Models of Teaching
Meaning
:
Dictionary
meaning of 'model' is : a pattern of something to be made or reproduced.
Joyce and Weil :
In the point of view of teaching, a model of
teaching is a plan or pattern that can be used to shape curricula, to design
instructional materials and to guide instruction in the classroom and other
settings.
Aim of any model of teaching :
To improve the instructional effectiveness in
an interactive atmosphere and to improve or shape the curriculum. Models of
teaching are really models of learning.
Purpose
:
·
They are designed to bring about particular kinds of learning and to help
students become more effective learners.
It helps students to acquire information, ideas, skills, values and ways of
thinking and means of expressing themselves.
·
It teaches the students ‘how to learn’ (Joyce and Weil, 1972).Increasing
aptitude to learn is one of the fundamental purposes of these models.
·
Models of teaching enable the students to become powerful students.
(Joyce and Weil, 2005).
In
fact, the most important long term outcome of instruction may be the students
increased capabilities to learn more easily and effectively in the future, both
because of the knowledge and skill they have acquired and because they have
mastered the learning processes.
Families of Models of
Teaching
Joyce and
Weil (1978) developed more than twenty models. They have organized these models on the basis
of their chief emphasis the way they approach educational goals and means into four
families.
They are
i)
The Information Processing Family
ii)
ii) The Social Family
iii)
iii) The Personal Family
iv)
iv) The Behavioural Systems Family.
i)The Information Processing Family:
Information Processing
Models emphasize ways of enhancing the human being’s innate drive to make sense
of the world by acquiring and organising data, sensing problems, generating
solutions to them and developing concepts and language for conveying them.
ii) The Social Family:
When we work together
we generate a collective energy that we call Synergy. The social models of
teaching are constructed to take advantage of this phenomenon by building
learning communities
iii)
The Personal Family:
The personal models of
learning begin from the perspective of the self-hood of the individual. They
attempt to shape education so that we come to understand ourselves better .
iv)The Behavioral
Systems Family:
Human beings are
self-correcting communication systems that modify behavior in response to
information about how successfully tasks are navigated.
Elements
of a Model
Each model consists of
theory and practical training. To translate a theoretical model into practical
teaching form, a set of four concepts are used. They are i) Syntax ii)
Principles of reaction iii) Social system iv) Support system.
i)
Syntax: Syntax or phasing of the model describes the model in
action. It described in terms of sequence of events called phases. Each model
has a distinct flow of phases
ii)
Principles of
reaction: They
guide the teacher's response to the learner. It guides the teacher how to regard
the learner and respond accordingly
iii)
Social System: It provides a description of student
and teacher roles and their inter relationship. It tells us about the norms
that are encouraged in the successful implementation of the model
iv)
Support
system: It refers to the additional requirements beyond the usual human
skills
v)
Effects of the
Model: Every
model results in two types of effects - instructional and nurturant.
1. Instructional
effects are the direct effect of the model which results from the content and
skills on which the activities are based.
2. Nurturant effects
are the indirect effects implicit in the learning environment. It comes from
experience and environments created by the model.
Information Processing Family
Focus - learning to think by thinking.
Information processing
refers to the ways people handle stimuli from the environment, organize data,
sense problems, generate concepts and solutions to problems and enjoy verbal
and nonverbal symbols. Information processing occurs in the classroom, when
learners are actively involved in analyzing data to form abstractions such as concepts, generali
sations and theories.
Concept Attainment Model (CAM)
Concept attainment is developed
from the study of thinking ie., “the search for and listing of attributes that
can be used to distinguish exemplars from non-exemplars of various categories”.
It is designed to teach students to attain concepts and analyse thinking
strategies. This model is concerned with two separate but related ideas: the
nature of concepts themselves and the thinking processes used by individuals to
learn concepts. Bruner's ideas regarding this have been shaped into a model
of teaching by Joyce and Weil.
Nature of
Concepts:
·
a concept is simply the label of a set of things that have something in
common.
·
a concept is a mental representation of objects, events, symbols or
experience.
·
represents a category which shares
some common properties.
Concepts allow us to:
i)
differentiate various things or classes,
ii)
know relationship between objects
iii)
generate ideas about events,
things and processes.
Elements of a concept
i)
Name: It is the name or label given to a category.
ii)
Attributes:
These refer to the characteristics of a particular concept that helps in
distinguishing instances of the concept from non-instances. These attributes
may be essential or nonessential.
o Essential attributes are the common
features or characteristics of the concept. These attributes should be present
in all the examples of the concept.
o Non-essential attributes are some of
the slight differences among examples of a category.
iii)
Examples: They refer to instances of concepts. There are positive and
negative examples.
Positive examples have
all the essential attributes of the concept present in them. The non-essential
attributes are present in some examples and absent in others. The positive exemplars
represent what the concept is. By arranging the exemplars sequentially, the
student can reach a conclusion of what the concept is.
iv) Attribute value (attribute range): It refers to
the acceptable range for any relevant attribute (essential attribute). This
helps to distinguish the concept from super ordinate or coordinate concepts.
iv)
The rule/definition: It is the definition or statement specifying the
special attributes of a concept. A correct rule or statement is that which
reflects the successful utilization of the other elements of a concept. When a
learner can identify a positive exemplar of a concept from a negative exemplar
on the basis of essential attributes, distinguish between essential and
non- essential attributes in a positive
exemplar of the concept and define the concept in terms of its attributes, we
can say that the learner has attained the concept .
Variations of the
Concept Attainment Model:
According to Joyce and Weil , to facilitate the attainment of the concept there
are three variations of the model:
i)
Reception Model,
ii)
Selection Model,
iii)
Unorganized materials Model.
i)
Reception Model: In the reception model of teaching concepts, the
teacher presents his/ her pupils an array of examples/instances. Some of these
examples are positive and others are non-examples or negatives. The positive
examples exemplify the concept and the negative examples do not. The teacher
labels the former as 'YES' and the latter as NO'. The examples are generally
presented by the teacher one by one. They are asked by the teacher to name the
concept and state the rule/definition of the concepts according to its essential
attributes. Then the teacher presents unlabelled examples and asks the students
to label them 'YES' or 'NO'. Students are thereafter asked to give a few
examples of the concept on their own. The teachers then ask the learners to
analyze the strategies through which they attained the concept.
ii)
Selection Model: In the selection model, the teacher
presents an array of examples. These examples are not marked 'YES' or 'NO' as
in the case of the reception model. The learner selects one unmarked example and
enquires whether it is a 'yes 'or 'no'
iii)
Unorganized Materials Model:
This mode of the concept attainment model is much more a group discussion than
an instructional exercise as in the reception and selection modes.
The Concept Attainment Model:
The
description of CAM developed by Joyce and Weil (1980) has been given in respect
of Syntax, Principles of Reaction, Social System, Support System and Effects.
Syntax:
There are three phases in Reception Model of concept attainment.
Phase I:
Presentation of Data and Identification of Concept
1.
Teacher presents labelled examples
2.
Students compare the attributes in positive and negative exemplars
3.
Students generate and test hypotheses
4.
Students state a definition according to the essential attributes
Phase II:
Testing Attainment of the Concept
1.
Students identify additional unlabelled examples as 'yes' or `no'
2.
Teacher confirms the hypotheses, names the concept and restates the definition
according to essential attributes
3.
Students generate examples
Phase
III: Analysis of Thinking Strategies
1.
Students describe thoughts
2.
Students discuss the role of hypotheses
3.
Students discuss types and number of hypotheses
Social
System: The model has a moderate structure. The teacher chooses the concept,
selects and organizes the material into positive and negative examples and
sequences the examples. The model is relatively structured, with students
assuming more initiative for inductive process as they gain more experience .
Principles of Reaction: The principles of
reaction of CAM of teaching are
(i)
give support but emphasize the hypothetical nature of discussion,
(ii)
help student balance one
hypothesis against another
(iii)
focus attention on specific
features of examples
(iv)
assist students in discussing and
evaluating their thinking strategies.
Support System:
Support consists of carefully selected and organized materials in the form of
discrete units to serve as examples. Concept Attainment lesson requires that
positive and negative exemplars be presented to the students.
Effects of CAM:
The instructional effects are
i)
understanding of the nature of concept,
ii)
specific concepts,
iii)
improved concept building
strategies,
iv)
inductive reasoning ability
The nurturant effects are
i)
awareness of alternative perspectives,
ii)
tolerance of ambiguity,
iii)
sensitivity to logical reasoning
in communication.
Inquiry Training Model (ITM)
The Inquiry Training
Model was first formulated by Richard Suchman in1962.
Purpose :
·
to teach students to engage in casual reasoning and to become more fluent
and precise in asking questions, building concepts and hypotheses, and testing
them.
·
development of independent learners; its method requires active
participation in scientific inquiry.
·
to help students develop the intellectual discipline and skills necessary
to raise questions and search out answers stemming from their curiosity
·
to bring students directly into the scientific process
The Inquiry Training
Model is based on Suchman's theory that
i)
students inquire naturally when they are puzzled
ii)
they can become conscious of and
learn to analyze their thinking strategies
iii)
new strategies can be taught
directly and added to the students’ existing ones
iv)
cooperative inquiry enriches
thinking and helps students to learn about the tentative, emergent nature of
knowledge and to appreciate alternate explanations.
This model differs
from other inquiry models in the way the data are presented. Students gather
data in a simulated process through questioning rather than actual manipulation. Thus, the method is
more process oriented as the primary goal is to improve students' ability to
relate data to the inferences they have formed.
Description of Inquiry Training Model
The Inquiry Training
Model has five phases .
Phase I:
Confrontation with the
Problem Present the discrepant event . The first phase is the students’
confrontation with the puzzling situation.
Phase II:
Data Gathering -Verification
Verify the nature of
the objects and conditions Verify the occurence of the problem situation
Phase III:
Data Gathering-Experimentation
Isolate relevant
variables. Hypothesize causal relationships. Phases two and three are the
data-gathering operations of verification and experimentation.
Phase IV: Organizing, Formulating an
Explanation Formulate rule or explanations.
In the fourth phase,
the students organize the information obtained during the data - gathering
phase and try to explain the discrepancy.
Phase V:
Analysis of the
Inquiry Process
Analyze inquiry
strategy and develop more effective ones. In the last phase, students analyze
the problem-solving strategies they used during the inquiry.
Social System:
The Inquiry Training
Model can be highly structured, with the teacher controlling the interaction
and prescribing the inquiry procedures. However, the norms of inquiry are those
of cooperation, intellectual freedom, and equality. Interaction among students
should be encouraged. The intellectual environment is open to all relevant
ideas and teachers and students should participate as equals where ideas are
concerned.
Principles of
Reaction:
Ensure that the phrasing of the questions
eliciting yes/no are answered by a ‘yes’/’no’. The teacher must ask the
students to rephrase the questions if it is not a ‘yes’ / ‘no’ question. Make
sure that there are no repetitions. Ask the students to make clear statements
of theories and provide support for their generalizations.
Support System:
The optimal support is
a set of confronting materials, a teacher who understands the intellectual
processes and strategies of inquiry, and resource materials bearing on the
problem. Effects of ITM: The Inquiry Training Model promotes strategies for
inquiry and the values and attitudes that are essential to an inquiring mind
including
i)
process skills (observing, collecting and organizing data; identifying
and controlling variables; formulating and testing hypotheses and explanations;
inferring
ii)
active, autonomous learning,
iii)
verbal expressiveness,
iv)
tolerance of ambiguity,
persistence,
v)
logical thinking,
vi)
attitude that all knowledge is
tentative
