CONSIDERATIONS IN EVALUATING A METHOD OF TEACHING

Khansa AL-Qudaimi

The concept of Method

“Any procedure which applies some rational order or systematic pattern to diverse objects."

Morris. R. Cohen (1933)

The concept of Method

Justus Buchler (1963) has raised many questions;

• What is the relation between method and procedure?

• What does it mean to apply an order?• What kind of order is rational and systematic?

• What makes a method methodic?

Components of Method

•Buchler introduced Repeatability to the concept of method.

•Methodic refers not only to the use or reproduction of an achieved pattern, but also to the invention and refinement of pattern.

The value of Method

•Method is value-free.

oThere are viable methods and sterile methods.

oThere are important methods and unimportant methods.

The value of Method

•According to Kumar, method has an ideological motivation.

•A method is but a “reflection of a particular view of the world and is articulated in the interest of unequal power relations.”

Pennycook (1989)

Method in practice

Elements that may influence the application of a teaching method:

•Teachers•Students •Society

•School system•Curriculum•Teaching supplies

Teachers and method application

“Human action typically employs ‘mediational means’ such as tools and language, and that these mediational means shape the action in essential ways.”

Wertsch (1991)

Mediational means

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subject object

The mediational means

Mediational means

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teacher goal

Method of teaching

Teachers and method application

Why would a teacher choose a certain method in delivering a specific subject?

Mediational means

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teacher goal

Method of teaching

Teachers and method application

“The goal constrains the options for action.”

Nikiforov (1990)

Teachers and method application

•Teachers’ use of a technique that they disapprove may be caused by the goal-in-context.

•Sometimes, goals are ‘imposed’ upon teachers.

Teachers and method application

• When a mediational means has been used frequently in a particular setting, the subject begins to “appropriate” it.

• “Appropriation refers to the process through which a person becomes sufficiently familiar with a mediational means that he or she is able to use it purposefully and flexibly in particular social environments.”

(Grossman et al., 1999)

Teachers and method application

“Beliefs have a strong shaping effect on behavior.”

Schoenfeld (1998)

Teachers and method application

• Beliefs have a significant influence on the instructional and classroom practices (Calderhead, 1996; Thompson, 1985).

• Inconsistencies between beliefs and practices would result in tension and contradiction which cause the teacher to attempt to change (Lerman, 2002).

Teachers and method application

Why would some teachers not try to fill the gap between their beliefs and practices?

Teachers and method application

• Festinger’s (1957) dissonance theory principle:

Disharmony among cognitive “elements” motivates cognitive changes designed to restore harmony.

Teachers and method application

In order to restore harmony, one of the following cognitive changes may occur:

1. The teacher avoids thinking about the elements that conflict.

2. The teacher tries to change her practice.

3. The teacher changes her beliefs.

4. The teacher incorporates into her thinking additional “consonant elements”.

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Teaching material

Teacher’s awareness of the right method

Teacher’sgoal

beliefsattitude

Students and method application

What’s the student’s role in the learning process?

Students and method application

Teacher-centered approach

• The formal authority approach

• The demonstrator model approach

student-centered approach

•School system•Curriculum•Teaching supplies

Students and method application

Student role

Teacher-centered approach

The formal authority approach

Demonstrator model

approach

Student-centered approach

Guided participation

concept

Students and method application

Issues that can be raised about student-centered conceptions include the tendencies:

to promote active student engagement at the expense of active teachingto privilege individual experience over linguistically-mediated cultural knowledge in the development of higher-order knowledgeto confuse desired outcomes of education with the developmental processes that lead to those outcomes

Students and method application

Reflection is “an act of searching, hunting, inquiring, to find material.”

Dewey (1933)

Students and method application

preparation

engagement in an activity

the process of what has been learned

Learning stages:

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