Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education/Chapter 10/What constitutes an effective instructional method? 3
From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection
By: Dale Paul Lazar
[edit] Introduction
Effective instructional methods vary from teacher to teacher and student to student. That statement, in and of itself, is part of what is believed to be one effective instructional method - one that incorporates individualized learning. In the past, the idealized structure of teaching was utilized by rote memorization and other bland tactics that left the student without an invigorated form of comprehension. In other words, students are required to regurgitate unretained and unsynthesized information onto a test (citation).
"I believe that most of us are too quick to name things when we are with small children. By simply naming a thing and letting it go at that when a child asks, "What is that?" we communicate that the name or label is the most important thing, that naming is sufficient. We deprive our children of their sense of wonder and discovery by labeling and categorizing things in the physical world. Instead of merely naming a tree, for example, try also guiding your child through an exploration of the tree both physically and mentally. This exploration may include touching, smelling, seeing from various angles, comparing one tree with another, imagining the inside of the tree and the parts underground, listening to the leaves, viewing the tree at different times of the day or during different seasons, planting its seeds, observing how other creatures - birds, moths, bugs - use the tree, and so on. After discovering that every object is fascinating and complex, a child will begin to understand that the label is only a small part of the whole. Thus taught, a child's sense of wonder will survive, even under our modern avalanche of words (Edwards 272)."
Every generation believes it has the final solution in the evolution of education, as though it were a linear concept. Yet instructional designers - professionals who attempt to develop systems that analyze learning needs - must understand that improving education is a dynamic process that needs constant revision and execution of those revisions. There are various forms of instructional methods employed today that weren't used in yesteryears and yet, are likely to change in the future with the advancement of technology. "As is so often the case with social institutions, the experts of a particular time are often seen in retrospect as anachronistic, uninformed, generally off the mark, or naive about what they profess for their times and for the future (Griffin 3)." What follows are several contemporary concepts that have produced positive changes in this nation's educational system, along with their advantages and disadvantages.
[edit] Various Methods of Instruction
Direct Education/Direct Instruction
Direct Instruction (DI) is a model for teaching that emphasizes well-developed and carefully planned lessons designed around small learning increments and clearly defined and prescribed teaching tasks. It is based on the theory that clear instruction, eliminating misinterpretations, can greatly improve and accelerate learning. It's marked by continuous feedback and observation by NIFDI officials. It is currently in use in thousands of schools across the nation as well as in Canada, the UK and Australia (NIFDI 2006). (http://www.nifdi.org/)
For Advantages and Disadvantages of various instructional methods visit the table at http://www.adprima.com/teachmeth.htm: Cooperative Learning, Lecture, Lecture with Discussion, Panel of Experts, Brainstorming, Video/Slides, Discussion, Small Group Discussion, Case Studies, Role Playing, Workesheet/Surveys, Guest Speakers, and Values Clarification
Note to readers: This table is very important and must be viewed in order to understand methods of teaching from this webpage. A similar table for the wikibooks site is pending so that visiting the www.adprima.com site will no longer be necessary.
[edit] Conclusion
"Any instructional method a teacher uses has advantages and disadvantages, and requires some preliminary preparation. Oftentimes, a particular teaching method will naturally flow into another, all within the same lesson, and excellent teachers have developed the skills to make the process seamless to the students. Which instructional method is "right" for a particular lesson depends on many factors. Among these factors are the age and developmental level of the students, what the students already know, and what they need to know to succeed with the lesson, the subject-matter content, the objective of the lesson, the available people, time, space and material resources, and the physical setting. Another, more difficult problem is to select an instructional method that best fits one's particular teaching style and the lesson-situation. There is no one "right" method for teaching a particular lesson, but there are some criteria that pertain to each that can help a teacher make the best decision possible (http://www.adprima.com/teachmeth.htm 2006)."
An effective instructional method:
- encourages contact between students and faculty,
- develops reciprocity and cooperation among students,
- encourages active learning,
- gives prompt feedback,
- emphasizes time on task,
- communicates high expectations, and
- respects diverse talents and ways of learning
http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/7princip.htm
Side Bar
This excerpt is from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, by Dr. Betty Edwards , a leading educator in the fine arts. The portion that is in italics is the focus and this author's intention for the sidebar. The information not in italics also proposes very thought provoking insights in education and methods of instruction, but is mainly set-up material. Without it, the italicized area wouldn't make as much sense.
"As a teacher and parent, I've had a very personal interest in seeking new ways of teaching. Like most other teachers and parents, I've been well aware - painfully so, at times - that the whole teaching/learning process is extraordinarily imprecise, most of the time a hit-and-miss operation. Students may not learn what we think we are teaching them and what they learn may not be what we intended to teach them at all. I remember one clear example of the problem of communicating what is to be learned. You may have heard of or gone through a similar experience with a student or your child. Years ago, the child of a friend whom I was visiting arrived home from his day at school, all excited about something he had learned. He was in the first grade and his teacher had started the class on reading lessons. The child, Gary, announced that he had learned a new word. "That's great, Gary," his mother said. "What is it?" He thought for a moment, then said, "I'll write it down for you." On a little chalkboard the child carefully printed, HOUSE. "That's fine, Gary," his mother said. "What does it say?" He looked at the word, then at his mother and said matter-of-factly, "I don't know."
The child apparently had learned what the word looked like - he had learned the visual shape of the word perfectly. The teacher, however, was teaching another aspect of reading - what words mean, what words stand for or symbolize. As often happens, what the teacher had taught and what Gary had learned were strangely incongruent.
As it turned out, my friend's son always learned visual material best and fastest, a mode of learning consistently preferred by a number of students. Unfortunately, the school world is mainly a verbal, symbolic world, and learners like Gary must adjust, that is, put aside their best way of learning and learn the way the school decrees. My friend's child, fortunately, was able to make this change, but how many other students are lost along the way?
This forced shift in learning style must be somewhat comparable to a forced change in handedness. It was common practice in former times to make individuals who were naturally left-handed to change over to right-handedness. In the future, we may come to regard forcing children to change their natural learning modes with the same dismay that we now regard the idea of forcing a change in handedness. Soon we may be able to test children to determine their best learning styles and choose from a repertoire of teaching methods to ensure that children learn both visually and verbally. Teachers have always known that children learn in different ways and, for a long time now, people who have the responsibility for educating youngsters have hoped that the advances in brain research would shed some light on how to teach all students equally well. Until about fifteen years ago, new discoveries about the brain seemed to be useful mainly to science. But these discoveries are now being applied to ther fields and the recent research that I've outlined in this book promises to provide a firm basis for fundamental changes in techniques of education.
David Galin, among other researchers, has pointed out that teachers have three main tasks: first, to train both hemispheres - not only the verbal, symbolic, logical left hemisphere, which has always been trqained in the traditional education, but also the relational, holistic right hemisphere, which is largely neglected in today's schools; second, to train students to use the cognitive style suited to the tasks at hand; and third, to train students to be able to bring both styles - both hemispheres - to bear on a problem in an integrated manner.
When teachers can pair the complementary modes or fit one mode to the appropraite task, teaching and learning will become a much more precise process. Ultimately, the goal will be to develop both halves of the brain. Both modes are necessary for full human functioning and both are necessary for creative work of all kinds, whether writing or painting, developing a new theory in physics, or dealing with environmental problems.
This is a difficult goal to present to teachers, coming as it does at a time when education is under attack from many quarters. But our society is changing rapidly and the difficulties of foreseeing what kinds of skills future generations will require are increasing, Although we have so far depended on the rational, left half of the human brain to plan our children's future and to solve the problems they might encounter on the way to that future, the onslaught of profound change is shaking our confidence in technological thinking and in the old methdods of education. Without abandoning training in tradtional verbal and computational skills, concerned teachers are looking for teaching techniques that will enhance children's intuitive and creative powers, thus preparing students to meet new challenges with flexibility, inventiveness, and imagination and with the ability to grasp complex arrays of interconnected ideas and facts, to perceive underlying patterns of events, and to see old problems in new ways.
What can you, as parents and teachers, hope to accomplish right now in terms of teaching both halves of children's brains? First, it's important that you know the specialized functions and styles of our hemispheres...
Second, you need to help students to become aware of the different ways they can respond to the same material. For example, you might have students read one passage for facts and ask for verbal or written responses. The same passage might then be read for meaning underlying content accessible through imagery and metaphoric thought. For this learning mode, you might require as a response a poem, painting, dance, riddle, pun, fable, or song. As another example, certain kinds of arithmetic and mathematics problems require a linear, logical thought. Others require imaginary rotations of forms in space or manipulations of numbers, which are best accomplished by mentally producing patterned visualizations. Try to discover - either through noting you own thought processes or observing your students - which tasks utlize the style of the right hemisphere, which require the style of the left, and which require complementary or simultaneos styles.
Third, you might experiment with varying the conditions in your classroom - at least those conditions over which you have some control. For example, talking among students or constant talking by a teacher probably tends to lock students fairly rigidly into the left-hemisphere mode. If you can cause your students to make a strong shift to R-mode, you will have a condition that is very rare in modern classrooms: silence. Not only will the students be silent, they will be engaged in the task at hand, attentive and confident, alert and content. Learning becomes pleasurable. This aspect alone of R-mode is worth striving for. Be sure that you yourself encourage and maintain this silence.
As additional suggections, you might experience with rearranging the seating or the lighting. Physical movement, especially patterned movement such as dancing, might help to reproduce the cognitive shift. Music is conducive to R-mode shifts. Drawing and painting, as you have seen in this book, produce strong shifts to R-mode. You might experiment with private languages, perhaps inventing a pictorial language with which the students can communicate in your classroom. I recommend using the chalkboard as much as possible - not just to write words but also to draw pictures, diagrams, illustrations, and patterns. Ideally, all information should be presented in at least two modes: verbal and pictographic. You might experiment with reducing the verbal content of your teaching by substituting nonverbal communication when that mode seems suitable.
Last, I hope you will consciously use your intuitive powers to develope teaching methods and communicate those methods to other teachers through workshops or teachers' journals. You are probably already using many techniques - intuitively or by conscious design - that cause cognitive shifts. As teachers, we need to share our discoveries, just as we share the goal of a balanced, integrated, whole-brain future for our children.
As parents, we can do a great deal to further this goal by helping our children develop alternative ways of knowing the world - verbally/analytically and visually/spatially. During the crucial early years, parents can help to shape a child's life in such a way that words do not completely mask other kinds of reality. My most urgent suggestions to parents are concerned with the use of words, or rather, not using words (Edwards 270-272).
Essay Question:
What are the advantages and disadvantages of 5 teaching techniques mentioned in the www.apdima.com table?
Multiple Choice Questions
1. What technique(s) can teachers use to get students to use both halves of the brain as mentioned by Dr. Betty Edwards?
A. Help students to become aware of the different ways they can respond to the same material
B. Rearrange the seating or the lighting
C. Vary the conditions in your classroom
D. All of the above
2. To determine which instructional method is "right" for a particular lesson the teacher should consider...
E. Writing a song about it, doing the hokey-pokey, and turning it all about.
F. The age and developmental level of the students, what the students already know, and what they need to know to succeed with the lesson.
G. Asking the students what to do.
H. All of the above
3. Brainstorming is often utilized by teachers but, what are some disadvantages?
W. It Can be unfocused.
X. Value to students depends in part on their maturity level.
Y. Students may have difficulty getting away from known reality.
Z. All of the above
4. What are some advantages of Discussion:
E. Requires careful planning by teacher to guide discussion
L. Allows everyone to participate in an active process
A. A few students can dominate
D. All of the above
5. An Effective Instructional Method:
L. Encourages active learning
U. Gives prompt feedback
A. Encourages contact between students and faculty
P. All of the above
ANSWERS
1.D
2.F
3.Z
4.L
5.P
Bibliography
Edwards, Dr. Betty. The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Penguin Putnam Inc. New York. 1999 p 270-272
Griffin, Gary A. The Education of Teachers, Ninety-eighth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago, Illinois. 1999 p 3
http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/7princip.htm
http://www.adprima.com/teachmeth.htm
 |
||
 |
Rate This! |  |
 |
||
