is only the first step towards

achieving the goals. Merely posing questions is not enough to
motivate students to move to higher levels of learning.
The following guidelines may be useful in conducting successful
question-and-answer sessions:
• Probe deeper after a student answers a question.
• Structure the follow-up questions ahead of time. It is a good idea to
write down such questions on note cards or the margins of the lecture
notes.
• Use “who”, “what”, “when”, and “where” questions to check

information possessed by students. For higher thought levels, use
“why” and “how” questions.
• Push students’ responses to “why” and “how” questions to higher levels of
thought by asking for more explanation.
• When using questions with individuals, state the question, pause, then
call on a student to answer. This leads all students to listen to the
question. The pause provides time to think — respect that period of
silence.
• Summarise complicated or ambiguous answers to questions.
• Do not embarrass a student by repeatedly asking questions the student
is unable to answer.
• Be reasonably lavish in the use of “good”, or other words of praise to
students who give correct answers. Avoid making any negative
comments after an incorrect answer — this is sure to ensure low
response on future questioning.
• Allow students the opportunity to formulate questions in response
to answers from you or other students.
• Never use questions as a form of punishment. Do not call on a student
just because they forgot their homework, never volunteers, disrupts
the class or provides a careless response.
Software: Increasing Teaching Efficiency
Software tools are widely used today in the classroom and are
proving to be very effective teaching aids. One of the benefits of
software tools is that they offer a means for visualisation of abstract
concepts and ideas. If used properly software tools can improve
teaching efficiency in many instances. As a teaching tool, computer
software can provide a new way to link abstract concepts with
tangible visualisations. Specialised computer software offers students
the option of self-learning and can also be instrumental in motivating
them to learn abstract engineering concepts.
Scope
A variety of software options for classroom use are currently

available. These range from software for improving communication
with students to specialised software for teaching an entire course.
The Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) Center in the College of
Engineering and the Department of Information Technology (DoIT)
at UWMadison have access to numerous teaching-related software.
Any interested TA should contact these units for further information.

The CAE also maintains an on-line help system which can be
accessed from CAE computers (by typing “caehelp”), from “gopher”,
or from “Wisc-Info”. Meanwhile the TA may consider using the
following three types of software in the classroom:
E-mail
Electronic mail offers a way for increased two-way
communication between the TA and the students. Mailing lists for
distribution of e-mail to an entire class are now available from the
CAE. Effective use of e-mail requires that the students and the TA
be diligent about checking their mail and responding to questions.
One pitfall with e-mail is the tendency to use it as a substitute for
office hours and direct contact. Although this approach may seem
to be efficient on the surface, it tends to distance the TA from the
students and discourages interaction.
Presentation
Currently available word processors like Word, WordPerfect and
AMI Pro and presentation software like Powerpoint, Persuasion and
Harvard Graphics offer very powerful presentation capabilities not
available only a few years ago. This means that the TA can potentially
present more information in a clearer manner and in lesser time.
The combination of new presentation software and equipment like
optical scanners (available at CAE) gives the TA the ability to select
and condense material from a wide variety of sources and present it
in a convenient and professional manner.
The following caveat is in order when using presentation software:
• Avoid shifting the emphasis of the presentation from the content to
the appearance. It must be remembered that in engineering function
should precede form.
Modeling and Analysis
Software programmes for modeling and analysis of large
amounts of data or complex systems are now widely available. One
such programme used extensively for lecture and laboratory courses
in the Mechanical Engineering department is Engineering Equation
Solver (EES) developed by Professor S. Klein. The advantage to EES
and other mathematical analysis software such as Mathcad and

Matlab is that the instructor can assign homework problems that
are more in-depth in nature. These programmes allow students to
model systems and see the effect of varying system parameters,
thereby, aiding them in developing a deeper understanding of the
theory. The advanced computing capabilities of these programmes
also allow the TA to demonstrate complicated phenomena in the
classroom.
The following are some tips to keep in mind while using such software:
• Completely solve problems before assigning them for homework.
Ensure that the problem is reasonable and can be completed by the
students in a reasonable amount of time. It is easy to design problems
that seem simple on the surface but are actually quite complicated.
• Avoid assigning problems that fit the software. The goal is to solve
problems that are relevant to the course and seek software help to
do so.
Example of Software Use in a Laboratory Class
The following example is from a junior level ECE laboratory

course in electromechanical power conversion. The course is intended
to teach the basic principles of electromechanical power conversion
and power electronics through the use of studentrun experiments.
The students are given the lab handout detailing the procedures and
goals of the experiment. After briefly reading the handout, the
students are required to setup the experiment and acquire data,
process the data, and analyse the results. The experiments involve
the use of a number of electronic measuring instruments such as
LCR meters (for measuring inductance), oscilloscopes, electric power
supplies, function generators, and other related instruments.
However, a majority of the students taking the course are from
Mechanical Engineering who are typically unfamiliar with the
detailed functions and use of these instruments. Quite naturally, the
students have been unsure about proceeding with the experiments
because of this reason.
Recently a user-friendly software module was developed by the
TAs under the supervision of Professor R. D. Lorenz in the ME
department. The module guides the students through the process
of setting up the experiments and collecting the data. Using a
graphical approach, the module guides the students in a step-by-

step fashion through all phases of the experiment including
connecting the equipment, assembling circuits, setting parameters,
and collecting the data.
The module also gives the students the option of learning more
about the concepts behind the experiments as they proceed with
collecting information.
In addition, the software eliminates the drudgery of recording
and manipulating the data since the data collected is now available
on the computer in a ready-to-use format.
Conclusion: Teaching Improvement: Monitoring Your Progress
So will your teaching style continue to evolve as you strive to
match the learning styles of your students. We hope that this has
sparked your creativity and provided you a basic resource from
which to share teaching strategies that have worked for others.
Developing a variety of teaching strategies will help you and your
students build a learning community.
To develop this variety of strategies that will work for you and
your students, we suggest that you monitor your progress. The
following framework is one that you could use to document
strategies you use and assess how they work. The framework follows
the familiar “plan, do, check, act cycle” which is a continuous
improvement process used in business, industry, government, and
higher education.
Plan:
• Concept: The concept that you plan to teach
• Strategy: The teaching strategy that you plan to use
• Date: The day you plan to use the strategy
• Materials Needed: The teaching materials that you will need
• Time Needed: Plan your teaching activity so that you can accomplish
all your goals
• Feedback: Decide on a strategy to obtain student feedback. Consider
fast feedback, written reports and observing students’ reactions
Do: Execute your plan:
• Check: Review student evaluations
• Act: Decide on what you would do next time. Stick with the strategy?
Change?
EDGAR DALE’S CONE OF EXPERIENCE
As a quick glance at the B-SLIM model will indicate, there is a

great variety of activities and learning experiences the teacher uses
in the language classroom. Each of these activities or experiences is
a chance for the students to learn new information and/or practice
what they already know. Each activity and experience has merit and
therefore should be incorporated into any second language
programme. As suggested, look at Dale’s Cone of Experience and
see how the information contained within this model can be used to
structure a second language programme so that all types of learning
experiences are used to maximise student progress.
WHAT IS DALE’S CONE OF EXPERIENCE
The Cone was originally developed by Edgar Dale in 1946 and
was intended as a way to describe various learning experiences. The
diagram presented to the right is a modification of Dale’s original
Cone; the percentages given relate to how much people remember
and is a recent modification. Essentially, the Cone shows the
progression of experiences from the most concrete (at the bottom of
the cone) to the most abstract (at the top of the cone).
It is important to note that Dale never intended the Cone to
depict a value judgement of experiences; in other words, his
argument was not that more concrete experiences were better than
more abstract ones. Dale believed that any and all of the approaches
could and should be used, depending on the needs of the learner.
HOW SHOULD THE CONE BE INTERPRETED

The numerical figures on the left side of the image, what people
will generally remember, indicate that practical, hands-on experience
in a real-life context will allow students to remember best what they
do. Again, it is important to remember that this doesn’t mean reading
and listening are not valuable learning experiences, simply that
“doing the real thing” can lead to the retention of the largest amount
of information.
This is in part because those experiences near the bottom of the
Cone, closer to and including real-world experiences, make use of
more of our senses; it is believed that the more senses that are used,
the greater our ability to learn from and remember an event or
experience.
HOW CAN DALE’S CONE BE USED TO ENHANCE SL
LEARNING
The Cone should not be interpreted as indicating that teachers
shouldn’t make use of reading, listening, viewing experiences and
the like. These are all valuable and important parts of learning a
second language and all have a place in the B-SLIM model. What
should be taken from reviewing Dale’s Cone of Experience is that
experiences at ALL of the levels described should be used in the
second language classroom.
Just as Gardner describes the Multiple Intelligences and
appealing to them all, Dale’s Cone emphasises learning experiences
that appeal to the different senses and the different ways in which
we learn.
Direct parallels can be drawn between the different levels of
experience depicted in the Cone and the stages of the B-SLIM model.
The first 6 types of experience (from the top of the cone
downward) are all part of the Getting It and Using It stages of B-
SLIM. The real-world experiences at the bottom of the Cone relate
directly to the Proving It stage; it is at this stage of the model that
students are encouraged to use what they have learned in new, real-
life contexts.
PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
Communication is a two-way process of giving and receiving

information through any number of channels.
Whether one is speaking informally to a colleague, addressing a
conference or meeting, writing a newsletter article or formal report, the
following basic principles apply:
• Know your audience.
• Know your purpose.
• Know your topic.
• Anticipate objections.
• Present a rounded picture.
• Achieve credibility with your audience.
• Follow through on what you say.
• Communicate a little at a time.
• Present information in several ways.
• Develop a practical, useful way to get feedback.
• Use multiple communication techniques.
Communication is complex. When listening to or reading
someone else’s message, we often filter what’s being said through a
screen of our own opinions. One of the major barriers to
communication is our own ideas and opinions.
There’s an old communications game, telegraph, that’s played
in a circle. A message is whispered around from person to person.
What the exercise usually proves is how profoundly the message
changes as it passes through the distortion of each person’s inner

“filter.”
ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS
Communication can be influenced by environmental factors that
have nothing to do with the content of the message.
Some of these factors are:
• The nature of the room, how warm it is, smoke, comfort of the chair,
etc
• Outside distractions, what is going on in the area.
• The reputation/credibility of the speaker/writer.
• The appearance, style or authority of the speaker.
• Listener’s education, knowledge of the topic, etc.
• The language, page layout, design of the message.
People remember:
• 10 per cent of what they read
• 20 per cent of what they hear
• 30 per cent of what they see
• 40 per cent of what they hear and see
COMMUNICATION WITH DECISION MAKERS
Innovation and change often depends upon persuading potential
users of the benefits of an innovation.
To deal persuasively with decision makers, it is necessary to
know and understand their interests and opinions.
The following questions are helpful in organising technology transfer
efforts:
• Who are the key people to persuade?
• Who will make the decisions about innovation and change?
• What are these decision makers’ past experiences with innovation
and change?
• What are the decision makers’ current attitudes towards innovation
and change? Are they neutral, friendly, hostile or apathetic?
• What is the most appropriate way to approach the decision maker?
• What are the work styles of the decision makers? Are they highly
formal people who want everything in writing and all appointments
scheduled in advance? Or are they more flexible, responding
favourably to personal telephone calls and informal meetings?
• What networks or groups is the decision maker a part of?
• What programmes or services will the new innovation improve?
• What programmes or services will the new innovation cause problems

with?
• How will the innovation or change benefit the decision maker?
PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE PERSUASION
Whether making a formal presentation at a meeting or writing a report
or fact sheet, the following principles hold:
• Do not oversell or overstate your case. Make effective use of
understatement.
• Outline the topic you are trying to cover into two parts. The first part
should give broad background information, while the second part
provides a detailed summary.
• Persuasion depends on clarity and simplicity. Avoid the use of jargon
and buzz words.
• Be prepared to back up claims or facts immediately.
• Incorporate major anticipated objections into your programme or
presentation.
• Address all relevant aspects of a topic, especially those that may affect
the functioning of an organisation.
• Use graphics and audiovisuals appropriately.
• Consider ways to get meaningful input from people. Find out what
they think about the innovation or change.
SELLING NEW IDEAS
Creating Isn’t Selling
Often the creators of an innovation feel that convincing others
of the idea’s value is somehow superfluous to their activities. To
them, conceiving the idea is enough.
This combines with their inner conviction that their idea will
“sell itself.” Change agents provide a link between creators of new
techniques and users.
Ideas Need Selling
Someone must recognise when an idea is good. It is important
that when an idea is good it is sold to those who can act on it—
those who have the power to evaluate and adopt it. Understanding
users is an important activity for any change agent. People must be
convinced that a particular idea or innovation has enough merit to
warrant adoption.
Selling Ideas Takes Effort

Selling innovations requires preparation, initiative, patience, and
resourcefulness. It may take more effort than originating the idea.
In an age of technical complexity and information overload, new
ideas seldom stand out. Information on new ideas must be targeted
to the appropriate users and relate to their needs and motivations.
Once is Not Enough
A new idea has to be suggested many times before it will “catch
on.” Initial failures at promoting a new idea are to be expected, so
don’t get discouraged if you don’t get the results you want the first
time. Some ideas take years to catch on. However, first exposures
are crucial to future prospects. Do it right the first time.
FEEDBACK (LISTENING)
Getting and giving feedback is one of the most crucial parts of
good communication. Like any other activity, there are specific skills
that can enhance feedback. Listening is a key part of getting feedback:
Listen to the Complete Message
Be patient. This is especially important when listening to a topic
that provokes strong opinions or radically different points-of-view.
In these situations, it’s important not to prejudge the incoming
message. Learn not to get too excited about a communication until
you are certain of the message.
Work at Listening Skills
Listening is hard work. Good listeners demonstrate interest and
alertness. They indicate through their eye contact, posture and facial
expression that the occasion and the speaker’s efforts are a matter
of concern to them. Most good listeners provide speakers with clear
and unambiguous feedback.
Judge the Content, Not the Form of the Message
Such things as the speaker’s mode of dress, quality of voice,
delivery mannerisms and physical characteristics are often used as
excuses for not listening. Direct your attention to the message—what
is being said—and away from the distracting elements.
Weigh Emotionally Charged Language

Emotionally charged language often stands in the way of
effective listening. Filter out “red flag” words (like “liberal” and
“conservative,” for instance) and the emotions they call up.
Specific suggestions for dealing with emotionally charged words
include:
• Take time to identify those words that affect you emotionally.
• Attempt to analyse why the words affect you the way they do.
• Work at trying to reduce the impact of these words on you.
Eliminate Distractions
Physical distractions and complications seriously impair listening.
These distractions may take many forms: loud noises, stuffy rooms,
overcrowded conditions, uncomfortable temperature, bad lighting, etc.
Good listeners speak up if the room is too warm, too noisy, or too dark.
There are also internal distractions: worries about deadlines or
problems of any type may make listening difficult. If you’re distracted,
make an effort to clear your head. If you can’t manage it, arrange to
communicate at some other time.
Think Efficiently and Critically
On the average, we speak at a rate of 100 to 200 words per
minute. However, we think at a much faster rate, anywhere from
400 to 600 words per minute.
What do we do with this excess thinking time while listening to
someone speak? One technique is to apply this spare time to
analysing what is being said.
They critically review the material by asking the following kinds of
questions:
• What is being said to support the speaker’s point of view? (Evidence)
• What assumptions are being made by the speaker and the listener?
(Assumptions)
• How does this information affect me? (Effect)
• Can this material be organised more efficiently? (Structure)
• Are there examples that would better illustrate what is being said?
(Example)
• What are the main points of the message? (Summary)
SENDING MESSAGES
Messages should be clear and accurate, and sent in a way that
encourages retention, not rejection.
• Use Verbal Feedback Even If Non-verbal Is Positive And Frequent.
Everyone needs reassurance that they are reading non-verbal
communication correctly, whether a smile means “You’re doing great,”
“You’re doing better than most beginners,” or “You’ll catch on
eventually.”
• Focus Feedback On Behaviour Rather Than On Personality. It’s better
to comment on specific behaviour than to characterise a pattern of
behaviour. For example, instead of calling a colleague inefficient,
specify your complaint: “You don’t return phone calls; this causes
problems both in and outside your office.”
• Focus Feedback On Description Rather Than Judgement. Description
tells what happened. Judge-ment evaluates what happened. For example,
in evaluating a report don’t say, “This is a lousy report!!” Instead, try:
“The report doesn’t focus on the information that I think needs
emphasis,” or “This report seems to have a lot of grammatical and spelling
mistakes.”
• Make Feedback Specific Rather Than General. If feedback is
specific, the receiver knows what activity to continue or change.
When feedback is general, the receiver doesn’t know what to do
differently. For example, in an office situation, instead of saying
“These folders are not arranged correctly,” it’s better feedback to
say, “These should be arranged chrono-logically instead of
alphabetically.”
• In Giving Feedback, Consider the Needs and Abilities of the Receiver.
Give the amount of information the receiver can use and focus
feedback on activities the receiver has control over. It’s fruitless to
criticise the level of activity, if the decision to grant the necessary
monies for materials, personnel or technology is made at a different
level.
• Check to See if the Receiver Heard What You Meant to Say. If the
information is important enough to send, make sure the person
understands it. One way of doing this is to say, “I’m wondering if I
said that clearly enough. What did you understand me to say?” or
“This is what I hear you saying. Is that right?”
SELECTING THE BEST COMMUNICATION METHOD
In communicating with decision makers, use the most
appropriate communications method.
One way to do this is to ask yourself the following questions.

• What is the purpose of your message? Do you plan to tell them
something new? Inform? Do you plan to change their view? Persuade?
• What facts must be presented to achieve your desired effect?
• What action, if any, do you expect decision makers to take?
• What general ideas, opinions and conclusions must be stressed?
• Are you thoroughly familiar with all the important information on
the innovation?
• What resources and constraints affect adoption of the innovation?
How much time is available? How much money is available
• Which method, or combination of methods, will work most effectively
for this situation? Personal contact—requires scheduling, time and
interpersonal skills.
– Telephone contact—requires good verbal skills and an awareness
of voice tones as non-verbal communication.
– Letter—requires writing skills.
– E-mail informal, needs to be short and to the point, but not get
lost in clutter. May require frequent follow-up.
– News release—requires writing skills and cooperation of the media
and time.
ORAL COMMUNICATION
Speaking to Communicate
Spoken communication occurs in many different settings during
the course of successful innovation and change.
These may be divided into three main types:
1. The formal and informal networks in which peers exchange
information, such as professional associations, work units, work teams,
etc.
2. The activities of change agents, opinion leaders, etc.
3. The contacts established at team meetings, conferen-ces, training
courses, etc.
Whether to use oral communication is a decision we all make
frequently in the course of a workday. The change agent must be
able to identify those situations in which oral communication is the
most appropriate one to use. Don Kirkpatrick suggests the -following
guidelines for making such decisions.
Use Oral Communication When:
• The receiver is not particularly interested in receiving the message.
Oral communication provides more opportunity for getting and
keeping interest and attention.
• It is important to get feedback. It’s easier to get feedback by observing

facial expressions (and other non-verbal behaviour) and asking
questions.
• Emotions are high. Oral communication provides more opportunity
for both the sender and the receiver to let off steam, cool down, and
create a suitable climate for understanding.
• The receiver is too busy or preoccupied to read. Oral communication
provides more opportunity to get attention.
• The sender wants to persuade or convince. Oral communication
provides more flexibility, opportunity for emphasis, chance to listen,
and opportunity to remove resistance and change attitudes.
• When discussion is needed. A complicated subject frequently requires
discussion to be sure of understanding.
• When criticism of the receiver is involved. Oral communication
provides more opportunity to accomplish this without arousing
resentment. Also, oral communication is less threatening because it
isn’t formalised in writing.
• When the receiver prefers one-to-one contact.
Presentation Styles
There are different styles of making a presentation and different people
will use the approach that suits them:
• Good Old Boy: This is usually an experienced person who is the peer
of most of the audience. Generally, there is a lot of good information
but it may be poorly organised or poorly delivered.
• The Entertainer: This person relies on jokes and stories to get their
point across. Good visual aids could be an important feature of the
presentation. Sometimes there is too much emphasis on satisfying
the audience that little information is actually transferred.
• The Academic: This person tends to be very precise and deliberate in
presenting information. There is considerable content and it usually
is well organised. Unfortunately. it can also be boring and irrelevant
and not relate well to the audience.
• The Reader: This person decides to read his material word for word.
The material is often not especially prepared for an oral presentation
and can be overly technical, boring and hard to understand. All topics
are covered and what is said is precise and accurate.
• The Snail: This person is nervous about the presentation and goes
into a shell. Like a snail, this person also moves slowly and the
presentation seems to last forever. What is best? You have to have a
style you are comfortable with. Ideally, you have the rapport of the
good old boy, the organisation and content of the academic, the ability
to get and maintain interest of the entertainer, and the precision of
the reader. If you do this you will avoid the slow pace of the snail
and effectively present information to your listeners.
• The Gadgeteer: This person uses every gimmick and technique in his
or her presentation and visual aids. It can be overdone with the
message getting lost among the bells and whistles.
Components of an Effective Oral Report
Introduction Capture the attention of the group right from the start:
• Give the necessary explanation of the background from which the
problem derived.
• Clearly state and explain the problem.
• Clearly state your objectives.
• Indicate the method(s) used to solve the problem.
• Suggest the order in which you will provide information.
Organisation:
• Provide sufficient introductory information.
• Use transitions from one main part to the next and between points
of the speech.
• Use summary statements and restatements.
• Make the main ideas of the report clearly distinguishable from one
another.
Content:
• Have adequate supporting data to substantiate what you say.
• Avoid using extraneous material.
• Present supporting data clearly—in terms of the ideas or concepts
you are trying to communicate.
• Were the methods of the investigation clearly presented?
• Visual Aid Supports
• Use clear drawings, charts, diagrams or other aids to make
explanations vivid and understandable.
• Make visual aids fit naturally into the presentation.
• Be completely familiar with each visual used.
• Don’t clutter your report with too many visual aids.
Conclusion: Conclude your report with finality in terms of one or more
of the following:
• The conclusions reached
• The problem solved
• The results obtained
• The value of such findings to the county
• Recommendations offered
Question Period:
• Give evidence of intelligent listening in interpreting the questions.
• Organise answers in terms of a summary statement, explanation, and

supporting example.
• Show flexibility in adapting or improvising visual aids in answering
questions.
Delivery:
• Be natural, “communicative” in your delivery.
• Use frequent eye contact to maintain rapport with the audience.
• Vary your delivery with appropriate movements and gestures.
• Speak distinctly.
• Display confidence and authority.
• Express enthusiasm for your ideas.
VISUAL COMMUNICATION
Here’s an old saying that “a picture is worth a thousand words.”
Life would indeed be difficult without paintings, photographs,
diagrams, charts, drawings, and graphic symbols.
These are some of the reasons why SHOWING is such an important
form of communication:
• Most people understand things better when they have seen how they
work.
• Involved, complex ideas can be presented clearly and quickly using
visual aids.
• People retain information longer when it is presented to them visually.
• Visuals can be used to communicate to a wide range of people with
differing backgrounds.
• Visuals are useful when trying to condense information into a short
time period.
Visual aids—used imaginatively and appropriately—will help
your audience remember more.
Consider the following:
• People think in terms of images, not words, so visuals help them retain
and recall technical information.
• Visuals attract and hold the attention of observers.
• Visuals simplify technical information.
• Visuals may be useful in presenting technical information to a non-
technical audience.
Questions to Ask about Visual Aids:
• Is my objective clear?
• What are my key points? Do they deserve the emphasis that a visual
aid gives?
• What visual aid or aids have I planned to use?
• Will the visual aid clarify my spoken words? Will it support my spoken
words rather than replace them?
• Is each visual aid simple, orderly and consistent? Is it free from
incompatible and complicating ideas, symbols, art techniques and
typefaces? Can my audience quickly and easily grasp what they see
or must it be read to them? Avoid making it a reading session.
• Is it symbolic or pictorial? Which treatment is best for my subject?
Which treatment is best from the standpoint of my audience?
• Is my visual direct and to the point? Is the art functional or ornate?
Is it really one visual aid or several? If my subject is complex, will it
be presented in easily comprehensible units? (Drop-ons or overlays)
Was my artwork designed just for this presentation?
• Is my visual aid realistic? Does it give all the pertinent facts? Have
the facts been distorted?
• Is my visual aid as effective as it can be made? Have I used all the
available techniques to make it so?
• Did I put enough effort into the planning of the visual aid? Have I
sought criticism from others?
• Will it achieve my objectives? Will my audience understand,
appreciate and believe it? If my presentation calls for some action by
the audience, will it stimulate them to do so willingly?
• Have I overlooked anything in the use of the visual aid? Have I tested
the visual aid? Have I planned one or more rehearsals; if not, why?
Will my visual aid material be visible to the entire audience?
Visual Aid Checklist
Slides:
• ( ) Does the projector work properly? Bulb, lenses, change mechanism,
fan.
• Does each slide present a simple, clear message?
• Are the slides arranged and numbered consistently and consecutively?
• Are the slides clean and mounted properly?
• Will the audience be able to see slide details in the location I plan to
use?
• Does the slide tray have a title slide at the beginning and a blind
slide at the end to avoid blinding the audience with light?
Power Point or Transparencies:
• Is the lettering large enough to be seen by the audience?
• Is the projector placed so that the audience has an unobstructed view?
• Is the projector and slide colour scheme adequate for the lighting of
the room being used?
• Does the projected image fit the screen?
• Are my slides in proper order?

• Does each present a clear message?
• Is the projector compatible with the computer being used?
Video Tape:
• Do you have the correct machine for the tape you plan to show (Beta
or VHS)?
• Is the equipment in proper working order?
• Is the tape set to start at the proper place and does it “track” properly?
• Will the WHOLE audience be able to see the presentation?
• Is the sound level on the monitor(s) set at the proper level?
The Location:
• Does the room match the size of the audience?
• Is the location accessible to the physically disabled?
• Can the lighting be controlled for showing slides and transparencies?
If so, is a reading light available?
• Is the location equipped with a projector cart or table?
• Are electrical outlets conveniently located—do I need extension cords?
• Is the room equipped with an adequate screen?
• If using video equipment, can monitors be set up at appropriate
locations?
• Does the room have a speakers table or podium?
• Will the location be available prior to your meeting so you can set up
and test your equipment?
• Is the room equipped with a newsprint easel or chalkboard?
• Does the room have chairs and tables or desks? Can they be
rearranged if needed?
• Is the main entrance separated from the speaker area so that late
arrivals will not disrupt your presentation?
Always check out the room and equipment in advance to see
that it works properly! Never assume that it will work without trying
it first. As a general rule, the more complicated the technolgy for an
oral presentation, the more likely it will fail
Checklist for Tables and Charts
• Be ruthless with numbers: use the fewest possible that will still convey
the point of the visual. Do not exceed twenty numbers or a single
slide.
• Combine numbers into larger sums wherever possible; eliminate any
number that does not contribute significantly to your message.
• Consider using a chart (pie, bar, etc.) for presenting some information,
especially if you want to draw comparisons between two or more
items.
• When preparing charts use colors or patterns with a lot of contrast.

• Split information into two or three smaller tables rather than using
one huge table. Use no more than three or four columns per table.
• Have a short, yet descriptive, title that states the point of the visual.
Put it at the top. Include a date at the bottom.
• Label columns clearly and at the top. Show the units (dollars or tons,
for example). On the left, label the statistics being compared.
• Avoid footnotes and symbols that may not be generally understood
by your audience.
• Use light horizontal lines if they improve readability.
• Be consistent. Do not mix pounds and tons, years and months, gross
and net.
• Avoid decimal points whenever possible. Use round numbers for
tables and graphs.
• Highlight the most important numbers with boxes, underlining, or
colour.
• If arithmetic operations are not obvious, state them: (less), or “Less
Depreciation Expense.”
• Eliminate zeros by expressing numbers in thousands or millions, if
possible.
• Show negative numbers in parentheses, not with minus signs.
WRITTEN COMMUNICATION
Written materials often bear the greatest burden for the
communication of new ideas and procedures. Effective writing is
the product of long hours of preparation, revision and organisation.
One book that follows its own rules is Strunk and White’s Elements
of Style, a short book which argues persuasively for clarity,
accuracy, and brevity in the use of English. Its entire philosophy is
contained in one paragraph:
Vigourous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no
unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the
same reasons that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and
a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer
make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his
subjects only in outline, but that Every Word Tell.
Clear, vigourous writing is a product of clear, vigourous
thinking. Clarity is born of discipline and imagination. Kirkpatrick
gives the following guidelines for using written communication:
Use Written Communication When:
• The sender wants a record for future references.

• The receiver will be referring to it later.
• The message is complex and requires study by the receiver.
• The message includes a step by step procedure.
• Oral communication is not possible because people are not in the
same place at the same time.
• There are many receivers. Caution: the receivers must be interested
in the subject and will put forth the time and effort to read and
understand.
• It is cheaper. Caution: the same.
• A copy of the message should go to another person.
• The receiver prefers written.
Advantages of Written Materials
• Highly technical topics can be presented using words and diagrams.
• Written material provides a permanent record that can be referred
to from time to time or passed on to others.
• Written material can be duplicated in large quantities or distributed
on the Internet relatively inexpensively.
• It is fairly easy to distribute written material to many people, but this
practice is getting increasingly expensive and its effectiveness
questionable.
• Written material is preferred when it is desirable to get the same
information to a group of people.
• Written records and reports are sometimes useful in legal matters.
• Written material may be useful for documenting the success or
progress of some project or activity.
Disadvantages of Written Material
• People seldom take the time and effort to read technical materials.
• The preparation of written documents is time-consuming.
• Once prepared in large quantities, printed documents are difficult to
change.
• Written material provides little feedback for the sender.
• Technical documents are often too long and complex for the majority
of readers.
• A portion of the population may not be able to read written material.
• Too much reliance on written material as a communication method
may obscure the true needs of potential users.
5
Froebelian System of Education
CONCEPT OF KINDERGARTEN
Kindergarten (German, literally meaning “garden for children”

or “chidren’s-garden”), is the word created by Friedrich Fröbel for
the Play and Activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad
Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition
from home to school. Kindergarten is used around the world to
describe a range of different experiences that have been developed
for children at this developmental stage. Many of the activities
developed by Friedrich Fröbel are also used around the world under
other names. Singing and growing plants have become an integral
part of life long learning. Activity, experience and social interaction
are now widely accepted as essential aspects of developing skills
and knowledge.
In most countries, kindergarten is part of the preschool system
of early childhood education. Children usually attend kindergarten
any time between the ages of two and seven years, depending on
the local custom.
In the United States and anglophone Canada, as well as in parts
of Australia, such as New South Wales, Tasmania and the Australian
Capital Territory, kindergarten is the word often restricted in use to
describe the first year of education in a primary or elementary school.
In some of these countries, it is compulsory; that is, parents must
send children to their kindergarten year.
In the United States, many states widely offer a free kindergarten
year to children of five to six years of age, but do not make it
compulsory, while other states require all five-year-olds to enroll.
The terms preschool or less often, “Pre-K”, are used to refer to a
school for children who are not old enough to attend kindergarten.
Also, some U.S., school districts provide a half day or full day
kindergarten at the parents’ election.
In British English, nursery or playgroup is the usual term for
preschool education, and kindergarten is rarely used, except in the
context of special approaches to education, such as Steiner-Waldorf
education.
PURPOSE
Children attend kindergarten to learn to communicate, play, and
interact with others appropriately. A teacher provides various
materials and activities to motivate these children to learn the
language and vocabulary of reading, mathematics, and science, as
well as that of music, art, and social behaviours. For children who
previously have spent most of their time at home, kindergarten may
serve the purpose of helping them adjust to being apart from their
parents without anxiety. It may be their first opportunity to play
and interact with a consistent group of children on a regular basis.
Kindergarten may also allow mothers, fathers, or other caregivers
to go back to part-time or full-time employment.
HISTORY
In an age when school was restricted to children who had learned
to read and write at home, there were many attempts to make school
accessible to the children of women who worked in factories. In
Scotland in 1816, Robert Owen, a philosopher and pedagogue,
opened an infant school in New Lanark. Another was opened by
Samuel Wilderspin in London in 1819. Countess Theresa Brunszvik
was influenced by this example to open an Angyalkert on May 27,
1828 in her residence in the city of Buda. This concept became
popular among the nobility and the middle class and was copied
throughout the Hungarian kingdom.
Friedrich Fröbel opened a Play and Activity institute in 1837 in
the village of Bad Blankenburg in principality of Schwarzburg-
Rudolstadt, Thuringia, which he renamed Kindergarten on June 28,
1840 to mark the four-hundredth anniversary of Gutenberg’s
invention of movable type. The women trained by Fröbel opened
Kindergartens throughout Europe and around the World.
The first kindergarten in the United States founded in

Watertown, Wisconsin, by Margarethe Meyer-Schurz in 1856 was
conduted in German. Her sister had founded the first kindergarten
in London, England.
In 1860, Elizabeth Peabody founded the first English-language
kindergarten in America in Boston, after visiting Watertown and
travelling to Europe. The first free kindergarten in America was
founded in 1870 by Conrad Poppenhusen, a German industrialist
and philanthropist who settled in College Point, NY, where he
established the Poppenhusen Institute, still in existence today. The
first publicly financed kindergarten in the United States was
established in St. Louis in 1873 by Susan Blow. Elizabeth Harrison
wrote extensively on the theory of early childhood education and
worked to enhance educational standards for kindergarten teachers
by establishing what became the National College of Education in
1886.
Montisori, Steiner and most recently the Reggio Emilia approach
are part of the rich an evolving tradition of child centered, activity
based learning that has been nurtured around the world though the
kindergarten movement.
AIMS AND CONTENT IN KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM
AFGHANISTAN
In Afghanistan, the equivalent term to kindergarten is
pronounced as kudakistan and is not part of the actual school system.
Children between the age of 3 and 6 attend kindergartens, which
are often run by the government. According to law, every
government office must have a kindergarten area within it.
Early Childhood Education in Afghanistan
Early childhood development programmes address the needs
and development of young children from birth to 6 years of age,
their families, and their communities. They are multidimensional and
designed to support children’s health, nutritional, cognitive, social,
and emotional abilities, enabling them to survive and thrive in later
years. Reflecting cultural values, they must be deeply rooted within
families and communities, blending what are known about
environments that enhance optimal child development with an

understanding of traditional child-rearing practices that support and/
or curtail a child’s development. The goal of the ECD strategy is to
help families ensure that their children reach school age, not only
healthy and well nourished, but intellectually curious, socially
confident, and equipped with a solid foundation for lifelong learning.
Develop and implement programmes to provide better start in lives
to younger age children before their schools as well as to support
school-age children who are out of school and missed their schooling
by providing them Non-formal Education and vocational training.
Background
ECD programmes have a relatively short history in Afghanistan.
They were first introduced during the Soviet occupation with the
establishment in 1980 of 27 urban preschools, or kodakistan. The
number of preschools grew steadily during the 1980s, reaching a
high of more than 270 by 1990, with 2,300 teachers caring for more
than 21,000 children. These facilities were an urban phenomenon,
mostly in Kabul, and were attached to schools, government offices,
or factories. Based on the Soviet model, they provided nursery care,
preschool, and kindergarten for children from 3 months to 6 years
of age under the direction of the Department of Labour and Social
Welfare.
The vast majority of Afghan families were never exposed to this
system, and most of those who were never fully accepted it because
it diminished the central role of the family and inculcated children
with Soviet values. With the onset of civil war after the Soviet
withdrawal, the number of kindergartens dropped rapidly. By 1995,
only 88 functioning facilities serving 2,110 children survived, and
the Taliban restrictions on female employment eliminated all of the
remaining centers in areas under their control. At present, no
programmes of any size exist, facilities have been destroyed, and
trained personnel are lacking. In 2007, there are about 260
Kindergarten offering early year’s stimulation to over 25000 children.
It is estimated that 2.5 million Afghan children are less than 6
years of age. A range of both biological and environmental risk
factors act synergistically to exert a powerful negative influence on
the growth and development of the Afghan child. A mix of religious

and tribal customs and beliefs permeates Afghan society, with
kinship substituting for government in most areas. Communities are
traditionally closely knit with a strong emphasis on the extended
family. Roles are clearly defined and central to the social order.
Decades of war, massive displacement, and changing power
structures caused the collapse of community-support networks and
the erosion of the extended family—one of the most basic traditional
coping mechanisms. Large numbers of women are widowed and
have had to assume unaccustomed and non-traditional roles as
family breadwinners.
One quarter of all children die before the age of 5 as a result of
birth trauma, neo-natal tetanus diarrhea, pneumonia, and vaccine-
preventable diseases. Iron-deficiency anemia is widespread, affecting
half to two thirds of children under 5 years of age. Large numbers
of children are chronically malnourished; 45–59 per cent show high
levels of stunting. Malnutrition half of all girls marry before the age
of 18, and many soon after adolescence. Confronted with these
interlocking threats to development, children arrive at school unable
to take advantage of learning opportunities. It is not surprising that
dropout rates are high. Figures from 1999 show that one in four
children dropped out of school in grade 2 and almost one in two in
grades 3 and 4. In addition to the child’s physical and health status,
other factors contributing to high dropout rates are family issues
and competing priorities for the child’s time, irregular teacher
attendance, subject irrelevance, and poor quality of teaching.
At present, no policies deal with early childhood and no
institutions have either the responsibility or the capacity to provide
such services. In the past, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs
was accountable for kindergartens, nurseries, and crèches, while
orphanages fell within the purview of MOE. At present, the
Ministries of Education, Labour and Social Affairs, and Women’s
Affairs have expressed an interest in overseeing the early childhood
sector. As the Government continues to define and restructure
ministerial responsibilities, the strengths and limitations of various
options, including an inter-ministerial coordination agency, should
be carefully considered. While formal structures do not exist, it is
not clear whether any informal childcare arrangements exist at the

community level other than those provided by family members. As
women enter the workforce, it is likely that a market for private
preschool services will emerge in urban areas.
AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
In each state of Australia, kindergarten means something slightly
different. In Tasmania, New South Wales and the Australian Capital
Territory, it is the first year of primary school. In Victoria,
kindergarten is a form of preschool and may be referred to
interchangeably as preschool or kindergarten. In Victoria the phrase
for the first year of primary school is called Prep, although in
Tasmania ‘Prep’ refers to the year after kindergarten and before
grade 1. In Queensland, kindergarten is usually an institution for
children around the age of 4 and thus it is the precursor to preschool
and primary education. The year preceding the first year of primary
school education in Western Australia, South Australia or the
Northern Territory is referred to respectively as pre-primary,
reception or transition.
In New Zealand, kindergarten refers to the 2 years preceding
primary school, from age 3 to 4. Primary Education starts at age 5.
BANGLADESH
In Bangladesh, the term ‘Kindergarten’ or ‘KG School is used to
refer the schooling of children attend from 3 to 6 years of age.
BULGARIA
In Bulgaria, the term detska gradina refers to the schooling
children attend from 3 to 6 years of age. It is followed by pre-school
class, which is attended for a year before primary school.
CANADA
In Ontario there are two grades of kindergarten: junior
kindergarten and senior kindergarten. Junior kindergarten begins
for children in the calendar year in which they turn four years old.
Both kindergarten grades are typically run on a half-day or every-
other-day schedule though full day Monday to Friday kindergarten
is being introduced. In Ontario, both the senior and junior
kindergarten programmes, also called the “Early Years”, are optional

programmes. Mandatory schooling begins in Grade One.
Within the province of Quebec, junior kindergarten is called
prématernelle is attended by 4 years olds, and senior kindergarten
is called maternelle, mandatory by the age of 5, this class is integrated
into primary schools. Within the French school system in the
province of Ontario, junior kindergarten and senior kindergarten are
called maternelle and senior kindergarten is sometimes called jardin
d’enfants, which is a calque of the German word Kindergarten.
In Western Canada and in Newfoundland and Labrador, there
is only one year of kindergarten. After that year, the child begins
grade one. The province of Nova Scotia refers to Kindergarten as
Primary.
CHILE
In Chile, the term equivalent to Kindergarten is “Educación
parvularia”, sometimes also called “Educación Pre-escolar”. It is the
first level of the Chilean educational system. It meets the needs of
boys and girls integrally from their birth until their entry to the
Educación Básica without being considered as compulsory.
Generally, schools imparting this level, the Junji and other private
institutions have the following organisation of groups or sub categories of
levels:
• Low nursery: It addresses babies from 85 days to 1 year old.
• High nursery: It addresses children from 1 to 2 years old.
• Low Middle Level: It addresses children from 2 to 3 years old.
• High Middle Level: It addresses children from 3 to 4 years old.
• First level of transition: Often called “Pre-kinder”, it addresses children
from 4 to 5 years old.
• Second level of transition: Usually called “Kinder”, it addresses children
from 5 to 6 years old. It is the last phase of this type of education, by
finishing it, children go to “Primero Básico”.
CHINA
In China, the equivalent term to kindergarten is yòu ér yuán. The
children start attending kindergarten at the age of 2 until they are at
least 6 years old. The kindergartens in China generally have the
following grades: 1. Nursery/ Playgroup: 2–3 years old children 2. Lower
Kindergarten/ LKG: 3–4 years old children 3. Upper Kindergarten/ UKG:
4–5 years old children 4. Preschool: 5–6 years old children Some
kindergartens may not have preschool.
DENMARK
Kindergarten is a day-care service offered to children from age
three until the child starts attending school. Kindergarten classes are
voluntary and are offered by primary schools before a child enters
1st grade.
Two-thirds of established day-care institutions in Denmark are
municipal day-care centres while the other third are privately owned
and are run by associations of parents or businesses in agreement
with local authorities. In terms of both finances and subject-matter,
municipal and private institutions function according to the same
principles. Denmark is credited with pioneering forest kindergartens,
in which children spend most of every day outside in a natural
environment.
FRANCE
In France, pre-school is known as école maternelle. Municipality-
run, free maternelle schools are available throughout the country,
welcoming children aged from 2 to 5. The ages are divided into
Grande section, Moyenne section, Petite section and Toute petite
section. It is not compulsory, yet almost 100 per cent of children
aged 3 to 5 attend. It is regulated by the municipalities.
GERMANY
The German preschool is known as a Kindergarten or Kita, short
for Kindertagesstätte. Children between the ages of 3 and 6 attend
Kindergärten, which are not part of the school system. They are often
run by city or town administrations, churches, or registered societies,
many of which follow a certain educational approach as represented,
e.g., by Montessori or Reggio Emilia or “Berliner
Bildungsprogramm”, etc. Forest kindergartens are well established.
Attending a Kindergarten is neither mandatory nor free of charge,
but can be partly or wholly funded, depending on the local authority
and the income of the parents. All caretakers in Kita or Kindergarten
must have a three year qualified education, or are under special
supervision during training.
Kindergärten can be open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. or longer and

may also house a Kinderkrippe, meaning crèche, for children
between the ages of eight weeks and three years, and possibly an
afternoon Hort for school-age children aged 6 to 10 who spend the
time after their lessons there. Alongside nurseries, there are day-
care nurses working independently from any pre-school institution
in individual homes and looking after only three to five children
typically up to three years of age. These nurses are supported and
supervised by local authorities.
The term Vorschule, meaning ‘pre-school’, is used both for
educational efforts in Kindergärten and for a mandatory class that
is usually connected to a primary school. Both systems are handled
differently in each German state. The Schulkinder-garten is a type
of Vorschule.
HONG KONG
Pre-primary Services in Hong Kong refers to provision of
education and care to young children by kindergartens and child
care centres. Kindergartens, registered with the Education Bureau,
provide services for children from three to six years old. Child care
centres, on the other hand, are registered with the Social Welfare
Department and include nurseries, catering for children aged two
to three, and creches, looking after infants from birth to two.
At present, most of the kindergartens operate on half-day basis
offering upper, lower kindergarten classes and nursery classes. Some
kindergartens operate full-day kindergarten classes too. Child care
centres also provide full-day and half-day services with most centres
providing full-day services.
The aim of pre-primary education in Hong Kong is to provide
children with a relaxing and pleasurable learning environment to
promote a balanced development of different aspects necessary to a
child’s development such as the physical, intellectual, language,
social, emotional and aesthetic aspects.
To help establish the culture of self-evaluation in kindergartens
and to provide reference for the public in assessing the quality and
standard of pre-primary education, the Education Bureau has
developed Performance Indicators for pre-primary institutions in
Hong Kong. Commencing in the 2000/01 school year, Quality

Assurance Inspection was launched to further promote the
development of quality Early Childhood Education.
HUNGARY
In Hungary kindergarten is called óvoda. Children attend
kindergarten between ages 3–6/7. Attendance in kindergarten is
compulsory from the age of 5 years. Several kindergartens provide
some education but the children spend most of their time playing.
One needs a college education to work in a kindergarten. There are
private kindergartens but most of them are funded by their city.
INDIA
In India, pre-school is divided into three stages - Playgroup, Junior
Kindergarten (Jr. KG) or Lower Kindergarten (LKG) and Senior
Kindergarten (Sr. KG) or Upper Kindergarten (UKG). Typically, a
Playgroup consists of children of age group from one and half to two
and half years. Jr. KG class would comprise children three and half to
four and half years of age, and the Sr. KG class would comprise children
four and half to five and half years of age.
The kindergarten is a place where young children learn as they
play with materials and cope up to live with other children and
teachers. It is also a place where adults can learn; they observe
children and participate with them. It can serve as a laboratory for
the study of human relations.
The value of Kindergarten as a laboratory for studying about
people will depend, in part, on the opportunities children may have
there for play and for relationships with others.
The main objectives of kindergarten school are:
• To develop a good physique, adequate muscular co-ordination and
basic motor skill in the child.
• To develop good health habits and to build up basic skills necessary
for personal adjustments such as dressing themselves, toilet and eating
habits.
• To develop emotional maturity by guiding the child to express,
understand, accept and control his feelings and emotions.
• To develop good desirable social attitudes, manners and to encourage
healthy group participation.
• To encourage aesthetic appreciation

• To stimulate the child’s beginning of intellectual curiosities concerning
his immediate environment.
• To encourage the child’s independence and creativity by providing
him with sufficient opportunities.
“The school is an opportunity for progress of the student. Each
one is having the freedom to develop freely.”
In most cases the pre-school is run as a private school. Younger
children may also be put into a special toddler/nursery group at the
age of 2. It is run as part of the kindergarten.
After finishing Senior kindergarten, a child enters Class 1 or
Standard 1 of primary school. Often kindergarten is an integral part
of regular schools, though sometimes they are independent units
and are often part of a larger chain.
ISRAEL
In Israel, there are 2 streams, private commercial and state
funded. Attendance in kindergarten is compulsory from the age of
5 years. Private kindergartens are supervised by the Ministry of
Education and cater for children from 3 months to 5 years. State
kindergartens are run by qualified kindergarten teachers who
undergo a 4 year training. They cater for children from 3 to 6 years
in three age groups; ages 3–4, 4-5, 5-6. At the conclusion of the Hova
year the child will either begin primary school or will repeat the
Hova year, if not deemed psychologically and cognitively ready for
primary school.
JAPAN
Early childhood education begins at home, and there are
numerous books and television shows aimed at helping mothers and
fathers of preschool children to educate their children and to parent
more effectively. Much of the home training is devoted to teaching
manners, proper social behaviour, and structured play, although
verbal and number skills are also popular themes. Parents are
strongly committed to early education and frequently enroll their
children in preschools.
Kindergartens, predominantly staffed by young female junior
college graduates, are supervised by the Ministry of Education, but
are not part of the official education system. The 58 percent of

kindergartens that are private accounted for 77 percent of all children
enrolled. In addition to kindergartens there exists a well-developed
system of government-supervised day-care centers, supervised by
the Ministry of Labour. Whereas kindergartens follow educational
aims, preschools are predominately concerned with providing care
for infants and toddlers.
Just as there are public and private kindergartens, there are both
public and privately run preschools. Together, these two kinds of
institutions enroll well over 90 percent of all preschool-age children
prior to their entrance into the formal system at first grade. The
Ministry of Education’s 1990 Course of Study for Preschools, which
applies to both kinds of institutions, covers such areas as human
relationships, health, environment, words and expression. Starting
from March 2008 the new revision of curriculum guidelines for
kindergartens as well as for preschools came into effect.
SOUTH KOREA
In South Korea, children normally attend kindergarten between
the ages of three or four and six or seven in the Western age system.
The school year begins in March. It is followed by primary school.
Normally the kindergartens are graded on a three-tier basis. They
are called “Yuchi won”
Korean kindergartens are private schools. Costs per month vary.
Korean parents often send their children to English kindergartens
to give them a head start in English. Such specialised kindergartens
can be mostly taught in Korean with some English lessons, mostly
taught in English with some Korean lessons, or completely taught
in English. Almost all middle-class parents send their children to
kindergarten.
Kindergarten programmes in South Korea attempt to incorporate
much academic instruction alongside more playful activities. Korean
kindergarteners learn to read, write and do simple arithmetic. Classes
are conducted in a traditional classroom setting, with the children
focused on the teacher and one lesson or activity at a time. The goal
of the teacher is to overcome weak points in each child’s knowledge
or skills.
Because the education system in Korea is very competitive,

kindergartens are becoming more intensely academic nowadays.
Children are pushed to read and write at a very young age. They
also become accustomed to regular and considerable amounts of
homework. These very young children may also attend other
specialised afternoon schools, taking lessons in art, piano or violin,
taekwondo, ballet, soccer or mathematics.
In North Korea, children attend kindergarten between the ages
of four and five. Kindergartens are divided among the upper class
and lower class, where upper-class kindergartens are completely
educational, and lower class have little education.
MEXICO
In Mexico, kindergarten is called “kindergarden” or “kínder,”
with the last year sometimes referred to as “preprimaria”. It consists
of three years of pre-school education, which are mandatory before
elementary school. Previous nursery is optional, and may be offered
in either private schools or public schools.
At private schools, kinders usually consist of three grades, and
a fourth one may be added for nursery. The fourth one is called
maternal. It goes before the other three years and is not obligatory.
While the first grade is a playgroup, the other two are of classroom
education.
The kindergarten system in Mexico was developed by professor
Rosaura Zapata, who received the country’s highest honour for that
contribution.
In 2002, the Congress of the Union approved the Law of
Obligatory Pre-schooling, which already made pre-school education
for three to six-year-olds obligatory, and placed it under the auspices
of the federal and state ministries of education.
MOROCCO
In Morocco, pre-school is known as école maternelle, Kuttab, or
Ar-Rawd. State-run, free maternelle schools are available throughout
the kingdom, welcoming children aged from 2 to 5. It is not
compulsory, yet almost 80 per cent of children aged 3 to 5 attend. It
is regulated by the Moroccan department of education.
NEPAL
In Nepal, kindergarten is simply known as “kindergarten”.
Kindergarten is run as a private education institution and all the
privately run educational instituitions are in English medium.
So, kindergarten education is also in English medium in Nepal.
The children start attending kindergarten at the age of 2 until they
are at least 5 years old. The kindergartens in Nepal have following
grades: 1. Nursery/ Playgroup: 2–3 years old children 2. Lower
Kindergarten/ LKG: 3–4 years old children 3. Upper Kindergarten/
UKG: 4–5 years old children
The kindergarten education in Nepal is almost similar to that of
Hong Kong and India. All the books in private education institution
are in English except one compulsory Nepali. Children are trained
perfectly in Nepalese kindergartens.
NETHERLANDS
In The Netherlands, the equivalent term to kindergarten is
kleuterschool. From the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century
the term Fröbelschool was also common, after Friedrich Fröbel.
However this term gradually faded in use as the verb Fröbelen
gained a slight derogatory meaning in everyday language. Until 1985,
it used to be a separate non-compulsory form of education after
which children attended the primary school. After 1985, both forms
were integrated into one, called basisonderwijs. The country also
offers both private and subsidised daycares, which are non-
compulsory, but nevertheless very popular.
PERU
In Peru, the term nido refers to the schooling children attend
from 3 to 6 years of age. It is followed by primary school classes,
which last for six years. Some families choose to send their children
to primary school at the age of 6. In 1902 the teacher Elvira Garcia
and Garcia co-founder of the Society, organised the first kindergarten
for children 2 to 8 years old, Fanning annex to the Lyceum for ladies.
Her studies and concern for children led her to spread through
conferences and numerous documents, the importance of protecting
children early and to respond to the formation of a personality based
on justice and understanding, as well as the use of methods Fröbel

and from Montessori and participation of parents in this educational
task.
PHILIPPINES
In the Philippines, education officially starts at the Elementary
level and placing children into early childhood education through
kindergarten is optional to parents.
Early Childhood Education in the Philippines are classified into:
• Center-based programmes, such as the Barangay day care service, public
and private pre-schools, kinder-garten or school-based programmes,
community or church-based early childhood education programmes
initiated by non-government organisations or people’s organisations,
workplace-related child care and education programmes, child-minding
centers, health centers and stations; and
• Home-based programmes, such as the neighbourhood-based play
groups, family day care programmes, parent education and home
visiting programmes.
Early childhood education is strengthened through the creation
of Republic Act No. 8980 or the Early Childhood Care and
Development Act of 2000.
ROMANIA
In Romania, grãdiniþã, which means “little garden” is the
favoured form of education for preschool children. The children are
divided in “little group”, “medium group” and “big group”. In the
last few years, private kindergartens have become popular,
supplementing the state preschool education system.
UNITED KINGDOM
The term kindergarten is rarely used in Britain to describe pre-
school education; pre-schools are usually known as nursery schools
or playgroups. However, the word “kindergarten” is used for more
specialist organisations such as forest kindergartens, and is
sometimes used in the naming of private nurseries that provide full-
day child care for working parents.
In the UK children have the option of attending nursery at the
ages of three or four years, before compulsory education begins.
Before that, less structured childcare is available privately. The details
vary slightly between Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern

Ireland.
Some nurseries are attached to state infant or primary schools,
but many are provided by the private sector. The government
provides funding so that all children from the age of three until they
start compulsory school, can receive five sessions per week of two
and a half hours each, either in state-run or private nurseries.
Working parents can also spend £55 per week free of income taxes,
which is typically enough to pay for one or two days per week.
The Scottish Government defines its requirements of nursery
schools in the Early Years Framework and the Curriculum for
Excellence.
Each school interprets these with more or less independence but
must satisfy the Care Commission in order to retain their licence to
operate.
The curriculum aims to develop:
• Successful Learners
• Confident Individuals
• Responsible Citizens
• Effective Contributors
Nursery forms part of the Foundation Stage of education. In the
1980s England and Wales officially adopted the Northern Irish
system whereby children start school either in the term or year in
which they will become five depending on the policy of the Local
Education Authority. In Scotland, schooling becomes compulsory
between the ages of 4½ and 5½ years, depending on their birthday.
The first year of compulsory schooling is known as Reception in
England, Dosbarth Derbyn in Welsh and Primary One in Scotland
and Northern Ireland.
UNITED STATES
In the United States, kindergartens are usually part of the K-12
educational system. It is only one school-year. Children usually
attend kindergarten around age 5 to 6. Kindergarten is considered
the first year of formal education, although the child may have gone
to preschool or Pre-K.
While kindergarten was viewed as a separate part of the

elementary programme, it is now fully integrated into the school
system and is a full participant in schooling, except that in many
places it is only offered for half-a-day. Depending on the state,
children may be required to attend their kindergarten year because
compulsory schooling laws in many states begin at age 5. In other
states, compulsory laws begin at 6 or 7, although these states still
offer free kindergarten. In practice, 43 states require their school
districts to offer a kindergarten year.
There are many positive learning and social/behavioural benefits
for children in kindergarten programmes. At the same time, it is
widely felt that what children are doing during the kindergarten
day is more important than the length of the school day.
“High/Scope Learning” is a style of learning that is used in many
kindergartens in the United States. This learning style is very
interactive and requires a great deal of the children and the teacher.
It employs a “plan, do, review” approach which enables children to
take responsibility for their learning. First the children “plan” their
activities. The teacher provides choices of activities for the children
which are age-appropriate and initiate learning, whether through
problem solving, reading, language, mathematics, manipulatives, etc.
This planning takes place, usually, when the children walk in the
classroom. Then they “do” their activity.
Some of these activities include such things as a water table,
building blocks, a creative dance area, “dress up” area, a reading
area, and a drawing table. The majority of the children’s time is spent
in this “do” activity. The last part of this approach is the review
part. This is where the children and the teacher go over what they
have done that day. This can be done in a large group, especially if
there is a theme for the day that is used in all activities, or
individually. The children discuss what they did and how they liked
it and what they learned from it. This high/scope learning has grown
in popularity and is accepted largely because it allows for the
children to be responsible for their own learning.
Compulsory schooling laws were adopted before the widespread
provision of kindergarten or preschool. In some states, it is not
required for children to attend kindergarten. Mandatory age of

enrollment varies by state between 5 and 8. Generally, in all states,
a child may begin kindergarten in the fall term only if age 5 by a
state-set date, usually in the summer or fall. If they are older than 5
in a non-mandatory state, then they will be directly placed into first
grade for compulsory education, even if they have not attended
kindergarten.
THE IMPORTANCE OF KINDERGARTEN
Children’s early learning experiences have a profound effect on

their development. These early interactions directly affect the way
connections are made in the brain. Early learning experiences are
crucial to the future well-being of children, and establish the
foundation for the acquisition of knowledge and skills that will affect
later learning and behaviour. Before they go to school, children have
been learning in a variety of environments – in their homes and in
childcare and community settings.
Children arrive at school with different backgrounds and
experiences and at different stages of development. Positive early
experiences with school are of paramount importance to young
children. Children thrive within classrooms that meet their physical
and developmental needs and that provide a secure, respectful, and
nurturing environment. In 2003, the Ontario government released
the expert panel reports on early reading and early math in Ontario.
Drawing on evidence-based research, these reports offered strategies
to support the goal of improving achievement in literacy and
numeracy for children in Junior Kindergarten to Grade 3.
As stated in one of the guiding principles of the early reading
report, early success in reading is critical for young children. The
early math report indicated that early development of mathematics
understanding has a profound effect on mathematical proficiency
in students’ subsequent years. It is therefore critical that Kindergarten
programmes reflect the importance of early literacy and early
numeracy in order to provide what evidence-based research suggests
is develop-mentally sound programming for children in the
Kindergarten years.
Effective programming occurs in the context of a rich oral-

language environment and contains engaging language resources
that provide the foundation for successful literacy development. To
give each child the best start possible, it is essential that Kindergarten
programmes provide a variety of learning opportunities and
experiences that are based on assessment information and the
strengths, needs, and interests of the children. Although
Kindergarten programmes are critical in laying the foundations for
success in learning, the Kindergarten years are also an important
time in children’s total development. Teachers, early childhood
educators, members of the community, and families should work
together to provide challenging and engaging learning experiences
that will build children’s confidence, encourage them to continue to
see learning as both enjoyable and useful, and provide a strong
foundation for their future intellectual, physical, and social
development.
Methodology with Reference to:
• Selectivity,
• Social Participation,
• Creativeness
BUILDING A LEARNING COMMUNITY
The Child as Learner
Young children learn best through activities that are relevant to
their lives and varied enough to be challenging and engaging.
Children develop their knowledge by building on their past
experiences and the learning they have already acquired. Since most
children believe that learning is a pleasurable experience, they are
naturally inclined and even eager to learn when they first come to
school. Each child grows and develops in various interrelated areas
– physical, social, emotional, cognitive, and linguistic.
In order to address the full range of each child’s developmental
needs, the Kindergarten programme should provide opportunities
for learning, self-expression, and selfdiscovery in a variety of areas
– for example, in music, drama, games, language activities, and
cooperative activities with peers. Children develop at different rates
and in different ways. Each child is unique and has individual needs.
Some children will benefit more from one type of teaching strategy
than another; some may need more time than others, and/or
additional resources, to achieve the learning expectations. In addition,
the diverse cultural and linguistic realities of the children contribute
to variations in the ways in which they develop and demonstrate
their learning. Children therefore need opportunities to learn in an
appropriate manner and at an appropriate time in their development,
and need to be given learning experiences that are within the range
of things they can do with and without guidance.
The Role of Teachers
Kindergarten teachers perform a complex and multi-dimensional
role. They are responsible for implementing a programme that is
thoughtfully planned, challenging, engaging, integrated,
developmentally appropriate, and culturally and linguistically
responsive, and that promotes positive outcomes for all children. A
developmentally appropriate Kindergarten programme is
challenging, but has expectations that are attainable for most
children. The programme should be flexible enough to respond to
individual differences and should be consistent with children’s ways
of thinking and learning. In order to support the continuum of
learning from one grade to the next, Kindergarten teachers need to
be aware of the curriculum expectations for Grade 1 and later
primary grades.
Knowledge of the literacy and numeracy continua, in particular,
is critical for teachers as they lay the foundation for learning.
Teachers should use reflective practice, planned observation, and a
range of assessment strategies to identify the strengths, needs, and
interests of individual children in order to provide instruction that
is appropriate for each child. Teachers should plan whole-class
instruction, small-group learning, independent learning, and
activities at learning centres.
There should also be a balance between teacher-initiated and
child-initiated activities – times when the teacher guides the
children’s learning and times when children are given opportunities
to choose activities to demonstrate their knowledge. Learning
experiences should promote integrated learning and allow children
to handle, explore, and experiment with a variety of materials that

are familiar to them or that they can connect to everyday life.
Teachers should also use their knowledge of the social and cultural
contexts in which the children live to develop and provide learning
experiences that are meaningful, relevant, and respectful.
Consultations with parents, caregivers, resource teachers, teacher
assistants, early childhood educators, and children themselves are
an important part of the complex process of programme planning.
Teachers should work with these partners to gather and share
information on the strengths, needs, interests, abilities, and learning
styles of the children in the class, so that they can better select
materials and resources and can plan and organise appropriate
learning experiences.
In their relations with families, teachers can play an important
role in facilitating the significant transition that children face between
their home and the school environment. Ongoing communication
between families and teachers results in a smoother transition for
children, and is a key strategy in building bridges between home
and school. Teachers also need to be culturally aware, and should
encourage parents to become involved in school life and to take an
active part in their child’s education.
The Role of Parents
Children perform better in school if their parents are involved
in their education. Parents can do many things to support and be
involved in their child’s learning – for example, they can provide
encouragement and express interest in their child’s education.
Parents can expect that teachers will be culturally aware and sensitive
to the school-community relationship and that teachers will support
parental involvement in school life. One purpose of this document
is to inform parents about what their children are learning and why
this learning is important. This awareness will further enable parents
to communicate with teachers, to offer relevant information, and to
ask questions about their child’s progress. Knowledge of their child
and awareness of the teacher’s observations will also help parents
to interpret the assessment of their child’s learning and to work with
the teacher to improve and facilitate their child’s progress.
Participating in parent conferences, working on the school council,

talking with their child about life at school, and reading with their
child are some of the many ways in which parents can take an active
part in their child’s education.
The Role of Principals
The principal works in partnership with teachers, parents, and
caregivers to ensure that each child has access to the best possible
educational experiences. To support children’s learning, principals
should ensure that the Kindergarten programme in their school is
based on developmentally appropriate practices, and that it reflects
research-based, pedagogically sound practices that support all
children through the use of appropriate instructional approaches and
resources. Principals also play an important role in building
professional learning communities that promote collaboration,
reflection, and growth, and that enhance teaching and learning in
all areas of the Kindergarten programme. Because developing
partnerships with parents and the community is very important, the
principal should ensure that open lines of communication exist
between the school, parents of Kindergarten children, and local
educational partners. Ongoing communication with all educational
partners will help to encourage active and positive participation so
that children become successful learners.
The Role of Community Partners
It is important that principals and teachers identify the strengths,
needs, and unique characteristics of the community in order to
maximize parents’ participation in their children’s school life. By
welcoming and including a child’s family members and other
caregivers, teachers and other members of the school staff can
encourage them to become supportive partners in the child’s
education. In a multilingual community, it is also helpful to arrange
for interpreters to be available so that school staff can gather
important information and establish good relationships. By
promoting a philosophy of teamwork and respect, schools can build
very positive partnerships. Parents and other family members should
be encouraged to participate in dayto- day school activities and other
events, such as family literacy and numeracy evenings, field trips,

and activities with “reading buddies”.
THE LEARNING PROGRAMME
The Kindergarten programme is designed to help children build
on their prior knowledge and experiences, form concepts, acquire
foundational skills, and form positive attitudes to learning as they
begin to develop their goals for lifelong learning. It is also designed
as the foundation for a continuum of learning from Kindergarten to
Grade 8.
Existing programmes and procedures should be reviewed to
ensure that they are consistent with the expectations that children
are expected to achieve by the end of Kindergarten. Boards will
decide how the expectations can best be achieved within the total
Kindergarten programme that they offer.
Learning Expectations
The learning expectations outlined in this document represent the
first steps in a continuum of programming from Kindergarten to Grade
8. They describe learning achievements that are appropriate for young
children and that provide the foundation for successful future learning
experiences. Learning expectations are given for six areas of learning –
Personal and Social Development, Language, Mathematics, Science and
Technology, Health and Physical Activity, and The Arts. Programmes
based on the learning expectations must take into consideration the
widest possible range of children’s life experiences and situations. The
expectations are not meant to be a set of discrete skills to be developed.
They represent a range of ways of thinking at certain stages in young
children’s development, and they contain a continuum of concepts and
skills that are appropriate for Kindergarten children, including critical
thinking skills.
Two sets of expectations are listed for each area of learning, as follows:
1. Overall expectations, which describe in general terms the knowledge
and skills that children are expected to demonstrate by the end of
Kindergarten
2. Specific expectations, which describe the knowledge and skills in
greater detail
Overall Expectations
Children in Kindergarten programmes are expected to
demonstrate achievement of the overall expectations for each of the
six areas of learning by the end of the Kindergarten years. The
expectations are not designed to address Junior and Senior
Kindergarten separately. Since children entering Kindergarten vary
in their levels of development and previous learning experiences, it
is likely that they will demonstrate a considerable range of
achievement as they progress towards meeting the overall
expectations for the end of Kindergarten. For some, the process will
be more challenging than for others.
It is therefore important that teachers closely monitor the
progress of all children in order to provide instruction that will
enable all children to reach their full potential. For example, if a child
is having difficulty making progress, the teacher needs to adjust
instruction on the basis of ongoing assessment in order to meet the
needs of the child. Similarly, if a child has already achieved some of
the stated expectations for Kindergarten, the teacher should provide
opportunities that deepen and extend the child’s learning. Some
children may enter Kindergarten already able to demonstrate
achievement of the expectations of the programme. These children
would need differentiated instruction from the outset.
Specific Expectations
The specific expectations indicate in more detail what children

may be expected to demonstrate as they progress through the
Kindergarten years – that is, through both Junior and Senior
Kindergarten. The specific expectations are grouped under
subheadings within the six areas of learning. These subheadings help
to organise particular aspects of the knowledge and skills in those
areas, and serve as a guide for teachers as they plan the learning
programme. This organisation of expectations in subgroups is not
meant to imply that the expectations in any one group are achieved
independently of the expectations in the other groups. The
subgroupings are intended to help teachers focus on particular
aspects of knowledge and skills as they develop and present various
lessons and provide instruction for the children. Since not all young
children will learn in the same way at the same time, the range of
achievement of the specific expectations will vary according to each
child’s stage of development.
Examples in Specific Expectations
Many of the specific expectations are accompanied by examples.
There are various kinds of examples – some indicate progression,
while others are samples of learning contexts, “teacher prompts”,
“student talk”, or problems. Some examples may also be provided
to emphasise diversity or a variety of perspectives. In all cases, the
examples are intended as suggestions for teachers rather than as an
exhaustive or mandatory list. Teachers do not have to address the
full list of examples. They may incorporate the examples into their
lessons, or they may use other topics or approaches that are relevant
to the expectation.
Several types of examples are discussed below.
• Examples Indicating Progression: In a number of cases, the examples
are based on a developmental progression. The word initially is used
to indicate what a child might say or do at the beginning of the
learning process and the word eventually to indicate a more complex
understanding of the concept or skill in the expectation at the end of
Kindergarten. The following are some examples:
– [Children] use illustrations to support comprehension of texts that
are read by and with the teacher
– [Children] pose questions and make predictions and observations
before and during investigations
• Sample Contexts: For some expectations, examples are provided of
possible contexts or different ways in which children may demonstrate
their learning. It should be noted that individual children are not
required to demonstrate their learning in all of the suggested contexts.
• Teacher Prompts: Teacher prompts are included to provide teachers
with some possible methods to help children learn by building on what
they already know or by deepening their thinking and responses.
Teachers are not required to use the teacher prompts supplied. They
may incorporate the teacher prompts into their lessons, or they may
use others that are relevant to the expectation or the children in their
class. The following are some examples of teacher prompts:
– “What would happen if we added snow to water?”
– “Let’s mark how far your car travelled past the ramp this time.
What could you change to make the car go farther?”
• Student Talk: These are examples of what a child might say when engaged
in an activity alone or with others, and are offered to provide further
clarification of the variety of ways in which children demonstrate their
knowledge and skills. They illustrate how children might articulate
observations or explain their thinking related to the knowledge and skills
outlined in the expectation. These examples are included to emphasise
the importance of encouraging children to talk about what they are
learning, as well as to provide some guidance for teachers on how to
model language use and the processes of thinking and reasoning for the
children. As a result, the examples given may not always reflect the level
of language actually used by the children.
• Sample Problems: For some expectations, examples of possible
problems are provided. Teachers are not required to use the sample
problems supplied. They may incorporate the sample problems into
their instruction, or they may use other problems that are relevant to
the expectation.
ASSESSMENT, EVALUATION, AND REPORTING
Young children show their understanding by doing, showing,
and telling. Teachers need to use assessment strategies of observing,
listening, and asking probing questions in order to assess and
evaluate children’s achievement. Assessment is the gathering of
information through observable evidence of what a child can do,
say, and apply. Evaluation involves the judging and interpreting of
the assessment data to determine the child’s progress in achieving
the overall learning expectations.
Observation is the most important aspect of assessment in the
Kindergarten classroom and should be an integral part of all other
assessment strategies. Assessment is the key to effective teaching
and is the starting point for instruction in the Kindergarten
programme. The assessment of a child’s achievement is intended to
improve the child’s learning. Teachers need to continually observe,
monitor, document, and assess children’s learning, and regularly
report on children’s progress towards the achievement of the
Kindergarten expectations to parents and the children themselves.
Teachers should recognise that, because of the many factors that
influence both learning and assessment, the degree of success with
which children will achieve the Kindergarten expectations will vary

widely from child to child.
Not only will children enter Kindergarten with varied social
realities and experiences, but they will also leave it demonstrating a
range of achievement of the Kindergarten expectations. It is the
responsibility of the teacher to meet the needs of all children in the
Kindergarten years. All programme expectations must be accounted
for in instruction, but evaluation will focus on children’s achievement
of the overall expectations.
A child’s achievement of the overall expectations is evaluated
on the basis of his or her achievement of related specific expectations.
The overall expectations are broad in nature, and the specific
expectations define the particular content or scope of the knowledge
and skills referred to in the overall expectations. The specific
expectations will assist teachers in describing the range of behaviours,
skills, and strategies that children demonstrate as they work towards
achieving the overall expectations. Teachers will use their
professional judgement to determine which specific expectations
should be used to evaluate achievement of the overall expectations
and which ones will be the focus for instruction and assessment but
not necessarily evaluated.
Principles Underlying Assessment and Evaluation
Kindergarten children are in their first years of school and are
going through the process of adjusting to the school environment.
They should be given ample time to demonstrate their achievements
through varied learning opportunities that are appropriate for their
stage of development and that are within the range of things they
can do with and without guidance. Teachers should also take into
consideration that the period of adjustment to school is longer for
some children than for others. Young children will demonstrate their
learning in many different ways. Their success in demonstrating what
they know or are able to do will also vary, depending on such factors
as the time of day, the situation, the type of questions asked,
familiarity with the content, and facility with the language of
instruction.
To allow for the range of influences that may affect a child’s

performance at any one time, Kindergarten teachers should assess
the child’s learning on an ongoing basis in the context of everyday
classroom experiences, using a variety of strategies and tools.
Assessment strategies should encourage children to show what they
know and can do, rather than focus on what they do not know or
cannot do. An assessment that focuses on what children can do takes
into account the developmental stage of the child. Assessment
enables teachers to determine how well their planned activities and
teaching strategies are working, and to make any changes needed
to enable Kindergarten children to achieve the learning expectations.
Some children may need differentiated instruction to meet their
individual needs.
Methods of Assessment and Evaluation
The methods used for assessing and evaluating children’s
learning should be clearly identified and based on the learning
expectations. Assessment that supports children’s learning will
enhance teachers’ observations and understanding of children’s
knowledge. Teachers need to make careful choices about assessment
methods to ensure that the methods are developmentally, culturally,
and linguistically appropriate. Assessment should be frequent, well
planned, and well organised, so that teachers are able to assist each
child in progressing towards achievement of the overall expectations.
In the early years, Kindergarten in particular, the main focus of
assessment should be on informal diagnostic assessment of prior
learning and on formative assessment that is intended to support
ongoing learning and to determine instructional methods. For
example, before beginning a series of planned activities on
patterning, a teacher may observe children working with pattern
blocks, and ask general questions to determine their interests,
vocabulary, and knowledge.
The teacher then introduces a planned activity and continues to
observe the children as they work on the task in order to determine
what individual children understand and what the direction for
further teaching will be.
Observation in the Classroom

Observation, as well as the documentation of observations, is
the most important method for gaining assessment information about
a young child as he or she works and interacts in the classroom.
Observation should be the primary assessment strategy used in
Kindergarten. Teachers should focus their observations on specific
skills, concepts, or characteristics, as described in the learning
expectations, and record their observations. Daily observation should
include both planned observations and on-the-spot observations.
There are various ways of documenting observations, such as using
anecdotal notes, checklists, and rating scales.
Assessment strategies and tools might include the following:
• Portfolios
• Records of reading behaviours
• Developmental continua
• Conferences
• Age and stage-of-development charts
• Self-assessment and peer assessment
• Videotapes and/or photographs
• Writing samples
Use of Observations of Parents
Communication with children and their parents throughout the

assessment and evaluation process is critical to successful learning.
Teachers provide information for parents to assist them in
understanding the assessment and evaluation process, including the
ways in which assessment helps identify a child’s strengths and
needs and the next steps for programme planning. It is especially
important in the early years for parents to be involved in discussions
regarding their child’s progress. The teacher should gather as much
information as possible from the parents and consult with them when
assessing the child’s adjustment to school and progress towards
achievement of the learning expectations. Parents should be invited
to observe their child in the classroom setting and to discuss their
observations with teachers. Also, since parents are familiar with their
child’s knowledge and skills in the home setting, teachers should
invite parents to share their observations of their child informally
throughout the school year. Other professionals who may be

involved with the child should also participate in programme
decisions, provided that the appropriate permission has been
granted.
Reporting
Teachers will communicate assessment and evaluation of
achievement to the parents, the child, and others involved in the
child’s learning. When reporting on what children have achieved,
teachers will include the assessment and evaluation methods used,
the expectations on which achievement was assessed, and the
purpose of the assessment. Reporting throughout the Kindergarten
years must always indicate the child’s growth and achievement in
relation to the learning expectations for the end of Kindergarten.
Reporting should reflect achievement in the skills and strategies that
the children are developing as they progress through the
Kindergarten years. The reports must reflect evaluation of
achievement in all six areas of learning. Reports should include
anecdotal comments on the child’s achievement in relation to the
overall expectations and the next steps for the teacher, as well as
next steps for the parents to assist them in supporting their child’s
learning. Reporting should be ongoing and should include a variety
of formal and informal means, ranging from formal written reports
and discussions with parents and the child to informal notes to
parents and conversations with them.
TEACHING/LEARNING APPROACHES
Kindergarten programmes need to consist of a balance of
investigation or exploration, guided instruction, and explicit
instruction. Kindergarten children need many opportunities to
investigate and explore. These experiences allow children to build
on their existing knowledge, create and clarify their own new
understandings, and experience a variety of approaches to a problem
or question. In investigation and exploration, children’s autonomy
is high, and teachers should observe, listen, and question in order
to provide the children with the support they need using the
instructional strategy of scaffolding. In guided instruction, learning
experiences will be thoughtfully planned and guided by the teacher.

While providing guidance, the teacher should be flexible in order to
make the best use of alternatives and strategies that are generated
by the children. Explicit instruction is used by the teacher to clarify
steps, extend an idea in a particular direction, or demonstrate a skill
that may be used in a broader context.
Assessment is the key to effective teaching and is the starting
point for instruction in the Kindergarten programme. A well-planned
Kindergarten programme provides teachers with many opportunities
for ongoing observation and assessment of children’s strengths,
needs, and interests. On the basis of this ongoing assessment, teachers
should plan instruction to help children build on what they know
and extend their thinking. For example, teachers may pose an open-
ended question, give a direction, ask a child to demonstrate a familiar
concept in a new way, or encourage a child to try a new activity.
The sections that follow identify the different types of learning
experiences that should be offered and the teaching/learning
approaches that should be used in developmentally appropriate
Kindergarten programmes.
Learning Through Enquiry
Most children are naturally curious about their surroundings.
They have an interest in exploring and investigating to see how
things work and why things happen. Children have an innate sense
of wonder and awe and a natural desire for enquiry. Kindergarten
programmes can capitalise on children’s natural curiosity and their
desire to make sense of their environment. However, curiosity on
its own is not enough. The guidance of a thoughtful teacher is
essential to enable children to learn through enquiry. Teachers should
use enquiry-based learning to build on children’s spontaneous desire
for exploration and to gradually guide them to become more focused
and systematic in their observations and investigations. Many
different skills make up enquiry-based learning for children, and
children need many opportunities to develop and use these skills as
they progress through the Kindergarten years. Enquiry skills should
not be taught in isolation, but integrated into interesting topics and
ideas and in children’s ongoing play. Some skills need explicit
teaching, whereas others may be reinforced or practised using

different types of activities and investigations.
Elements of the When Children are When Teachers are
Kindergarten Child’s Engaged in the Enquiry Modelling or Supporting
Enquiry Process Process, They: the Enquiry Process, They:
Initial engagement • Raise questions about • Observe and listen

– noticing, objects and events
wondering, playing around them
Exploration • Explore objects and • Act as facilitators to guide
– exploring, events around them children with thoughtful,
observing, observe the result of open-ended question
questioning their explorations
• Make observations, • Encourage children to
using all of their senses, observe and talk among
and generate question themselves and to the teacher
Investigation • Gather. compare, soft, • Provide a rich variety of
– planning, using classify, order, interpret, materials and resources, and
observation, describe observable strategically question and
reflection characteristics and observe children to classify,
properties, notice expand, or discover the
patterns, and draw children thinking
conclusion, using a variety • Model how to plan, observe,
of simple tools and reflect
material Communication
• Work individually and • Listen to the children to help
– sharing findings, with others, share and them make connections
discussing ideas discuss ideas, and listen between prior knowledge and
to new ideas new discoveries
• Demonstrate how to share
and discuss new ideas
Taking into consideration the strengths, needs, and interests of

the children in the class, the teacher should model the enquiry
process and pose questions that encourage, support, and extend the
children’s learning.
For example, the teacher could ask such questions as the following:
• “What would happen if…?”
• “How would we find out?”
• “What are the places in our school yard where we might find worms?”
• “What ways can you use to get the water from one container to
another?”
• “I wonder why your measurement is different from Jasmine’s.”
Children begin to ask questions that lead to exploration and
investigation.
For example, they may ask such questions as the following:
• “How can this car go faster down the ramp?”
• “Where are the biggest puddles?”
• “How many legs does a spider have?”
• “What happens if I mix blue and red paint?”
Children begin to communicate ideas and questions while they

are experimenting and investigating by describing materials they
used, indicating a problem they might have had, or beginning to
listen to their peers or offer suggestions to them.
They also learn to make predictions and draw conclusions, such as the
following:
• “I think if I use a bigger block on the bottom, my tower won’t break.”
• “I think when I mix these paints they will change colour. They made
green.”
• “I thought it would take six footsteps, but it took ten.”
Learning in Real-Life Contexts
Using real-life contexts in which to develop activities for the
Kindergarten programme is a highly effective way of motivating
young learners. Children grasp ideas more easily and more
effectively and maintain their interest in school when they have an
educational programme that enables them to connect their learning
to their own lives and the world around them. Kindergarten
programmes should emphasise the interconnected learning that
occurs when children are exposed to real-life situations and activities
in the classroom, home, school, and neighbourhood. For example, a
trip to the grocery store can develop literacy, numeracy, and social
skills and can provide an opportunity to acquire nutritional
information. Mathematics often becomes abstract too early for
children. Developing concepts within a real-life context allows
children to bridge the gap between the concrete and abstract. For
example, children need many experiences of investigating the idea
that three blocks and two more blocks make five blocks before they
will understand 3 + 2 = 5.
Integrated Learning
Using real-life contexts can lead to more effective integration of
learning throughout the Kindergarten programme. Integration can
provide opportunities for children to explore concepts and to develop
and apply skills. There are many models for integration. One model
for integrated teaching involves the presentation of concepts to
children in a variety of contexts. For example, the mathematical
concept of pattern may be presented and developed in activities

related to music, stories, fabrics, and natural objects. Meaningful
integration deepens children’s understanding of the skills and
concepts in each of the subjects that are involved. Through
meaningful integration, children can be encouraged to generate new
connections and to expand their existing understanding. Integration
also helps children see how the knowledge and skills developed in
one area can be relevant to other areas.
Integration of the Arts Across the Programme
Effective integration of arts activities across the Kindergarten

programme helps support the learning styles, interests, and strengths
of individual children. Integrating the arts with other areas of
learning allows children to make meaningful connections between
programme areas, and can be highly motivating. For example,
important links can be made between music and language
development. Children can gain an appreciation of the rhythm and
flow of language through song. Musical instruments allow children
to experience rhythm and beat and to feel the sounds in rhyming
stories, songs, or poems. Drama offers children a variety of
opportunities to retell stories using props, puppets, masks, and
costumes. Drama also gives children the opportunity to respond in
role and to take on roles in which they express different points of
view, and thus supports the development of empathy. Creative
movement and dance provide a vehicle for response and for
interpretation of something children have heard, seen, or felt.
Through sculpting, painting, constructing, and drawing, children not
only express their thoughts and feelings, but may also articulate their
learning about their community and place in the world. Participating
in and responding to appropriate arts experiences gives children
opportunities to reflect on their own experiences and those of others.
These activities can enhance children’s self-concept and increase
their sense of accomplishment, and can help them develop their oral
language ability and their ability to respond to others. The outdoor
world also provides an abundance of resources and materials for
supporting learning through the arts. Children can discuss the lines,
shapes, or textures that they have observed in a field, local park, or
school yard. They can listen for different sounds in the environment
and watch how animals move, and then imitate the sounds and
movements in music and dance activities. They can create art works
and musical instruments using found and recycled materials – for
example, they can use leaf and shell rubbings in collages. Art
galleries, theatres, museums, and concert venues provide rich
environments for field trips and for exploration of the local
community and its resources. Alternatively, local artists, musicians,
or dancers could be invited into the school. A number of programmes
– such as the Ontario Arts Council’s Artists in Education programme
– can assist teachers in more fully integrating arts and cultural
programming into the classroom.
Learning Through Exploration
Young children actively explore their environment and the world
around them through a process of learning-based play – for example,
manipulating objects, acting out roles, and experimenting with
various materials. Play is a vehicle for learning. It provides
opportunities for learning in a context in which children are at their
most receptive. Play and work are not distinct categories for young
children, and learning and doing are also inextricably linked for
them. It has long been acknowledged that there is a strong link
between play and learning for young children, especially in the areas
of problem solving, language acquisition, literacy, numeracy, and
social skills.
Play, therefore, has a legitimate and important role in
Kindergarten and can be used to further children’s learning in all
areas of the Kindergarten programme. Current brain research
confirms that opportunities for children to learn through play impel
the development of multiple sensing pathways in the brain. A
Kindergarten programme that is designed with planned
opportunities for learning-based play offers sensory stimulation that
the child absorbs and assimilates into core brain development.
Through learning-based play, children represent their knowledge
and understanding of the world and apply new learning that they
are acquiring. Play provides a meaningful context for children’s
language development. In the context of play, children can learn
the meaning of words that are confusing, hear new words, and use
words in both new and familiar ways. Children should have many
opportunities to explore materials and make decisions with the
support of an adult who knows how and when to intervene. Children
also need opportunities to engage with their peers in play activities
of their own devising, through which they can express themselves
and explore things of special interest to them. It is important that
teachers assess what and how children learn through play by
observing, documenting, and analysing their observations of
children’s play. By using their observations, teachers can stimulate
children to create, solve problems, and think critically.
For example, teachers can do the following:
• Acknowledge what the children are doing in order to sustain and
extend their interest
• Introduce new vocabulary
• Guide children to make connections
• Lead children to reflect on their learning
Teachers should plan activities at the learning centres that will
help children achieve the learning expectations, and should make
changes to activities and materials on the basis of their assessments
and the needs and interests of the children. Teachers should also
monitor play activities carefully and be available to assist with or
extend the activities as appropriate.
The following are a few examples of ways in which teachers can support
children’s learning in various areas through play:
• Interacting with the children at the learning centres to introduce new
vocabulary in all areas of learning
• Placing tubing, funnels, water pumps, and water wheels at the water
centre to encourage children to explore and experiment with the
properties of water and to investigate various ways in which forces
make things move
• Taking on the role of a customer in a restaurant and asking for the
bill in order to encourage children to engage in literacy and numeracy
activities for real-life purposes
Language Development and Literacy
Oral Language Development
Oral language is the basis for literacy, thinking, and socialisation
in any language. All young children need learning experiences that
help them understand, acquire, and build on oral language. The

foundations of language development and literacy begin to be
established at birth and continue to be built through interaction and
communication with adults and other children at home, in child care,
in the community, and at school. To foster the language development
necessary for literacy, Kindergarten programmes should be rich in
language-oriented activities and resources that build on prior
knowledge, that are relevant to the lives of young children, and that
provide opportunities for thinking, problem solving, and
experimenting.
In a strong literacy programme, teachers find opportunities to
talk with parents about the importance of having supportive adults
or siblings who listen and respond to what young children say, who
read to them frequently, who have discussions with them, and who
model reading and writing.
Listening to someone reading stories and other kinds of texts
enables children to learn new words, extend their experiences, and
become familiar with the patterns, rhythms, and structures of a
language.
If a child’s first language is a language other than English,
Kindergarten teachers should also encourage parents to continue to
use their own language at home in various ways – for example,
telling or reading stories in their own language – as a foundation
for language and literacy development in English.
It is also important to find opportunities to bring children’s first
languages into the classroom – for example, by reading dual-
language books or using parents or other community members as
resources. Children come to school with vastly different experiences
and levels of exposure to literacy. All children are able to learn, and
can benefit from classroom experiences that emphasise literacy. On
the basis of ongoing assessment and observation, teachers will
recognise that some children will require additional support in the
form of focused literacy instruction and experiences to develop
literacy.
It is important that teachers make adjustments to instructional
strategies where necessary, and maintain high expectations for all
children.
Development of Reading and Writing

Learning to read and write is essential to enable a child to
succeed in school and in later life. Teachers should become familiar
with the stages in the process of learning to read and write, and
should use this knowledge when planning literacy programmes and
when assessing children’s acquisition of literacy skills. In the earliest
stages of literacy development, children mimic the reading process.
They begin to understand what reading is and how it works. They
learn that what they say can be written down. As children progress,
they learn to pay attention to the way print and books work, and
they learn that printed letters and words represent the sounds and
words of oral language.
They become aware that some words rhyme or start or end in
the same way, thus developing phonological awareness. They also
begin to share their ideas and responses to texts in a variety of ways,
learn that writing can communicate a message, and begin to explore
different purposes for writing. When they begin to write, they include
pictures and symbols, and eventually familiar or high-frequency
words. They also often use approximate spelling for words that is
based on their ability to hear, identify, and manipulate sounds and
on their knowledge of letter-sound correspondence.
Learning Through Explicit Instruction
In the Kindergarten classroom, teachers provide clear, direct,

purposeful teaching and modelling of specific concepts, skills, and
strategies in a variety of settings, including large and small groups
and individual activity. In explicit instruction, the teacher explains
what a strategy is, why it is used, and when to use it; models how
to use it; and guides children as they practise it. For example, in
teaching children a beginning reading strategy, such as matching
voice to print, the teacher identifies the strategy and models it during
modelled reading, providing students with maximum support.
Gradually the teacher invites children to apply their new learning
during shared reading in large or small groups, and guides children
in using voice-to-print matching as they interact with such texts as
signs, labels, or independent-reading texts in small groups or
independently at learning centres. The teacher provides feedback as

necessary.
Strategies for Developing an Effective Literacy Environment
Children who are given frequent opportunities to listen and

respond to stories, poems, songs, and rhymes in the classroom
become motivated to learn the functions and features of print.
Teachers should model beginning reading and writing strategies by
“thinking aloud”. With encouragement and intentional instruction,
children will begin to demonstrate such literacy skills as repeating
words, naming characters, and identifying signs, labels, names,
letters, and letter sounds. Some children will also begin to
demonstrate their thinking and understanding on paper.
Generic worksheets, however, should be used with caution; they
are rarely effective because their focus is narrow and they provide
only limited assessment information on the child’s level of
understanding. Children will also write for a variety of purposes –
for example, they may write brief notes to friends, make grocery
lists, or write numbers to record the number of blocks they used.
Children also need many opportunities to pose and answer
questions, participate in discussions, and classify information in order
to develop their capacity for metacognition and their ability to use
higher-order thinking skills involved in critical thinking.
For example, after reading about a social issue that is important
to children, the teacher may say “Someone wrote this text. Who is it
written for? Let’s look at it from the point of view of…”. By engaging
in such discussions, children will have an opportunity to question
their understanding of issues that arise in the classroom, in a book,
or among their classmates. Children should be encouraged to do
independent reading and writing. In planning all such activities,
teachers should use their knowledge of the stages of development
in oral language, reading, and writing. They should also provide
children with appropriate materials when they are to be engaged in
free exploration, focused exploration, and guided activities.
Kindergarten programmes should provide opportunities for children
to listen to poems, stories, and non-fiction texts for both enjoyment
and information.
Children should also have opportunities to respond to a variety

of materials that are read aloud to them and to demonstrate
awareness of written materials, print conventions and language
patterns. Teachers should provide children with many opportunities
to explore texts independently, to retell stories, and to internalise
new learning. Teachers can plan brief, focused, daily experiences that
build on a particular concept or set of ideas.
They also need to plan intentional and engaging literacy
instruction during the day. They can ensure that significant literacy
learning is included in play, daily routines, and classroom
experiences. Teachers can also make use of drama, music, visual arts,
and media texts to help children develop their communication and
literacy skills. In so doing, teachers can create an effective
environment to support young children’s learning and development
of literacy.
Early Numeracy Development
Learning in Real-Life Contexts
Most young children come to school already knowing a great

deal about mathematics. Children bring with them an intuitive
knowledge of mathematics, which they have developed through
curiosity about their physical world and through real-life experiences.
For example, they bring conceptual understanding from their daily
experiences with manipulating objects, making comparisons, making
observations and asking questions. Teachers should use this prior
knowledge as a starting point in developing the critical foundational
learning of mathematical principles and concepts that supports
achievement in mathematics in later years. It could also be said that,
upon entering school, most children are interested in learning to
persist, to try something new, and generally to engage in problem
solving.
The teacher plays a critical role in fostering a positive attitude
towards mathematics by valuing a child’s early attempts at problem
solving, by sharing and celebrating the child’s learning, and by
encouraging in each child a love of mathematics. Learning in
mathematics is no different from learning in other areas of the
programme in that young children learn best through experiences

that are connected and integrated. Children are more motivated to
solve problems when the problems are the real-life problems of the
classroom. Attempting to solve such problems engages children in
posing their own questions and finding a variety of solutions.
When the mathematical problems they are exploring are
connected to real life, the problems provide a vehicle for children
both to apply what they know and to develop new strategies. For
example, as children measure the growth of their plants, they begin
to see the connections between mathematics and their everyday lives,
and they strengthen their understanding in both mathematics and
science. Teachers should plan programmes that build on children’s
intuitive knowledge of mathematics and make use of real-life
contexts. The programmes should allow children to explore
mathematics and to communicate in meaningful ways with both the
teacher and their peers.
Teachers should select learning materials that are appropriate
for the level of the children’s understanding and the focus of the
learning expectations. Children should be encouraged to identify,
explore, and discuss mathematics in books that they read, in
situations that occur in the classroom and in situations outside the
classroom. Teachers should continually help children clarify what
they already know and what they need to do next.
On a daily basis, teachers can model the formulation of
mathematical problems, pose questions, and provide opportunities
for children to pose questions, and then provide time for
investigating possible answers and solutions.
Developmental Aspects of Learning Mathematics
When planning learning experiences, teachers should consider

children’s cognitive, linguistic, physical, social, and emotional
development. The most successful learning takes place when the
teacher plans mathematical experiences that are based on an
understanding of the child’s total development. The child needs to
have the cognitive ability to do the mathematical activity; needs to
be able to understand the language of instruction, including the
mathematical vocabulary; needs to have sufficient fine-motor control
to manipulate the materials; and needs to be emotionally mature

enough to deal with the demands of the activity so that frustration
does not set in. Since all children will demonstrate a developmental
progression in the understanding of foundational mathematical
concepts, teachers need to assess the level of development of each
child, plan activities that are appropriate for that child, and decide
when and how to intervene if the child has difficulties solving a
problem.
Strategies for Developing a Community of Mathematics Learners
When planning for effective learning experiences in mathematics,

teachers should include a balance of the following elements:
activating prior knowledge, engaging in the mathematics, reflecting
on the process, and celebrating children’s learning. Teachers can
begin a learning experience by encouraging children to use their prior
knowledge to solve a problem. By observing how the children
proceed, teachers gain insight into what the children already know,
and can plan further learning experiences to ensure that the children
will have the necessary tools to develop an understanding of the
concept being investigated.
For Kindergarten children, these learning experiences may
include reading a story or poem that explores a mathematical
concept, asking questions, engaging in problem solving as a group,
or dramatising a number poem or story. For Kindergarten children,
learning experiences should be hands-on and embedded in a context
that is of interest to the children. Children need to be able to explore
and investigate materials and concepts in concrete ways. Individual
learning is supported and extended by both the teacher and peers.
Children should be encouraged to reason, investigate ideas, extend
understanding, reflect, and make generalisations. They should also
be encouraged to begin to represent their mathematical
understandings in ways that are meaningful to them. Some children
may begin to represent their thinking on paper, often using pictures
and/or numbers and some words; others may use concrete materials.
Generic worksheets, however, should be used with caution; they
are rarely effective because their focus is narrow and they provide
only limited assessment information on the children’s level of
understanding. Activities need to be openended so that the children

can demonstrate their understanding of a concept in a variety of
ways. Some children, for example, demonstrate their understanding
of the concept of pattern by creating a pattern, but they may not be
able to explain the pattern. Some children may sort the zoo animals
according to type, but may need the teacher’s guidance to articulate
their sorting rule; others may be able to sort in multiple ways and
explain their reasoning. In all cases, however, children need to be
engaged in doing mathematics, talking about it, listening to others
talk, and showing their results and solutions.
Young children have the curiosity and the capability to engage
in mathematical thinking and learning. Reflecting on their
experiences enables children to consolidate learning. Children need
to experience mathematics concepts in depth through revisiting and
repeating investigations over a long period of time. This repetition
also allows teachers an opportunity to identify gaps in children’s
learning and provide additional support. Teachers can help children
develop and consolidate their understanding through talking,
sharing approaches, and celebrating successes, and by encouraging
children to demonstrate, describe, and explain, as well as to make
connections and identify relationships. Teachers can create an
effective environment to support young children’s learning of
mathematics by planning daily hands-on experiences that focus on
a particular mathematical concept and by identifying and embedding
significant mathematics learning experiences in play, daily routines,
and classroom experiences.
SOME CONSIDERATIONS FOR PROGRAMME PLANNING
Developmental Considerations for Kindergarten Children
Young children come to school with an enormous capacity to
learn. Important learning and development occur between birth and
six years in all areas of human functioning – physical, social,
emotional, cognitive, and linguistic. Children develop knowledge
and skills at varying rates and through various means. Each child
has unique strengths, interests, and needs that require teachers to
adjust teaching methods and materials accordingly. In addition to
their own observations and the information provided by parents,
teachers can use the information available through the Early

Identification of Children’s Learning Needs process to determine
individual children’s level of development, learning abilities, and
needs. This identification procedure is part of an ongoing assessment
process that boards are required to initiate when a child first enters
school. When planning Kindergarten programmes to meet the needs
of individual children, teachers should consider a range of
developmental assessments of individual children. The following
chart offers guidance when making programme decisions. The chart
is not meant to be a comprehensive list, but highlights key observable
behaviours in all five areas of development, and ways of taking them
into consideration.
The Learning Environment
The key components of the Kindergarten learning environment
are: the use of space in the classroom and outdoor area; the use of
time during the day; and the appropriateness and variety of the
resources available, including both people and materials. In planning
programmes, teachers should ensure that the learning environment
is inclusive and that it is one in which children feel comfortable and
safe, yet stimulated to learn and explore. The atmosphere the teacher
creates is vital to the emotional development of the children.
The environment should be one that encourages empathy,
interest in trying new things, and the development of self-confidence.
Teachers plan instruction for small groups of children and for the
whole class, as well as individual learning experiences that address
the strengths, needs, and interests of the child and that are within
the range of things the child can do with and without guidance. The
time and purpose for these groupings are determined by a number
of factors, such as the length of time the children have been in a
school setting; the strengths, needs, and interests of the children;
and the focus of instruction.
Children should be provided with large blocks of time and
adequate space to work at learning centres. Some examples of
learning centres are the book corner, writing centre, listening centre,
block centre, dramatic play centre, sand and water centres, discovery
centre, mathematics centre, technology centre, puppet centre, visual
arts centre, and word-study centre. At such learning centres, children

demonstrate the knowledge and skills they are acquiring, and
practise and apply new learning both independently and with others.
While at learning centres, children learn through play, independent
problem solving, and enquiry.
They also learn to manage time, make choices, and demonstrate
responsibility. Teachers spend time modelling and teaching children
routines for the centres. Teachers also observe children at the learning
centres and gather assessment information on individual children
in order to plan instruction and determine appropriate materials for
teaching. The whole learning environment should be designed to
meet the needs of young children and allow them to demonstrate
their progress towards achieving the overall expectations in a variety
of ways. In some cases, examples of materials, resources, and learning
centres are mentioned in the specific expectations in order to support
teachers in creating the appropriate environment for young children.
Use of Space
When planning for the use of space in the classroom and outdoors,
teachers should:
• Group related centres and/or materials together;
• Keep visual displays at children’s eye level;
• Provide an open area for movement and/or music activities;
• Plan for washroom, coat, entry, and dismissal routines and space
requirements, including areas and access for students with special
education needs;
• Use appropriate spaces for a range of activities in the outside play
area;
• Define small areas for dramatic play or specific activities by using
dividers or shelves;
• Plan for a large-group meeting area and a place to meet with
individuals or small groups;
• Ensure that children with mobility issues have easy access to all areas
of the classroom;
• Ensure that defined areas provide spaces where children with different
learning styles can feel comfortable.
Use of Time
When planning time for large-group instruction, teachers should

consider the attention span of the children, the length of time they
have attended school, their familiarity with routines, and their

strengths, needs, and interests, so that the time can be adjusted
according to the dynamics of the group. Teachers should also ensure
that routines are simple, modelled, and appropriate, and that they
make the best use of the children’s time.
When planning time for small-group or individual learning activities,
teachers should:
• Allow for revisiting or extending an activity;
• Plan for a balance of teacher-initiated and child-initiated learning
activities;
• Plan for a daily block of time for child-initiated learning activities,
ensuring that there is sufficient time for children to get involved in
their activities in depth as well as time for them to organise their
materials;
• Consider the attention span of Kindergarten children and plan the
amount of verbal instruction accordingly.
Teachers should also plan for a daily block of time for literacy
and numeracy instruction. Such instruction may take place in both
large and small groups.

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CONTROL TECHNOLOGY IN

© 2020 Tritech Digital Media

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-7996-7389-7

MEANING OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of

psychology is the field of study that applies theories in human

HISTORY OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

Educational technology in a way could be traced back to the

simulations (computer environments where learner can play with

THEORIES AND PRACTICES IN EDUCATIONAL

Three main theoretical schools or philosophical frameworks have

1980s, and 1990s. It is important to note that Computer Science and

“Children and young people are growing up in a vastly changing

these changes in the classroom include Problem Based Learning,

Educationaltechnology is intended to improve education over

• Subjects made easier to learn: Many different types of educational

CRITICISM OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

Although technology in the classroom does have many benefits,

geography. The first deals with the onset of integrating technology

teachers to keep up with the ever-changing technology in the

novices when it comes to learning about technology. This is because

In recent years, OpenCourseWare (OCW), an academic initiative

process of planning such programmes. These institutions include

There are various types of technologies currently used in

• Interactive Whiteboards: An interactive whiteboard that provides

in effectiveness between a live lecture versus podcast are minor in

By scope of educational technology we mean the jurisdiction,

teaching will remain misfits. Right type of training to the teachers is

• Proper Use of Hardware and Software: These days’ hardware and

In the past, learning and education simply meant face-to-face

Education is essential in corporate and academic settings. In the

TECHNOLOGY ALLOWS INDIVIDUAL PACING

Technology of Education and Technology in Education are two

Technology in education refers to, but is not limited to the use

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEACHING AND LEARNING

expressed in overt behaviour. However, it may be pointed that all

a particular subject matter. This input is supplied and managed by

R connection while the law of exercise relates to strengthening the

The Behaviourist approach to learning has significantly

behaviour. As the student learns, his responses in terms of changed

The most important aspect of Skinner’s theory of learning relates

theme that is being taught through the programme. At the end of

The contemporary cognitivists equate human mental activities

There are a number of elements, which are central to the

Learning has been conceived as a cognitive process. In the

We describe below the major educational implications of the cognitive

varying number of sessions. Finally, transfer of learning may take

used. We cannot say that a particular consequence is in fact a

Robern M. Gagne is a prominent educational psychologist whose

how different kinds of learning relate to each other. He synthesises

Gagne distinguishes eight conditions of learning, or varieties of

seeing relationships between things. Reading, writing and handling

We present here three broad educational implications of Gagne’s theory

However, in actual classroom situations, we find that these three

reached when thorough understanding of the subject matter is gained

• Exploiting learner’s experience: Good teachers build on learners’

Learning to programme is not easy. Recent experimental studies

the formation of schemas, it is also important to ensure that students

Research suggests that students can benefit from instruction that

We did not go out of our way to change the examples we used

We wanted to see how the ‘casual’ introduction of roles of

Variables are a fundamental programming construct, and they

Introduction of Individual Roles