Methods of teaching, its characteristics, merits, application

1 LECTURE METHOD is the oldest procedure of teaching. It is widely used in schools and colleges. It is a good method its cover a wide topic at heights level of college or secondary schools and higher secondary classes but its success depends on the personality and ability of students.

WHY THIS METHOD SHOULD BE USED?
1 To motivate students.
2 To give an overview of a large topic.
To add supplement the students reading.
To make an importance matters understanding.
To provide background of a topic or to introduce the topic
To help the students to use their time wisely
To explain the major concepts of a lesson
To develop reasoning skill of students
To have a classroom discussion

MERITS OF THE METHOD: To establishes face to face contact. It develops attention span. Students develop listening and note taking skills.
Students can prepare the notes. It is easy method for new teachers.

DEMERITS OF THE METHOD: It is a teacher centered method not very good for SS. It is a monotonous tiring and sometimes it becomes a boring method. It brings a lot of burden and reading to the teacher.
It is not an interactive method.


DISCUSSION METHOD: The word discussion means exchanging views and debate. Here the discussion can be among the group of students as a whole group.

WHERE AND WHEN CAN YOU USE DISCUSSION METHOD?
1 the teacher of S.S. can use this method when he is using a project method.
2 when he has to share information and ideas from a large group.
3 when one needs to solve a problem, or do thinking and analytical activity in the class.
4 when one obtain information and ideas from a large group of students.
5 when one needs to check or evaluate students’ progress.

FORMS OF DISCUSSION: Formal, debate, classroom, informal, panel, symposium.

THE PROCESS OF DISCUSSION:
The process can be different depending upon the type of discussion.
1 the ideas are initiated by the teacher than there is exchange of ideas opinions observations comments etc
2 this is a co-operative learning.

STEPS OF DISCUSSION
1 Preparation:
To make discussion a success the teacher as well as the student must make a careful preparation. The teacher should do in depth reading of the topic. She should do critical reading, should understand the arguments well and know the gist of the lesson.

CONDUCTING DISCUSSION:
In this stage the teacher initiates the discussion. He controls process and keeps the students disciplined and keeps the discussion under control or on the right tract.

MARITS OF DISCUSSION METHOD:
• It is based of differences.
• It emphasizes independent study.
• It develops reasoning.
• It develops study habits.
• It is activity oriented.
• It teaches how to study purposefully.
• It helps the teacher to find leadership quality among students.
• It helps in clarifying ideas, issues etc.
• It creates better understanding of the topic, issues, events, ideas or concepts.

DEMARITS OF DISCUSSION METHOD
• It is time consuming method.
• It needs some training and average teacher can not
• Why students do not benefit from this activity.
• Sometimes only a few students dominate.
• There can be some necessary argument and can lead to some major problems.

EXCURSION METHOD
The word ‘excursion’ means a journey, trip, tour planned for social studies students in which the students actually visit places or site and has the first hand experience which excursion results in easy, interesting and effective learning.

It provides ample opportunities to student for ‘seeing’ ‘hearing’ examining, gathering data, and asking questions, such excursion are most conducive to learning.

PROSSES OF ORGENISING EXCURSION

1. Decides the get information and details of the site you plan to visit and think of objective for organizing this trip.
2. Take principal’s permission, take parents’ permission and get an ok from the place you are going to visit
3. Orient the student about the trip, give them the details, give them a list of the thing you need to bring
4. Conduct the trip take chaperone with you. Guide the students at the place. Then ask the student to write a report about their report.

EXAMPLES OF EXCURSION FOR STUDENTS OF GUJARAT OR INDIA
• River Tapi, river Narmada ,Sardar Sarover , some Dame Site, Sea Shores, bird sanctuary, Gir lion sanctuary.
• Cultural Heritage sites, Champaner, Ahmedabad. Dwarka temple, M. Abu Dera.
• Industrial sites – power stations, manufacturing industrial site, Fertilizer, food packing.

MERITS:
* First hand expose.
* Brings reality in teaching.
* Gives concrete experience.

DEMERIT:
• Time consuming.
• It is not applicable to all the students of the students.
• It is expensive.

ROLE PLAY AND DRAMATIZATION METHOD:
Role playing, socio drama or creative dramas are used to present a specific situation for study and discussion. There is no prepared script. It is unrehearsed, speaking parts are not memorized and minimum properties are used.
Role play is a way of bringing situation from real life into the classroom.
A role in other words, they pretend to be different person.
A situation they pretend to be doing something different both a role $ a situation.
In role play, students improvise the situation is fixed but they make up the exact as they go.

ROLE PLAYS ARE USE TO TEACH
to clarify social values.
to focus attention on a specific central ideas.
to extend vocabulary.
to gain grater insight into the problems of others.
It develops social skills, communication skills and team spirit.
They provide excellent basis for discussion and evaluation.

FOLLOWUP ACTIVITIES AFTER THE ROLE PLAY
Role Play should be followed by discussion about the theme of the role play.
Students can be interviewed about their role.
The audience can say about each role. They can also do the role play by other group of students.

PROJECT METHOD:
STEPS OF PROJECT METHOD:
Project method is a direct outcome of pragmatism, especially of John Dewey’s educational philosophy. Pragmatism believes in reality. It is scientific and empirical. It is based on the principle of learning by doing.
Being influenced by John Dewey, Kilpatrick tried to give project method in 1918. This method is democratic in nature and it emphasizes social skills and team work.

WHAT IS A PROJECT METHOD?
It is a progressive approach of teaching. It is a purposeful act it provides the learner with learning experiences.
Here the teacher acts like a guide assigns the projects to groups of students.’
Each group works on different topics or problems. They work together to prepare the project.
The students work together as a team, they learn by discussing, reading, and exchanging ideas. Then they take the help of a teacher wherever they difficulties or have questions.
The project method covers the content of many different subjects and the teacher tries to integrate the information to the main topic.
This method gives complete freedom and choice to students.

ADVANTAGES OF PROJECT METHOD:
It gives freedom and creativity.
Here the teacher and students both grow.
Students can link the subject to real life.
It motivates students.

DISADVANTAGES OF PROJECT METHOD:
It is expensive method.
It is time consuming.
It needs lots of resources.
Some projects cannot be done at school.

SOURCE METHOD:
There are three types of sources in this method.
1 Material resource: Ideas, machines, weapons etc…..
2 Oral resources: Songs, folk stories, traditions, customs etc...
3 Written and printed resources: Records, reports, letters etc….

Source method is an activity oriented method. It is generally used in social studies subject also.
Generally sources mean a person, books or document or picture or actual objects that can provide information for learning. It is learning directly from the actual sources for examples for social studies they can be- A contract with the bank – or studying the sample of stone collected from the moon or an object found from any ancient place can also be studied. One can also take students to museums to find the objects to study.

STEPS FOLLOWED TO USE SOURCE METHOD:

1 Demonstration or presentation by the teacher.
2 Locate related reading material and assign reading to the study.
3 Problem solving by students; with group discussion among the students.

ADVANTAGES OF SOURCES METHOD:
It provides direct, first hand experience.
It develops a sense of reality
It creates motivating and interesting ambience in the class.
It develops skill of data collection, thinking skill and observation skill.
It makes the subject meaningful.

USE OF CURRENT EVENTS IN SOCIAL STUDIES:
It is very important to have a quality current event programme in school. There are many things happening around the world. In addition to that issues and events which the student need to understand especially in the world around them.

There are three approaches to teach current events.
1 A separate subject approach.
2 current events only based on the curriculum taught at school.
3 separate units selected by the teacher.

TOPICS SELECTED FOR CURRENT EVENTS:
• Earthquake
• Cyclone
• Hurricane
• Excessive Rainfall
• Population problem
• Pollution problem
• Unemployment
• Economic development
• Market trend and share
• Price- rise
• Strikes
• Election
• Government
• War issues
• Trends in the economic
• New initiative taken by N.G.O.
• Majority opinion
• International issues

TECHNOLOGY ASSISTED LEARNING:
Any large learning of material can never assure good learning. This can only be achieved when instructional resources are used skillfully and creatively. They should be used for two main reasons.

1 To provide first hand experience with some aspects of the problem under consideration.
2 To add realism and furnish the class with a common background of experience.

• Computer.
• CD ROMs.
• Over heal projects.
• Television.
• Films and filmstrips.
• Video tapes.
• Internet websites blogs etc.


Internet is a powerful factor in learning since attention is the task, at hand making for interesting achievement.

TEACHING AIDS: Teaching aids are aid to teaching social studies effectively. Teacher has a variety of aids to choose to makes his teaching interesting and effective. It helps in teaching different types of learners (visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile)

Printed aids: Books, news papers, periodicals

Visual aids: Slides, charts, diagrams, film strips, sketches- models, transparency graphs and charts pictorial material, globes, maps, exhibitions, museums- bulletin boards, excursion.

Audio- visual aids: Motion pictures, television, dramatization, role play.
Why are they important in teaching?
Audio aids, Tapes, CDs, phonographs discs, radio.

EVELUATION:
TYPES OF EVALUATION:

Formative evaluation,
Evaluation done prior to any program,
Objective, Evaluation includes objective types of tests.
Subjective evaluation test items are mostly descriptive.

Summative evaluation

“According to NCERT Evaluation is the process of determining the extent to which an objective is being attained, the effectiveness of the learning experiences provided in the class room and how well the goals of education have been accomplished”.

PURPOSE OF EVALUATION PROGRAMME:

STEPS IN EVALUATION:
Objective
Learning experience
Evaluation techniques

1) Grading students.
2) Maintaining standards.
3) To check effectiveness of the school progrmme and the teacher’s performance.
4) To give appropriate guidance to students’.
5) To motivate students.
6) To improve teaching programme.
7) To modify curriculum.
8) To modify teaching methods.