Furca Delia-Alina

PIPP ID DEVA, ANUL I

TEACHING METHODS
The didactic activity and, implicitly, the efficiency of this activity is conditioned
by several factors, either of an objective nature - the logistical conditions
available to the educational institution, or especially by certain subjective
factors, among which the subjectivity and personality peculiarities of the subject
of education, of the teachers, hence certain particularities related to teaching
strategies and methods.
Let's define the didactic or teaching strategy. In pedagogy, the notion of strategy
has, as in any other field, a practical orientation value, being not only a
theoretical entity but also a way of working. It represents a "concept, overall
and long-term orientation regarding the organization of education in the
educational process" (Dictionary of pedagogy, 1979). In the same quoted source
it is stated that "the strategy of the educational process (or teaching) is
equivalent to the organization of a chain of learning situations through which
the student learns the subject to be learned, deals with the objectives and content
of the education, the learning environment, the methods and means of
education." Two observations can be made on this observation: the first is that
the strategy of education cannot be only one of teaching, although teaching
conditions learning; and the second, since the strategy covers the entire activity
of education, teaching - learning and evaluation. So strategies cannot be
developed only for one or another of the sides of education unilaterally and
independently, but have a holistic and praxeological character.
The educational strategy, as a whole, cannot be reduced to the strategy of a side
or a module, group of modules in the curriculum. The strategy of the
educational process also includes other components, forms and variants of the
organization and development of education, techniques, methods and forms of
assessment. The title "teaching strategies" draws attention to the fact that, in a
relative sense, these strategies do not confuse teaching with learning, although it
is correct to say that "teaching" means "teaching others", so logically teaching is
done by and for learning. So teaching also involves learning from a pedagogical
point of view. It seems inappropriate to talk about strategies (including learning
theories) in a somewhat independent manner from teaching strategies. The
activity of teaching cannot be carried out unconditionally in relation to that of
learning, the teacher being unable to teach without teaching others and without
students learning outside of some taught lessons.
There are enough arguments to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the
"disruption" of teaching and learning, and especially of unilateral strategies of
these didactic activities. This does not mean, however, that the teaching
strategies coincide in everything with the learning ones, between them there are
certain demarcations, both teleologically and from the perspective of the
methods and technologies used. We highlight the need for their inter-
conditioning and even some relations of complementarity and action
interference. Teaching strategies have as their principle certain criteria of
teleological order and action, they ultimately aim at the formation of an
effective school-educational behavior through the changes that occur through
learning. At the same time, these strategies define the orientation lines and the
algorithm towards which the events and teaching acts converge, favoring and
making the learning activity more efficient.
From the point of view of the meaning of teaching, the strategies assume the
definition of the goals and objectives of teaching with openings to ensure the
operationalization of the objectives in any teaching situation, while from the
point of view of the content, didactic strategies. It requires the development of
contents in terms of knowledge categories, characteristic images, principles and
laws, theories, theorems, axioms, etc., all of which are defined in events and
tasks built in a unitary evolution. In the development of didactic strategies, the
other side of the didactic activity must also be taken into account and, above all,
the psychological peculiarities, the intellectual potential of those who benefit
and to whom such strategies are applied. From here it is emphasized that
didactic strategies require "flexible switches between the actions of the teacher
and those of the student, between modes of frontal, group and individual
organization, combinators such as methods and means, non-restrictive
taxonomy of educational objectives, variability of practice, principles.." And so
on In the formation of teaching strategies, we must take into account the fact
that both teaching and learning are subordinate to the superordinate and
integrative concept of training and education. They assume the internal unity of
the elements appropriate to the functional semantics (through goals, contents,
methods, forms, etc.), but also the external unity of these elements within the
education system. We will reproduce below the main strategies and didactic
methods subordinated to them.
Typology of didactic strategies
Based on the above, we could establish the following categories of didactic
strategies: expository-heuristic strategies, algorithmic strategies and evaluative-
stimulative strategies. Let's introduce them one by one.
Didactic strategies of expository - heuristic type
Specific to these strategies is the fact that teaching and learning activities are
carried out against the background of non-univocal relationships with a certain
degree of uncertainty. Within them, there is no full agreement between the
programming of the didactic activity and the programming of the learning
activity, the components of the first not having a total and direct correspondence
in the components of the other. Hence a certain game of the unpredictable
whose limits differ according to the knowledge of the factors involved. The
elaboration and assimilation of the truth is carried out nuanced by each process
in which logic interferes with infralogical, psychological, individual elements
such as: affective, temperamental, imaginative, etc., all of which leave their
mark on the final result of learning. Through the external regulation, carried out
by the teacher, the expository-heuristic methods provide information, trigger the
infralogical elements and suggest the ways to reach the truth, its assimilation
being the result of the internal psychic efforts of those who learn, each adopting
their own path in this sense.
Regarding the role and weight of teacher and student activity in these strategies,
there are quite large fluctuations. In some forms the activity of the teacher
predominates, in others the activity of the students, in some the teacher is the
main source of knowledge, while in others his role consists in ensuring and
coordinating the learning activity, the results being also different from one. The
assimilation of information by simple memorization or by processing and
operating with it, the formation of skills and abilities or the development of
psychic abilities. The assimilation of information by simple memorization or by
processing and operating with it, the formation of skills and abilities or the
development of psychic abilities. It is considered that some forms of these
strategies are focused on the activity of the teacher (the expository ones), and
others on the activity of the students (the heuristic ones). Viewed abstractly, the
differentiation seems arbitrary to us, because even if it is the students' activity
aimed at discovering and assimilating knowledge, it is directed and coordinated
by the teacher, operations that require at least as much effort as when the
teacher would expose knowledge. However, it is one thing to direct intellectual
activity through heuristic procedures, through the analysis of alternatives and
hypotheses, through successive searches, and another through standardized,
ready-made procedures. The expository meaning of these strategies: emphasizes
the fact that some information is related by the teacher, and the heuristic
meaning expresses the need to help and guide students in knowing scientific
truths.
Some particularities of the heuristic strategies allow the delimitation of two
fundamental "styles" of teaching, the "teacher-dominated" and the "group-
centered". In the first of these styles, the teacher carries out the work of teaching
by exposition of knowledge, his concern being centered on presenting it in the
most systematic way, resorting to a lesser extent to reverse connection to
ascertain the effect of his exposition. Specific to the "group-focused" style is the
emphasis placed on the students' activity, on their participation in discovering at
least part of the knowledge to be learned. Dialogue becomes indispensable, as a
fundamental way of working, not only between the teacher and students, but
also within the group, between its members. The choice of one or the other of
these styles depends on the content of the knowledge to be taught and the
personality of the teacher.
Expository-heuristic methods and procedures
The methods are particularly important components both within the didactic
strategies and technologies and represent the system of paths, methods,
procedures, techniques and adequate training means, which ensure the
development and completion of the performance and efficiency of the teaching-
learning process. Within them and in the current educational methodology, the
following methods and procedures would be more significant:
-storytelling (develops imagination and iconic language and thinking, etc.);
-explanation (develops logical thinking, etc.);
-lecture (develops language and thinking, attention and will, etc.);
-conversation (develops language and logical thinking, etc.);
-problematization (develops language, thinking, imagination, etc.);
-discovery (develops thinking, distributive attention, imagination, etc.);
-research and learning through research (the development of logical and
analogical thinking, the spirit of observation, etc.);
-the demonstration (develops logical thinking, the spirit of observation, etc.);
-modeling (develops the sensory component of knowledge, imagination, iconic
thinking, etc.);
-independent observations (develops the sensory component - perception and
representation, critical spirit, evaluative and discriminatory capacity, etc.);
-working with the textbook (develops thinking and certain thinking operations,
memory, independent spirit and certain intellectual skills, etc.);
-experimental works (development of the instrumental side of the personality,
imagination, motor and psychomotor skills, etc.);
-practical and applied works (development of practical skills, abilities,
observational spirit, concrete thinking, etc.);
-group work (develops the spirit of cooperation, the spirit of observation, the
affective and attitudinal component, as well as other character traits, etc.);
-simulation methods (development of imagination, analytical and comparative
thinking, etc.);
-project method (development of imagination, abstract thinking, etc.).
Didactic algorithms refer to the teacher's activity, this being broken down into a
sequence of stages, their unfolding taking place identically every time a certain
category of tasks is to be completed. Students will be instructed, through
repetition, to proceed in the same way. Through learning, these algorithms
become intellectual work techniques. For example, the general didactic
algorithm for solving a problem, the didactic algorithm for organizing an
experimental montage, the didactic algorithm for performing a grammatical
analysis, etc.
Learning algorithms are involved in the content of what is learned. The
operations or sequences are imposed by the logical chaining of knowledge.
Such algorithms are found, mainly, in those disciplines in which the ordering of
knowledge is done according to the logical criterion (inductive or deductive).
We can talk about such algorithms for learning mathematics, physics, chemistry,
technical subjects, etc.
Programmed training or computer-assisted training.
This strategy constitutes an application of the principles of cybernetics to the
educational process and consists in the use of the computer for didactic
purposes in order to transmit information, demonstrate and simulate some
processes, natural phenomena and present didactic games, as well as in
evaluating and recording the progress of pupils/students. The programmed
training is carried out and also aims at certain learning programs dimensioned
according to several principles (small steps, active participation, immediate
strengthening, respecting the individual work rhythm). From this point of view,
there are several types and, obviously, several programs used in this activity.