Method of Teaching

UNIT: ONE

1. Nature of Teaching & Teaching Profession

 Contents
1. Nature of Teaching and Teaching Profession
1.1 The meaning of teaching and learning
1.2 Principles of effective teaching
1.3 The teaching profession and its characteristics
1.1 The Meaning of Teaching & Learning
Definition of teaching
• Teaching is one crucial aspect of education.
• Its purposes are:
 Process of helping people to learn.
 Assisting people to make new knowledge and apply it meaningfully in the
relevant environment.
Its meanings could be:
It is conveying of knowledge to people by any means (using formal, non formal or
informal approaches).
A tool for transforming knowledge through the process of three domains (cognitive,
psychomotor, & affective).
 Definition of learning
Its main purposes:
 Adaptation
  adapting to our constantly changing environment.
 Development
 capacitation & potential realization
 broadening and deepening of knowledge 
Its meaning can be;
 Relatively permanent change of behavior
 Cause of change of behavior are practice and experience
1.2 Principles of Effective Teaching

Effective Teaching

Teaching will be called effective teaching if:

• It facilitates critical thinking and ensures development of problem solving
abilities ( knowledge, skill & attitude) of learners through appropriately
organized instruction.
Some Basic Principles of Effective Teaching

1. Encourage students
 Let them know that their teacher cares about their progress
 Their teacher want them to persist at learning tasks, even when the tasks are
difficult.
 Get them show their intellectual and emotional commitment to enhance
learning
2. Encourage cooperation among students
Get them know that:
 Learning is an interactive process by nature
 Collaboration among them is necessary for developing social responsibility &
deepening learning
3. Encourage active learning
Students learn better when they are engaged in:
 Asking, answering, debating, writing, relating, talking about learning contents
4. Give prompt feedback
Giving feed back helps:
 Guide students’ effort,
 Identify learning progress and
 verify how much to go to fully learn it
5. Emphasize time on task
This helps to:
 Converge attention to the specific task of learning
 Save time for the content learning
 Develop time management skill
6. Communicate high expectations
To communicate enthusiasm the teacher needs to convey :
 Fascinating presentations
 Lively learning activities
 Lovely learning situation
7. Respect diverse talents and ways of learning
This refers to:
 Being ethical as a professional
 Unbiased, fair in judgement
 Even & responsive to all
 Consistent in integrity
8. Be organized and prepared
Doing so helps:
 Maximize the performance of all students
 Initiate learners motivation
9. Communicate enthusiasm
This includes:
Understanding of differences among students such as:
 Talents,
 Learning styles
 Learning opportunity preferences and others
10. Be fair and ethical
This refers to:
 Well planned instruction
 Being organized and
 Integrity of teacher personality
1.3 The Teaching Profession and Its Characteristics

Definition of profession

A profession is a bigger umbrella of an occupation of a specific field of knowledge,

skill and attitude which has come through long period of training.

A profession is characterized by the following:

 A life time commitment to career,
 Having defined body of knowledge and skill,
 Passing through a period of training program
 Having autonomy in decision making about selected sphere of work,

 Acceptance of responsibility for judgments made,

 Belonging to a self-governing professional organization of members,

 Existence of professional organization like COC to recognize individual

performance.

 Presence of code of ethics regarding doubtful points related to services and

 Teaching is a profession because it fulfills those criteria that are set to
characterize a profession.

 Teaching is an art and a science because its practice requires individual’s unique
gift and creativity (artistic role) and utilization of scientific facts, principles,
procedures and outputs(science) to accomplish the task of teaching.
 Unit Two
Perspectives on Instructional Processes

2. Major Perspectives/Theories of an Instruction

 Educational psychology theories are applicable in an instructional setting
to help teachers make appropriate instructional decisions. Some of the
major theories are:

1. Developmental theories

2. Cognitive theories and

3. Behavioral theories of learning

1. Developmental Theory

 The main contribution of this theory is its insight on the mutual importance of
learning and maturation for personal development (such as intellectual,
psychological, physical and emotional development).

 More specifically, how our behavioral change/learning/ is facilitated by

aging/maturational changes and the environment
With respect to human cognitive development we have the following significant
theories:

A. Human develops intellectually through developmental stages (e.g., Piaget’s

theory of cognitive development-refer the 4 stages.)

1. Sensorimotor stage from birth to 2 years;

2. Preoperational stage from 2 to 6 years;

3. Concrete operational stage from 7 to 11 years; and

4. Formal operations stage from 11 to 15 years and up.

B. Intellectual development comes as a result of zone of proximal development and
patterns of social interaction (Lev Vygotsky).

This theory focuses on the role of:

 Culture and language for cognitive development (language development &
nature of the culture play much more)
 Continued participation of the learner in the social interaction. A guided
participation of the learner
 Expert guidance to facilitate gap filling(zone)of the learner-Called the method
it scaffolding.

However, he never mentioned the contribution of individual’s role for their own
learning.
2. Cognitive Theories
 These theories are focused on the process of thinking and ways of information
processing to develop intellectual abilities or cognition.

 According to these theories knowledge, skill and attitudinal changes are the
consequences of changes in mental processes and abilities.

 Factors that have significant role for information processing during instruction are:
 Attention

 Active engagement
 Strategies of information acquiring, processing, storing and recall

 Teacher assessment, follow up and feed back.

Principles of the Cognitive Model of Instruction

1. Engage students in active learning and problem solving.

2. use a wide range of learning strategies based on their learning preferences. Note
that these strategies have to clear, specific and easy for application (E.g., visual
or graphic organizers, peg method, mnemonics, rehearsal (maintenance or
elaborative),etc.,

3. Promote students to take responsibility for their own learning and problem
solving.

4. Allocate fair time for students to apply new skills

5. The teacher is responsible for instructional decisions. And the student is

responsible for own learning
Cognitive model Instructional Approaches

1. Learner-Activated Instruction
 Student-initiated learning (or self-directed learning),

 Students determine how to reach the desired learning outcomes

 Uses small groups, individuals working on projects or activities.

 There is little sequencing of instruction, and

 The teacher a prompter, question asker, clarifier; in short, a facilitator of learning.

 practice of independent study

2. Teacher-initiated Instruction
 Has an academic focus,

 Little choice of activity for individual students,

 Large-group instruction, and

 Teacher domination over most curricular and instructional decisions.

3. Constructive Theory of Learning
 Is a subset of the cognitive theory.

 Is a more student-centered instructional model,

 Tends to be part of a social-constructivist category.

 Believe that knowledge is constructed not transferred.

 The student is constructor of knowledge.

To do so:

 The learner needs to have a direct exposure to new environment and should
interpret it using his/her prior knowledge.
Characteristics of constructivist theory of instruction:
1. Emphasis on prior experience

2. Personal construction of meaning .

3. Contextual and shared learning

4. Changing roles for teachers and learners
3. Behavioral Learning Theory
Behaviorists perspectives of teaching

 Learning is seen as an observable change of behavior.

 Believe in necessity of behavioral objectives to guide lesson design

 They focus on the establishment specific learning objectives and building a sequence of
learning activities that proceed from simple to more complex followed by method and
strict assessment.

 Believe on transfer of learning, i.e., application of knowledge in a new situation.

 They employ teacher initiated instruction: i.e., establishing specific learning objectives
and building a sequence of learning activities that proceed from simple to more complex