Teaching Approaches (Practice And Teaching)

EDU734: Teaching and Learning Environment

 

Week.3: Teaching approaches

 

Topic goals:

 Recognition of different contemporary teaching approaches  Implementation of contemporary teaching approaches

 

Task – Forum:

 Develop an example from a subject of your preference and

show each kind of knowledge that is provided in Ball, D.L.,

Thames, M.H., & Phelps, G. (2008) model. Before proceeding in

developing your own example pay attention to the example

provided for mathematics. 

 Design a teaching plan according to one of the teaching

approaches provided in this section. Use the teaching plan

form when designing your own plan.

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EDU734: Teaching and Learning Environment

 

 

3.1 Introduction – Exploratory teaching approach

 

Main characteristics of exploratory approach:

 

 Examination and support our beliefs and knowledge  Students’ active engagement  Persistent examination

 

 

3.2 Methods of Exploratory teaching approach

 

 Problem solving  Taking a decision

  

Structure of exploratory teaching approaches 

 Problem’s description  Assumptions posing  Conduction of exploration by student  Results formulation

  

Problem solving 

 Find different ways for grouping the shapes below.

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Taking a decision

 Students pretend roles in order to realize the motivation of each person.  Provide different opinions  Examination of the advantages and disadvantages of each decision  Example

 

o Do you believe that it is right to build a high school in a forest?

 

Problem Aim Opinions

 

Advantage Arguments Decisions

s –

Disadvant ages

 

3.3 Role of teacher in exploratory teaching approach

 

Multidimensional

 

 Design the lesson  Give suggestions  Support the exploration  Management

 

 

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EDU734: Teaching and Learning Environment

 

3.4 Collaborative teaching approach

 

Main characteristics

 

 The cooperation between the members of the group supports creativity.  Each member participates in his/her group in order to satisfy the aim of the task  There is a coherence and interdependence between the members of the group

  Each member of the group accepts each other, has common purposes, rules

and try to respond to their roles in order to satisfy the group’s aim.

 

3.5 Students’ separation in groups

 

Students’ separation in groups has to be in accordance with different criteria like:

 Students’ ability

o Students with the same general ability

o Students with the same ability at each subject o Students with different abilities

 

 

The separation in groups with the criteria of the same ability does not support the purposes of cooperative teaching approach

 

 Students’ interests  Students’ friendships

 

 

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EDU734: Teaching and Learning Environment

 

 

3.6 How to keep cohesion in the group

 

1. Create groups with mixed abilities

2. Divide the aims and the responsibilities at each member of the group

3. Use of individual study and cooperation

4. Give written descriptions for the group’s purposes

5. Support communication skills

6. Assessment of the group’s cognitive results and the cooperation between

the members of the group

7. Each student has to be able to represent his/her group and pose

some arguments about his/her group’s result

8. Students discuss and assess the cooperation in their group

9. Students need to be able to reply to some assessment questions in order

to identify his/her knowledge and his/her participation in the group

 

3.7 Results of cooperative teaching approach

 

 Academic development 

 Emotional development 

 Socialization

 

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EDU734: Teaching and Learning Environment

 

 

3.8 The role of play in our life

 

“The opposite of play is not work but depression”

 Stuart Brown investigated 6000 people and observed that the people who had

made crimes did not have many opportunities for play in their childhood age.

(Stuart, B. (2010). Play. How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination and

invigorates the soul)  

 Shulman and his colleagues (1986) proposed a categorization of teachers’ knowledge.

  His initial categories were subject matter knowledge and pedagogical

content knowledge. 

 Ball, D.L., Thames, M.H., & Phelps, G. (2008) suggested that Shulman’s

categories of content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge can be

subdivided into common content knowledge and specialized content knowledge,

on the one hand, and knowledge of content and students and knowledge of

content and teaching, on the other.

 

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EDU734: Teaching and Learning Environment

 

 

Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK)

“Pedagogical content knowledge” is the content knowledge that deals with the

teaching process, including “the ways of representing and formulating the

subject that make it comprehensible to others” (Shulman 1986, p.9).

Common Content Knowledge (CCK)

Content knowledge (CCK) is knowledge about the actual subject matter that is to be learned or taught (Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008).

 

Specialized Content Knowledge (SCK)

Specialized Content Knowledge (SCK) includes the subject matters’ knowledge

and teaching skills. For example teachers have to be able to identify the sources

and the reasons related with their students wrong answers.

Knowledge of Content and Students (KCS)

Knowledge of Content and Students (KCS) is the knowledge of how students

think about, know or learn this particular content (Hill, Ball, Schilling, 2008,

p.175)

Knowledge of Content and Teaching (KCT)

Knowledge of Content and Teaching (KCT) includes the knowledge about teaching and the knowledge related with subject that is to be learned or taught.

 

 

Knowledge of Curriculum

Knowledge of Curriculum refers to “familiarity with the topics and issues that

have been and will be taught in the same subject area during the preceding and

later years in school, and the materials that embody them” (Shulman, 1986, p.

10).

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An Example of What Makes Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching Special

 

We have the example of subtraction:

 

Common Content Knowledge (CCK)

 

Specialized Content Knowledge (SCK)

Identification the source of the error,

e.g. subtracted the smaller digit from the larger one.

 

Knowledge of Content and Teaching (KCT)

 Knowledge of different instructionally viable models for place value,

knowledge all the aspects related with subtraction algorithm and ways

to deploy them 

 Use of multiple representation that enhance subtraction, like money, unifix cubes, o The benefits and the disadvantages of each representation

 

 

Knowledge of Content and Students (KCS)

 Knowledge of students’ common errors e.g. teacher is able to recognize that students tend to subtract the larger digit form the smaller one.

 

 

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EDU734: Teaching and Learning Environment

 

 

3.9 Task – Forum

 

Task 1

 

• Please develop an example from a subject of your preference and

show each kind of knowledge that is provided in Ball, D.L., Thames,

M.H., & Phelps, G. (2008) model.

• Before proceeding in developing your own example pay attention to the example provided for mathematics.

 

Task 2

• Please design a (1) teaching plan according to one of the teaching

approaches provided in this section. Use the teaching plan form

when designing your own plan.

 

References sources

 

Ball, L.D., Thames, H.M., & Phelps,G. (2008). Content Knowledge for Teaching:

What Makes It Special?. Journal of Teacher Education, 59, pp.389-407.

Shulman, L.S. (1986).Those who understand:Knowledge growth in teaching.

Educational Researcher, 15(2),4-14.

Hill, C.H., Ball,D.Schilling,G.S. (2008). Unpacking Pedagogical Content

Knowledge: Conceptualizing and Measuring Teachers’ Topic-Specific Knowledge

of Students. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 39(4), pp.372-400)

 

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