DISCOVERY APPROACH

Discovery Approach - is a teaching strategy which aims to assist the student in finding solutions or answers
to a problem or attaining a learning objective through self-discovery.
- It based on the fact that students acquire new knowledge by experiencing things themselves through
discovery.
- It was introduced by an American Psychologist, Jerome Brunner who supported the
constructivism paradigm and learning by doing.

Types of Discovery Approach

1. Guided Discovery - is an approach to instruction by which the teacher tries to draw out from his
pupils certain bits of information through properly organized questions and explainations leading them to
the eventually discovery to particular concepts or principles.

2. Pure Discovery - is an approach when the pupils are expected to arrive at certain concepts and
principles copletely by themeselves.

Characteristis of Discovery Approach

1. Hands-on activities.
2. Minimal teacher movement.
3. Focus on problem-solving.
4. Since the student discovers what they planned to look for, learning becomes permanent.
5. The joy and pride in discovering is worth all the time and effort spent.
6. The use of all the senses makes observation keen and reliable.

Five Principles of Discovery Approach

1. Problem Solving. Discovery learning emplies that the instructors encourage the learners to look for
solutions themeselves.

2. Learner Management. Participants get the opportunity to work with groupmates of learn at their
own pace. Such freedom and flexibility relieve the learners and make them feel their own learning.

3. Integrating and Connecting. Teachers help their learners to combine prior knowledge with acquired
one.

4. Information Analysis and Interpretation. Discovery-based learning is not contentoriented.

Students learnto analyze and interpret the acquired information.

5. Failure and Feedback. Failure is a great way to learn what works and what doesn ’ t but the new
things we discover. As a result, it is the teachers’ responsibility to provide feedback. Otherwise, learning
will be incomplete.
Steps in Discovery Approach
1. Identification and exploration of a problem
2. Statement of Hypothesis
3. Experimentation and gathering of data,
4. Solution of a tentative hypothesis, and
5. Verification

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

Advantages
 Foster curiosity.
 Offers active engagement of the student in learning process.
 Enables the development of lifelong learning skills.
 Tends to personalize the learning experience.
 Provides active involvement that makes the learners construct a response.
 It is encouraging and motivating. It increases the individuals ’ pleasure of successfully solving
problems and recalling information.
 It is claimed that students are more likely to remember concepts and information if their discover
them on their own.

Disadvantages
 Discovery can be a very time-consuming method, often taking much longer for information to be
acquired than would occur with direct teaching.
 Discovery methods often require a resourcerich learning environment.
 Effective learning by discovery usually depends upon learners having adequate literacy, numeracy,
independent study skills and self-management.
 Students may learn little value from discovery activities if they lack an adequate knowledge
base for interpreting their discoveries accurately.
 Less capable ones may be not be successful despite guidance.
 It may lead to trial-and-error unless properly guided.