Methods of Teaching

A teacher has to make use of various kinds of methods, devices and techniques of teaching. A teacher
has to make use of a suitable method for making his teaching meaningful, purposeful, interesting and
effective. A good method of teaching can bring out good results even from a weak curriculum. On the
other hand a bad method of teaching can make a mess of a good curriculum. Therefore, it can rightly be
said that success or failure of teaching depends on its methods. The methods of teaching should be
according to the needs and interest of learners.

Teaching Methodology

Teaching and learning are the two sides of a coin. The most accepted criterion for measuring good
teaching is the amount of student learning that occurs. There are consistently high correlations between
students’ ratings of the “amount learned” in the course and their overall ratings of the teacher and the
course. There are different types of teaching methods that can be categorized into four broad types.

1. Teacher-centered methods,
2. Learner-centered methods,
3. Content-focused methods; and
4. Interactive/participative methods.

1. Teacher-Centered Methods

Here the teacher casts himself/herself in the role of being a master of the subject matter. The teacher is looked
upon by the learners as an expert or an authority. Learners, on the other hand, are presumed to be passive and
copious recipients of knowledge from the teacher.

Examples of such methods are expository or lecture methods– which require little or no involvement of learners in
the teaching process. It is also for this lack of involvement of the learners in what they are taught, that such
methods are called “closed-ended”.

2. Learner-Centered Methods

In learner-centered methods, the teacher/instructor is both a teacher and a learner at the same time. In the words
of Lawrence Stenhouse, the teacher plays a dual role as a learner as well “so that in his classroom extends rather
than constricts his intellectual horizons”.

The teacher also learns new things every day which he/she didn’t know in the process of teaching. The teacher
“becomes a resource rather than an authority”. Examples of learner-centered methods are the discussion method,
the discovery or inquiry-based approach, and Hill’s model of learning through discussion (LTD).

3. Content-Focused Methods

In this category of methods, both the teacher and the learners have to fit into the content that is taught. Generally,
this means the information and skills to be taught are regarded as sacrosanct or very important.

A lot of emphasis is laid on the clarity and careful analyses of content. Both the teacher and the learners cannot
alter or become critical of anything to do with the content. An example of a method that subordinates the interests
of the teacher and learners to the content is the programmed learning approach.
4. Participative Methods

This fourth category borrows a bit from the three other methods without necessarily laying emphasis unduly on
either the learner, content, or teacher. These methods are driven by the situational analysis of what is the most
appropriate thing for us to learn/do now given the situation of learners and the teacher.

Various Types of Teaching Method

A teaching method comprises the principles and methods used by teachers to enable student learning.
These strategies are determined partly on subject matter to be taught and partly by the nature of the
learner. For a particular teaching method to be appropriate and efficient it has to be in relation with the
characteristic of the learner and the type of learning it is supposed to bring about. Any Teacher or
Student can choose any method of teaching on the basis of their requirements from the given bellow of
teaching method-

1. Brain Storming Method

2. Project Method
3. Role Play Method
4. Story Board Teaching Method
5. Teaching Outside the Classroom
6. Problem Solving Method
7. Programmed Instruction Method
8. Small Group Instruction Method
9. Flipped Classroom Teaching Method
10. Assignment Method of Teaching
11. Buzz Group Teaching Method
12. Demonstration Method
13. Discussion Method of Teaching
14. Team Teaching Method

Characteristics and advantages of good teaching method

1. It should provide a group of related experiences and activities, arranged on an individual as well
as group basis.
2. It should give scope for the creative expression of the child's individuality.
3. It should rouse a large range of interest in the minds of the students.
4. It should shift emphasis from verbalism and memorization to learning through purposeful,
concrete and realistic situations.
5. It should train the students in the techniques of self-study and the methods of acquiring
knowledge through personal effort or intuition.
6. It should stimulate the desire for further study and explorations.
7. It should awaken an interest in the materials and techniques used by social scientists.

Factors which determine the selection of a teaching method

1. The nature of the child

2. The objectives of instruction
3. The nature of the subject matter
4. Class room environment
5. Expertise of the teacher who adopts a method.
Meaning of Principle

Learning of many skills, acts and ideas goes on during living without the guidance and direction of a
specific person known as teacher; but, because society does not believe that its children can learn
enough in this manner, it has made provision to employ trained individuals to facilitate the educational
growth of its offspring. The society expects that through such arrangement the learning and growth of
their offsprings would be faster and more desirable than that if improvement were left to itself.

A principle, then, is a guide which keeps instructional activities pointed in the right direction. Persons
hired for this purpose must know the principles involved in their work as instructors. Effective teaching
is the utilization of basic principles of directing the learning of others.

General Principles of Teaching

1. Principle of Learning by Doing:- After the selection of objectives there arises the problem of
directing the learning activities. How to achieve aims and objectives, what methods or strategies should
be adopted, pupils best learn through self-activity. Everything that enters into pupils education enters in
but one way; through the activity of the pupils.

A teacher should first learn through personal experience what is self-activity. He should rehearse
himself learning through self-activity. Self-activity is composed of many specific operations. A pupil
generally employs a number of operations. His total operations are grasped under the term "self-
activity". We learn by reacting. Learning takes place only during activity. While learning a pupil performs
so many activities. At one time a pupil looks; at another time he listens; he makes a drawing; he closes
his eyes and visualizes; he recalls something, he goes to the dictionary and looks up a word; he uses the
word in his discourse; he makes a guess.

2. Principle of Worthwhile Objective:- This principle of goals and objectives is the most important
principle of teaching, because objective give direction to our teaching. An objective states the purpose
of teaching. It tells what the learner will be able to do after this teaching act or acts. An objective should
be formulated in such a way that the behaviour which a learner will show is clearly visible in it. A
worthwhile instructional objective should be have the following characteristics:

1. It should identify a learning outcome;

2. It should be consistent with the curriculum aim;
3. It should be precise;
4. It should be functional;
5. It should be significant; and,
6. It should be appropriate.

A teacher should construct instructional objectives and should convey these objectives to the students.
This step can save a lot of time and energy of the students; because they will be knowing before they
are going.

3. Principle of Release of Energy:- This principle is based upon a psychological principle of motivation.
Pupils are stock holders in the learning enterprise. Pupils are full of energy, the job of the teacher is to
get the energy released and then directing of it into profitable ways of learning the most worthwhile
objectives.

To answer the question how teachers can help pupils to release energy or how energy can be released,
no rule of thumb technique is possible. The forces as within pupils cause the releases; an outside.
facilitation of that release can succeed only when it pulls in the same direction as the forces within. In
order to know the direction of the forces working within the individual, the teacher must study his
motives, mental and emotional leanings, natural and acquired inclinations and their equipment for ding
and reacting.

In order to implement this principle, teacher should study the psychology of the learner and then he
should facilitate the release of energy by providing situations which motivate the learner to learn more
and increase his efforts to sustain original effort.

4. Principle of Relevance:- Self-activity should be psychologically sound is a fundamental principle

which should guide the selection of learning activities. The above principle implies that learning
activities should be in fullest agreement with the type and types of learning involved in attaining the
objectives. This agreement can be attained through the process of analysis of learning objectives into
the types of learning, and types of learned capabilities required for learning.

Teacher should first analyze himself the type of learning he aims at producing among his pupils.
Different types of activities are required for sensory experience type of learning, conceptual type of
learning, memory type of learning. motor type of learning, problem solving type of learning, or learning
to reasoning. So, according to the type of learning desired to attain the objectives, learning activities
should be selected by the learner.

5. Principle of Unitary Learning:- Unitary learning implies that what is to be learned is larger and more
involved than a few scattered fragments. This type of learning necessities the use of interrelationship
and interlocking ideas before a final and highly significant understanding or insights developed. Burton
differentiated unitary learning from fragmentary learning. A child is able to add, subtract, multiply or
divide when told to do so, but when left to herself was just likely to subtract numbers intended, to be
multiplied or divided. Because the child can perform the computation skill when told to do, the teacher
will say that the pupil has learned the computation skills but his learning a fragmentary because he
cannot perform these operations of his own. In unitary learning the child will be able to perform these
operations without telling what to do with what numbers.

Learning is not unitary if it drops off before application is reached. In such a situation pupil will be
unable to use and apply the facts and information in meeting life situations. The learner himself is not
conscious of the needed completeness and finality of learning, unless he is confronted with a situation
which demand application of the facts and knowledge learnt. Teacher should create such learning
activities and situations so that child's learning is complete and unitary.

6. Principle of Providing Ideal Learning Environment:- This principle is based on the premise ideal
learning can take place only in ideal environment. A classroom should provide ideal environment in
order to realize the purpose for which the room was established. The physical and. social environment
of the classroom should be such so as to promote better learning. Some people say that physical
environment does not affect quality of learning.

7. Principle of Individual Differences:- In secondary schools, individual differences can be noticed in

every phase of learning. Individual differ in many ways. They differ in their abilities, aptitudes, attitudes,
habits, interests and achievements. The factors giving rise to differences are many but among the most
important are heredity, home training, educational opportunities, health, nourishment and
environmental factors.

8. Principle of Diagnostic and Remedial Teaching:- This principle of teaching requires that teachers
should find out the strengths and weakneses of each student in the course, topics or even in a lesson.
On the basis of this diagnosis, they should arrange of remedial instruction within the school hours or
after the school hours. The diagnosis may be carried out through the use of diagnostic tests or by other
means. The remedial instruction may be in the form of assignments programmed materials, exercises,
extra practice sessions in case of skills.
Psychological Principle of Teaching

In addition to general principles, a teacher may follow some psychological principles to improve
teaching-learning process. Some of these principles are discussed below:

1. Principle of Readiness:- A pupil is ready to learn something when he has achieved sufficient
paychological maturation and experi mental background that he not only can but wants to learn it.
While formulating instructional objectives, teacher should keep in mind these factors Piaget has given
relationship between-psychological growth and mental growth. Accordingly a child of two months will
not learn walking as he is not physically mature enough to perform the act. Principle of readiness warns
the teachers to take up only those tasks for teaching which are suitable for learners according to their
psychological maturation.

2. The Law of Effect:- This means a sense of success and satisfaction must accompany the learning
process. Psychologists have discovered through experimentation that children learn best when
satisfaction and a feeling of being successful accompanies their work, and if they feel dissatisfied or are
possessed of a sense of failure, then the learning process is retarded. But most of us do not use this
principle in our classes. On the other hand, teachers believes that it is better or if the child's satisfaction
and feeling of success are disregarded. In order to implement the law of effect, the teachers must make
the child feel satisfied with and happy in what he is learning.

3. Principle of Attention:- Fatigue and Rest. The teacher in order to be successful in his job has to study
the interests of his students because attention depends on interest. The teacher should try to assess the
interests of students. He should use the skill of stimulus variation to arrest the attention of his class. He
should organise appropriate classroom climate for the development of voluntary attention.

Lack of interest is not always the only reason for distraction of attention from a lesson. Sometimes, due
to fatigue, children find. themselves unable to pay attention to the lesson. It may be mental or physical
or both. So, a teacher should sequence and plan his teaching in such a way so as to avoid fatigue during
the lesson. Mental activities should follow physical activities or vice-versa. Wherever teacher finds
students in his class showing symptoms of fatigue, he should immediately switch over to some easier
and more interesting topic.

4. Principle of Motivation:- This principle requires that the teacher should motivate the child, i.e., make
the child interested in attaining the objectives of teaching, if a child is mentally prepared to learn, the
task of the teacher will become very easy. A motivated child requires half of the efforts to learn than an
unmotivated child. The purpose of motivation is to produce a stage of eagerness or willingness to learn.
Instead of saying that today we will study about electrical instruments, he should create a situation in
which students, actually handle electrical instruments like electric bell, batteries, bulbs and others.

5. Principle of Exercise:- We learn what we practice and we do not. learn what we do not, practice, but
most of the teachers do not apply it in the classrooms. They do not devote any time for arranging
practice exercises for the students. Students memorise the rules, laws, facts without applying them to
real situations. The best way of teaching rules of health and hygiene is to make children practice the
health rules in real life.

This rule is an essential requirement in stimulus response type learning. The response get fixed in the
minds of the pupils through repetition and exercise. Teacher should apply this principle in their classes
by providing practice sessions.

6. Principle of Self-Learning:- In order to inculcate self confidence, positive self concept and field-
independent cognitive style among pupils, teachers should use self-instructional techniques. The use of
programmed learning material or arranging learning activities through learning packages will
encourage self-learning.
The principle of self-learning, if employed by teachers, will enable them to individualize instructions in
group situations. The problem of different rates of learning by different pupils will be solved. Because in
self-learning material, every individual will learn at his or her own speed. The learning rate of one pupil
will not effect another pupil's learning.

7. Principle of Group Dynamics:- Teacher should not follow single method of teaching, rather he
should prepare a strategy of teaching in which methods, media and materials are integrated in such a
way so as to provide group as well as individual learning situations. Teacher should know group
dynamics. Project method is a suitable method for inculcating desirable group behaviour among pupils.
In order to produce democratic climate in the classroom, teacher should see that students participate in
various learning activities.

8. Principle of Fostering Creativity and Self-Expression:- Most of our school as well as college learning
train only left hemisphere of our pupils. All our methods of teaching encourage convergent thinking. In
order to develop other hemisphere, teacher must provide occasions which call for divergent thinking.
Creativity and self-expression are necessary to prepare pupils to produce new creations in tile field of
arts and other spheres.

9. Principle of Involving more than one sense in teaching learning process:- In perceptual learning,
pupils learn through senses. Researches have shown that learning is more permanent if learning
material is exposed through more than one medium. This means that a teacher should use various
teaching aids in the classroom. Audio-visual aids such as TV, motion pictures are more effective modes
of instruction, than lectures or print materials because lectures involve only sense of hearing and print-
material involve sense of light, but TV involves both these senses. So, teacher should select teaching
activities and other learning materials which involve the use of more than one sense.

10. Principle of Tolerance, Cooperation and Praise:- In order to create good socio-emotional climate
in the class a teacher must use this principle of cooperation and praise. He should appreciate the
feelings and ideas of the students. He should be tolerant towards the students' responses. Suppose the
response of a particular student is incorrect, teacher should not condemn the student and should not
label him as dull, stupid etc., but he should treat the child sympathetically. He should praise his efforts
and should encourage the pupil to make another attempt to solve the problem or to search for correct
response.

REFERENCE:

https://www.samareducation.com/2022/06/method-of-teaching-and-learning.html

https://www.samareducation.com/2022/06/principles-of-teaching.html