Teaching Pedagogy Activities Notes - Activities and Practcal Work

 

Activities and Practical Work

 

Activity method is a process adopted by a teacher to make his/her classroom teaching effective. Through activities, students participate willingly and bring about efficient learning experiences.

 

6.1 Activity Based Teaching Method

Activity based method is a child centred approach. It is a method in which a child is actively involve mentally and physically. Learning by doing is the main focus in this method. It requires active participation of students, where students themselves find out information about the topic given by the teacher.

 

·               It gives reality for learning.

·               It enhances student's self-confidence and develops understanding through work.

 

6.1.1 Importance of Activities in School Curriculum

A child has certain peculiarities at every stage. In this modern age, the psychological view point tells us that the study of any subject cannot be successful and complete unless it is based on the age, characteristics and needs of the child. Thus, in the field of EVS, activities play an important role. These activities are fixed by the teacher keeping in mind the capability of students and the curriculum.

 

6.1.2 Types of Activities

The different types of activities which are used in EVS are as follow

 

Educational Tour

·               Educational tours are important in many ways. Going on a educational trip means more than simply leaving the school grounds. The importance of educational trips includes giving students the chance to build closer bonds with their classmates experience new environments and enjoy a day away from the classroom.

·               When students and teachers are together outside the classroom, new educational environments and experiences are possible. Students may have the opportunity to observe many things that are not available at school, including exotic wildlife, rare plants and may be even the stars if the educational trip is to be planetarium.

·               "Human memory is picture oriented and not word oriented". This is the main concept behind an educational tour.

No matter how much students learn a educational tour their favourite memories may be based on their enjoyment of the day. Students will have fun with their friends and they also may return to the classroom with a renewed focus on their school work.

 

Why School Should have Education Trips?

Memory of school educational trips among the most prominent of the formative years largely because they welcome break in the routine for both students and teachers. While purpose is essentially to educate, it can also be a fun bonding experience for everyone involved:

Educational trips help in development of children in following ways

 

Reinforcement The trip can reinforce what a teacher has been instructing in class about a subject and help students to understand the topic better.

 

Engagement Teachers turn trips into mobile classrooms, instructing students to collect data, then assigning a project based on what they learned during the outing.

 

Socialisation Taking students into a new environment gives them the experience of travelling in a group and teaches them to be respectful of the locations they visit.

 

Exposure Kids get to visit a place to which they have been never before. This can be particularly advantageous to students who are less fortunate and don't have the opportunity to travel.

 

Curiosity Students who go on educational tour find that they want to learn more about the students on which the tour focused.

 

Retention This type of memories that educational tour create, called episodic memories, helps children retain information for longer periods.

 

Demonstration

Method This method is appropriate for primary classes.

In this method, the teacher performs the experiment while teaching and the students acquire knowledge while careful observation of the experiment.

 

Merits of Demonstration Method

Some important merits of demonstration are

·               Less time consuming.

·               Students learn by seeing.

·               The sight and hearing sense of the students is more active.

·               The students develop the power of observation, reasoning and thought.

 

Demerits of Demonstration Method

Some important dements of demonstration methods are

·               The students do not get a chance to perform experiments.

·               Some students are not able to observe properly.

·               Sometimes the teacher is not able to perform the experiment properly and this creates a lot of doubts about the subject in the minds of the students.

 

Observation Method

·               By the help of this method, the student himself makes observation and acquires permanent and true knowledge. He makes observations of nature in gardens, homes in the groups and acquires apparent knowledge.

 

Merits of Observation Method

Some important merits of observation methods are

·               Develops the interest of the students in the subjects.

·               The acquired knowledge is from natural sources and is thus permanent.

·               The students are able to leam the similarities and dissimilarities of objects clearly and easily.

 

Demerits of Observation Method

Some demerits of observation methods are

·               It involves a lot of time.

·               Complete answer to any problem cannot be obtained by observation alone.

Not suitable for all students.

 

Role Playing

·               This is a role performing method which is related to development and knowledge. By this method, change can be brought in the taste, liking, interest and attitude of the students. In this method, the class is divided into small groups and the groups are made to imitate the experience of others.

·               In this method, one student poses as a teacher and the rest of the group are students of that teacher, they express their feelings and experience in a natural manner.

 

Merits of Role Playing

·               Helpful in small classes. The students get a chance to express their inner feelings.

·               The students enjoy the act. This gives them recreation.

·               By this method, capability of lower and middle level of knowledge, understanding and application is affected.

 

Demerits of Role Playing

·               This is a formal method.

·               The students work in an artificial atmosphere, where it is not possible to change it into reality.

 

Experimental Method

·               In this method, the student becomes very active and learns himself. In EVS or science teaching, it is very important.

 

Merits

·               The children learn by doing their interest is developed and the knowledge acquired is of permanent nature.

·               The students make use of their eyes, ears, nose and hand and thus nil their senses are developed.

·               The knowledge acquired by this method is more meaningful.

 

Demerits

·               Individual attention cannot be paid to classes with large number of students.

·               Due to financial constraints, schools are not able to adopt this method.

 

Project

·               It is something which is done along with the curriculum to import practical, realistic and application based knowledge.

·               Activities like survey, project, field trip, community service etc are done to enhance the understanding of concepts, while activities like sports, games, puzzle, discussion, music, theatre, dance, drama etc helps in holistic development of individual.

·               The most concrete of all types of activity methods, project method provides learning experiences suited to individual differences.

·               Project is an activity willingly undertaken by the pupils for the solution of a felt problem and leading to learning as prescribed in the curriculum.

·               It is concrete activity directed towards the learning of a significant skill or process. Having a wide connotation project includes any activity like dramatics, pageants, making models, drawing maps and charts, collecting pictures, preparing scrap books, going on historical tours and exhibitions, preparation of environmental science, wall, newspapers etc.

 

Basic Principles of the Project Method

There are some basic principles of the project method that must be followed while performing activities in classroom. These are as follow

        1.     Activity The project involves mental or motor activity.

 

        2.     Purpose Project should be purposeful and fulfill the need of the pupils.

 

        3.     Experience Project should provide varied type of experiences to the pupils such as manipulative, concrete mental etc.

 

        4.     Reality Project should provide real experiences.

 

        5.     Freedom The pupils should be free to undertake the different activities connected with the project.

 

        6.     Utility The activities undertaken in a project should be useful.

 

Advantages of Project Method

Project method has many advantages. These are given below

        1.      Psychological It provides the most natural conditions of learning. Therefore, the child remembers the principles learnt for a longer time.

 

        2.      Freedoms and Self-Direction Project method has an element of freedom. It is a method of self-direction. In it the child learns to improvise, to invent, to experiment, to know in all ways possible and to translate the knowledge into action. Thus, it develops the creative mind.

 

       3.      Social Benefits As separate groups take responsibility for making their own contributions, which are subsequently pooled and become the class effort, project method results in social benefits:

 

       4.      Training Project method provides training for social adjustment. It develops the pupil's capacity to adapt themselves to their environment, to make use of whatever is available and to meet a situation resourcefully.

 

        5.      Doing after Knowing In project method, the pupils learn and do because they understand the value of what they learn and do in the carrying out their purpose.

 

       6.      Practical Project method provides learning through practical problems by encouraging pupils to achieve a deeper insight into principles by actually seeing them in operation.

 

       7.      Evaluation Pupils learn to evaluate their own work, this evaluation reveals the mistakes and helps in rapid progress and true learning.

 

Limitations of Project Method

Limitations of project method are

·               Less knowledge

·               Difficult to formulate

·               Lack of progress In instruction,

·               Requires highly qualified teacher's

 

Source Method

According to source method, pupils build account about anything with the help of available sources, documents accounts, bio-graphies and literature etc.

·               Pupils learn to know about particular events to understand the process through which they arrive at the product.

 

Objectives of Source Method

The objectives of source method are

·               To enable the pupils to develop critical thinking.

·               To enable the pupils to form their own independent judgement through a critical analysis of sources.

·               To develop skills of collecting data, organising the relevant data and interpreting them.

·               To create proper atmosphere to make the people and events of by gone times more real to students.

·               To stimulate the imagination of the students for reconstruction of the past.

·               To develop and promote proper interest and right perspective in the study of environmental science.

 

Advantages of the Source Method

Source method has many advantages. These are as follow

           1.        Creating a Sense of Vividness and Reality Use of sources in the teaching of environmental science gives a touch of realism to the' subject.

 

        2.        Satisfying the Curiosity of Children about the Question Sources give the children an insight into the methods by which environmental science have been built up.

 

        3.        Creating a Right Type of Atmosphere The sources vitalise the subject and create a congenial and motivating atmosphere for its study.

 

           4.        Mental Exercises These include right thinking and imagination, comparing and analysing, drawing inferences, self-expression and discussion.

 

           5.        Illustration and Supplementation The original sources can be used to illustrate more important points in support of an lesson.

 

          6.        Initiation in Research The method initiates the pupils in research, which can later prove useful.

 

         7.        Use at all Stages Though most suitable for the pupils of higher classes this method can be used by the pupils of primary classes also with advantage.

 

         8.        Meaning The study of environmental science through source method makes the subject more concrete and meaningful.

 

Limitations of Source Method

Source method has marry advantages, but it also has some limitations too. Some of them are

·               It is not easy for the teacher of schools to have easy access to the original sources.

·               Use of sources is not easy for the teachers who are not trained in their use.

·               Source method is too complex and technical.

·               As the sources are available in many languages and scripts covering a period of more than three thousand years, the teachers cannot be conversant with sources in different scripts.

This makes their use difficult.

 

Supervised Study Method

·               Immediate surroundings and community provide many opportunities for supervision.

·               Concrete tangible, visible and describable data on cultural, industrial, political, geographic facts and relationships prove invaluable for the teaching of environmental science.

·               Observation lends vitality to the subject matter of environmental science.

·               Direct experiences are more effective in the process of learnings, they are also retained for a longer period of time.

·               A trip to a monument, a fort, a temple, an institution, provides its first-hand experiences, which are real.

·               The children can see them, ask questions about them and examine them. Such experiences are highly conducive to learning.

 

6.2 Categories of Practical Skills

In the process of teaching, learning practical skills are of great importance. Practical skills can be categorised in following types

 

6.2.1 Procedural and Manipulative Skills

Practical skills need some procedure and manipulative skills. These are as follow

·               Select appropriate apparatus/instruments for performing the experiment.

·               Know the limitations of the apparatus/instruments regarding their size, least count and accuracy.

·               Arrange/assemble/set and adjust the apparatus systematically.

·               Handle the apparatus, instruments, chemicals carefully to avoid any damage or injury.

·               Perform the experiment with reasonable efficiency and accuracy.

·               Separate and remove desired parts of a specimen for detailed study without damaging it.

·               Use appropriate methods and materials for specimen mounting.

·               Locate and rectify the errors in apparatus, instruments etc.

·               Add chemicals in appropriate quantity.

·               Dismantle the experimental set-up carefully.

·               Practise the precautions in handling sensitive apparatus or chemicals or flame.

 

6.2.2 Observational Skills

This can enhance the observational skill of student

In various ways. These are as follow

·               Find the least count of the instrument.

·               Read the instrument correctly.

·               Notice colour change, evolution of gases, formation of precipitates, chemical reactions etc carefully.

·               Notice the relevant details in the given specimens minutely.

·               Locate the desired parts in a specimen accurately.

·               Take observations carefully and in a systematic manner.

·               Read graph and map correctly.

 

Drawing Skills

·               It also helps in improving drawing skills of students in various ways. Such are  

·               Making proper observation tables.

·               Draw circuit diagrams, ray diagrams, experimental set-ups, sketches etc correctly and proportionately.

·               Labelling sketches and diagrams correctly.

·               Drawing graphs maps from observed data correctly.

 

6.2.4 Reporting and. Interpretative Skills

Practical skills also help the student to interpret and help them in making reports. These can be helpful in following ways

·               Make a proper plan for recording the observations.

·               Record the observations/data/information correctly and systematically.

·               Classify and categorise organisms.

·               Make correct calculations/predictions.

·               Use proper formulae and mode of summarising and reporting the result.

·               Report the result using correct symbols, units, terms and chemical equations.

·               Interpret the observations and results correctly.

 

6.2.5 Science Fairs

It is very important co-curricular activity. It involves lecture-demonstrations, presentation of new ideas, techniques, discoveries and projects. These can be organised at school, district or national level.

 

Merits

·               To encourage students to think creatively.

·               To popularise science activities of students.

 

Demerits

·               Not suitable for all types of students.

·               Very costly.