PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF

TEACHING
(Chapter 7)
TEACHING APPROACHES/STRATEGIES AND
INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES
• With some changes of emphasis on educational goals and objectives, the focus on the
child as the important variable in the educational process, the concept of teaching
method has been diversified and broad-ended and new approaches/strategies and
other instructional practices came about purportedly premised to enhance the
teaching-learning process.
• The teacher should adapt different approaches/strategies of teaching to suit the
needs of the learners.
• There is no single correct way to teach a particular set of pupils/students in class.
• The teacher should be able to make a wise choice of the type of activities that should
be utilized under varying learning conditions.
• The different teaching approaches/strategies of organizing class activities are
presented and discussed are as follows:
 THE CONCEPTUAL APPROACH

• Choosing and defining the content of a certain discipline to be taught

through the use of big or persuasive ideas against the traditional practices
of determining content as by isolated topics.

• The emphasis in not on the content per se, but in the big ideas that
pervade the subject. It is using the content as means of leading the
learners to discover the laws and principles or generalizations that govern
a particular subject.

• Subject matter is taught to enable the students to develop concepts which

are one’s mental picture of anything.
• Not a particular teaching method with specific steps to follow. It is
more of a point of view on how facts and topics under a subject
matter should be dealt with.

• This approach stresses cognitive learning: the learning of content

or acquisition of knowledge; however, this approach requires the
categorization of content from the simple to complex level.

• Conceptual Learning is a meaningful endeavor for students. They

can see and realize that bits of information which seem to be
isolated can be organized and pieced together like a jigsaw-puzzle
around a context in the broader fundamental structure of field of
knowledge.
 Some useful guides to remember I concept
formation are:
1.Concepts should be introduced in context rather than in isolation.

2.Pupils/students should be given opportunity to arrive at their own

meanings of the concept prior to guidance of the teacher.

3.The children should engage in a lot of reading, understanding,

listening, and writing so that they will be exposed to various
situations, leading to the discovery of the correct meaning of the
concept.
MULTI-DISCIPLINARY APPROACH

Attempts are made to relate the disciplines,

but the identity of each discipline is
maintained.
 INTRA-DISCIPLINARY APPROACH
• Involves the organization of social science content using only the
disciplines.

• The most common approach to curriculum organization in many colleges,

specially colleges of education in universities, is the intra-disciplinary
approach.

• The conceptual approach in the social science is that conceptualizing

means examining and reflecting on many illustrative contents and
experiences which serves as building blocks for concepts, which, when
interrelated, enables students to generalize.
 TEAM TEACHING
• An approach or organizing teaching personnel to improve instruction.
• An approach that involves two or more teachers who work
cooperatively with the some group of pupils for a period of time.
• Based on the principles of cooperation of group action.
• The success of this plan depends upon the close cooperation of the
members of the team.
• Teachers are allowed to exchange class or to exchange tasks.
• The different models of team teaching range from the simplest
coordination of two classrooms and two teachers to complex designs
involving many classes, a variety of grouping patterns and hierarchy of
staff.
Team teaching offers a number of advantages such as
the following:

1. Specialization is recognized.
2. Careful planning and execution is possible.
3. Effective teaching is possible.
4. Learners are better stimulated and challenged.
5. More time is available for preparation.
6. Individual differences of the learners can be met.
7. Better education guidance of the students is possible.
8. No fixed patterns for teams has yet been involved.
9. It allows more competent teachers to assume leadership in the
team.
10. Teachers are encouraged and stimulated to specialize in those
aspects of the subject for which they are best qualified.
11. It can be applied in every discipline. It s an excellent set up for
inter-disciplinary combination.
12. Pupils/students are exposed to variety of points of views and
teacher personalities.
 The disadvantages of team teaching include the
following:
1.The first advantage pertain to time. Planning, recording, and evaluating
need time. Teachers have to put time for projects.
2.The second limitation is about space and facilities. The program needs a
lecture or seminar room, overhead projector, sound system and a bigger
space.

• It is believed that when teachers work as a group, when their professional

expertise and talents blend and utilized and are used to the fullest extent
toward the attainment of specific goals, inferentially, the accomplishment
of the group will be greater than the sum total of the individual talents of
each teacher working with his children in the self-contained classroom.
 THE ROLE PLAYING APPROACH

• One of the dramatic ways of presenting learning episodes.

• It is action-filled. Because it consists of an enactment by the students

of a learning situation through which the participants depict real-life
responses and behavior.

• Itis spontaneous acting out of certain problems or situation in a

natural setting.
Steps in role playing that must be observed to achieve
optimum results:

1. Identifying the problem and explain the roles to be played.

2. Establishing the situation in which the action is to happen.
3. Establishing descriptive roles and selecting participants.
4. Presenting the act or line of action.
5. Analyzing and evaluating the presentation of action of each role player,
the adequacy and authenticity of the learning event, the major focus
and other details that are contributory to the vividness of the
presentation of the episode.
 EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

• “Experience is the best teacher”

• Occurrence of personal knowledge and direct experiences are
natural parts of learning.
• Experience is the base and serves as the foundation upon which new
ideas patterns of behavior are formulated.
• Basically a mode of acquiring knowledge and information or skills
through direct and keen observations followed by an in-depth
analysis of what has been registered in the senses how these are
understood.
 The learning requisites of experiential learning
necessitate that:
1. Pupils should be personally involved in the learning tasks.
2. The knowledge or information must be discovered by the students.
3. The objectives of the learning activity must be clearly understood by the learners.
4. There should be degree of flexibility in the way the children pursue learning tasks.
5. The learners should be directly involved in the planning stage of the learning experience.
6. The pupils should be given time sufficient to reflect on the learning situation.
7. The learners should be allowed to interact with each other about their experiences.
8. The tools and materials are readily available to facilitate simple investigation.
9. The learners should record their observations for their analysis, interpretations and conclusions.
10. The inclusion of a wide variety of real-life situations in planning the lessons are carefully
included.
• Experiential learning can be more meaningful and can insure an effective application of principles
and concepts arrived at, if the learning requisites are fully satisfied.
 COOPERATIVE LEARNING APPROACH

• Hinged from the principles postulated by John Dewey and Herbert

Thelen.

• They developed approaches and strategies as well as procedures

to help a relatively small group solve their own problems and at
the same time learn and adapt democratic principles as they
interact with each other in every learning situation.
The characteristics of cooperative learning are:

1. Students work in groups or teams to undertake learning tasks.

2. The intellectual interactions within the groups are controlled by
the members.
3. The members of the group are heterogeneous and made up of
mixed abilities – high, average and low.
4. Reward systems are group oriented.
The effectiveness and success of this approach can be seen on the
following observations:

1. There is a strong motivation and desire of each member of the group to

complete an academic task that is developed.
2. Group work and team effort develop friendliness and willingness to
assist are manifested.
3. Interdependent relationships within the group is developed.
4. Cooperation in groups brings in to members social cohesion and
integration.
5. Cooperation in groups promote a better medium of exchange of ideas,
and encourage respect for other member’s point of view.
6. Cooperative learning groups demonstrate less competitive behavior
• Cooperative learning - as an approach is basically a type of classroom
organization in which pupils work harmoniously in groups to help each other
acquire academic knowledge and information through democratic procedures
and practices.
• Cooperative learning - according to Schechty (1990), is a technique of putting
children in work groups and assuring them that even if they have different
backgrounds, different abilities and experiences in working together in
productive ways.
• Cooperative learning - is perceived to raise the academic achievement and
encourage learners to help and support peers in their group rather than
compete against one another.
• Deutsch (1990) - found out that participants in cooperative learning enjoy the
task; display greater motivation; and finish tasks more efficiently than
individuals who engage in task which utilizes competition.
 PROGRAMMED INSTRUCTION

• Considered as one of the novel developments in education.

• Basically based on the traditional psychological learning principle of
conditioning.
• The word program refers to a coordinated group of activities to be
performed. This planned learning pattern is presented to the pupils in a
sequential manner.
• Programmed instruction may have many types, although they are
characteristically the same.
• Itis simply a teaching approach where materials to be learned are
presented step by step.
The following principles of learning with the use of programmed instruction may be illustrated
in the following learning experiences:

1. Learning by doing is effective.

2. Learning is best facilitated when psychological feed-back are conferred the
leaners.
3. Students learn only when they master ideas and skills step by step
4. Knowledge is facilitated when new techniques for teaching are important.
5. Creativity is promoted.
6. The used of programmed learning materials, will certainly motivate and
encourage team teaching.
7. Programmed learning will allow pupils to participate activity in class activity
 THE INQUIRY APPROACH

• Offers promise in directing the learning activities of the students

to attain their objectives.

• The inquiry-teaching is often referred to as discovery, problem-

solving or scientific thinking.

• Helps the students seek solutions and answers to their own

questions by way of gathering pieces of evidence that are valid
and reliable and draw their own generalizations and conclusions.
Principles underlying the Inquiry Approach:
1. The learning process begins and moves from intuition or a hunch going to
the stage of in-depth analysis.
2. The classroom serves as mini laboratory and the community a big
laboratory for exploration.
3. The students learn as a result of their observations.
4. The students discover relationships.
5. The process brings the learners into more intimate contact with real-life
situations that are essential in abstracting and generalizing empirical data.
6. The methods and procedures utilized by the students in learning through
the inquiry approach are similar to the ways in which scientists think,
work, and organize knowledge.
 THE TEACHER’S ROLE
• The teacher should help and motivate the students learn how to ask
interesting questions.
• The teacher’s own questioning technique will serve as a model or
pattern.
• It is also important that the teacher allows certain flexibility in the
manner the learners are doing their assigned tasks.
• The teacher should involve the students in planning their own ways of
gathering data to test their hypothesis.
• Inquiry teaching extracts tremendous expectations on the teachers
ability to plan, execute and sustain the interest of the learning activity.
The inquiry approach as an important tool, when carefully
and consistently used has certain advantages as follows:

1.When students are directly and actively involve in the learning

process, learning is more permanent and meaningful.
2.A sense of freedom prevails as the learners are encouraged to
explore, discover, compare and test generalization and to search
for new strategies of solving problems.
3.New topics that are discovered, become new opportunities as
students are motivated and encouraged to approach new topics
with confidence rather than anxiety and apprehension.
4.Excitement spread throughout the classroom.
 ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE

• A technique similar to a panel discussion.

• It is usually a small group seated face to face around a round
table and has the characteristics of an informal social gathering.
• The number of participants need not to be large, six to ten are
enough.
• The discussion topic is chosen in which the members are
interested and familiar.
The procedure that is found useful in conducting a round
table conference can be summarized as follows:

1.The introductory remarks, starting the question/problem to be discussed

should be interesting and relevant to the contemporary issue.
2.Statement of the facts of the problem.
3.Presentation of the agenda.
4.Group discussion/ exchanging of ideas of each issue in the agenda.
5.Consideration and deliberation of what action to take as a result of the
discussion.

The round table conference is an instructional practice where free

communication and exchange of ideas among the participants take place to
achieve some desired objectives.
 Panel Discussion

• In a panel discussion, it is important for all participating

members to have adequate knowledge of all aspects of the
subject for deliberation other than their prepared
“speaches”.

• Members are given the opportunity to interact freely.

 Symposium Forum

- Is a form of meeting or a conference for the

discussion of some important subjects, at which several
speakers discuss a topic before an audience.
 The Workshop

- Is used as a technique of in-service education which

involves group planning. It involves the utilization of the
group process in identifying, analyzing and solving
educational problems and issues.
 Mechanics of the Workshop

- Normally, various committees are constituted, The

committee works out the preliminary planning of the
proposed activity, the members of the group are divided into
sub- committees to take charge of a specific area of concern
or group problems.
 Synergic

- This teaching device is designed to develop a testing

learning environment that fosters working together with the
spirit of cooperation with a common purpose to share the
benefits.
 Educational Field Trip

- Field studies as a teaching approach is an out-of-the-

classroom teaching activity to introduce pupils on an
environment which is the most natural and realistic manner.
It takes the learners where growth an development abound
or a place where natural phenomena occur.
 Integrative Teaching

- This teaching technique is concerned with the

development of a well-rounded personality – an individual
who can adjust and respond to any given situation.
 Integrative Activities

- Planning of integrative activity requires careful

preparations of the teachers so that the desired objectives
will be successful.
 Some Modes of Integrative Teaching

- Integrative teaching is an educational movement that lets

questioning and problem solving, rather than the structure of
the academic disciplines.
 Thematic teaching

- Teaching themes organize learning around ideas. It

provide a broad framework for linking content and process
form a variety of disciplines