Models of Teaching

Models of teaching are structured frameworks designed to guide the teaching-learning process. They provide specific strategies and procedures that teachers can employ to facilitate student learning effectively. These models are not rigid prescriptions but rather flexible tools that can be adapted to various subject matter, age groups, and learning objectives. Developed by educational psychologists and researchers, these models aim to enhance specific aspects of cognition, social interaction, or personal development. By understanding and applying these models, teachers can create more engaging, effective, and student-centered learning experiences.

The study of teaching models is crucial for educators as it moves beyond traditional instructional methods. It encourages a more systematic and research-based approach to teaching. Each model focuses on particular learning outcomes and employs distinct teaching strategies. For instance, some models are designed to foster critical thinking and problem-solving skills, while others focus on developing conceptual understanding or promoting social cooperation. This variety allows teachers to select the most appropriate model for their specific teaching context and goals.

Concept Attainment Model

The Concept Attainment Model, primarily developed by Jerome Bruner and his colleagues, is designed to help students develop the ability to form concepts, classify information, and understand the defining characteristics of various ideas. This model emphasizes the process of inquiry and discovery, where students actively engage in comparing and contrasting examples to identify the essential attributes of a concept. The teacher's role is to facilitate this process by providing structured experiences and guiding students' thinking.

Core Principles and Objectives

The main objective of the Concept Attainment Model is to teach students how to think critically and analytically to form abstract concepts. It helps them to:

• Identify essential characteristics of a concept.
• Distinguish between relevant and irrelevant attributes.
• Formulate hypotheses about the concept.
• Test these hypotheses through further examples.
• Generalize and apply the concept to new situations.

Phases of the Concept Attainment Model

This model typically involves three main phases:

1. Data Gathering (Exposure): In this initial phase, the teacher presents students with a set of examples, some of which are instances of the concept (positive examples) and some of which are not (negative examples). The teacher does not initially reveal the concept itself. Students are encouraged to observe the examples, ask questions, and gather information.
2. Concept Identification: Once students have been exposed to a sufficient number of examples, the teacher prompts them to identify the concept. Students begin to hypothesize about the common attributes shared by the positive examples. They might suggest potential names for the concept and list its characteristics. The teacher guides this process by asking probing questions and providing feedback without directly revealing the answer.
3. Testing the Concept: In the final phase, students are presented with new examples and are asked to determine whether each is an instance of the concept or not. This helps them to test and refine their understanding of the concept's defining attributes. They must explain their reasoning, articulating the characteristics they used to make their judgment. This phase reinforces the concept and ensures that students can apply it correctly.

Teacher's Role

The teacher acts as a facilitator and guide. Their responsibilities include:

• Selecting an appropriate concept and relevant examples.
• Presenting positive and negative examples in a structured manner.
• Asking questions to stimulate inquiry and hypothesis formation.
• Providing feedback on student hypotheses.
• Guiding students to test their understanding.
• Helping students to articulate the concept's attributes.

Student's Role

Students are active participants. They are expected to:

• Observe examples carefully.
• Ask relevant questions.
• Formulate hypotheses about the concept.
• Test their hypotheses.
• Articulate their understanding of the concept.

Example: Teaching the Concept of "Mammal"

Let's consider an example of teaching the concept of "mammal" using this model:

• Phase 1 (Exposure): The teacher presents a list of animals: Dog (positive), Fish (negative), Cat (positive), Snake (negative), Whale (positive), Bird (negative), Human (positive), Lizard (negative).
• Phase 2 (Identification): Students observe the lists. They might notice that dogs, cats, whales, and humans are warm-blooded, have fur or hair, and feed their young milk. They might hypothesize the concept is "animals that are warm-blooded and have fur." The teacher asks, "What do all the 'yes' animals have in common? What is different about the 'no' animals?"
• Phase 3 (Testing): The teacher presents new examples: Bat (positive), Shark (negative), Dolphin (positive), Frog (negative). Students must decide if these are mammals and explain why, using the characteristics they identified (e.g., bats and dolphins are mammals because they are warm-blooded, breathe air with lungs, and females produce milk for their young).

Advance Organizers Model

The Advance Organizers Model was developed by David Ausubel. It is a teaching strategy designed to help students integrate new information with their existing knowledge structures. An advance organizer is a type of introductory material that is presented at the beginning of a lesson to provide a conceptual framework for the new learning material. It acts as a bridge between what the learner already knows and what they are about to learn, making the new information more meaningful and easier to assimilate.

Core Principles and Objectives

Ausubel's theory emphasizes meaningful learning, which occurs when new information can be related to existing cognitive structures. The main objectives of using advance organizers are to:

• Enhance the clarity and comprehensibility of new material.
• Facilitate the anchoring of new knowledge to existing concepts.
• Improve retention and recall of information.
• Help students organize and structure new information.
• Reduce cognitive load by providing a mental framework.

Types of Advance Organizers

Ausubel identified two main types of advance organizers:

• Expository Advance Organizers: These are used when the new material is unfamiliar to the learner. They provide a broad overview and introduce the key concepts, vocabulary, and relationships that will be covered in the lesson. They essentially lay out the structure of the upcoming information.
• Comparative Advance Organizers: These are used when the new material is related to concepts the learner already knows but has some unique features. Comparative organizers highlight similarities and differences between the new information and existing knowledge, helping learners to distinguish between related concepts and avoid confusion.

Characteristics of Effective Advance Organizers

An effective advance organizer should be:

• Relevant: Directly related to the learning material.
• Conceptual: Focus on the main ideas and relationships, not just facts.
• Abstract: Presented at a higher level of abstraction than the learning material.
• Clear and Concise: Easy to understand and not overly long.
• Presented before the learning material: To provide the necessary scaffolding.

Phases of the Advance Organizers Model

The application of this model involves presenting the advance organizer, followed by the main learning material, and then reinforcing the connections.

1. Presentation of the Advance Organizer: The teacher introduces the advance organizer at the beginning of the lesson. This could be a short lecture, a diagram, a story, a relevant analogy, or a set of guiding questions.
2. Presentation of the Learning Material: The main content of the lesson is then presented. Because students have been provided with the advance organizer, they are better equipped to understand, process, and store this new information.
3. Reinforcement: After the learning material has been presented, the teacher may engage students in activities that reinforce the connections between the new information and the concepts introduced in the advance organizer. This could involve discussions, summaries, or problem-solving tasks.

Teacher's Role

The teacher's role is to:

• Identify the key concepts and structure of the new material.
• Determine the prior knowledge of the students.
• Design and present an appropriate advance organizer.
• Present the learning material clearly.
• Facilitate activities that reinforce the learned concepts.

Student's Role

Students are expected to:

• Actively listen to and process the advance organizer.
• Relate the advance organizer to their existing knowledge.
• Engage with the learning material, using the organizer as a framework.
• Participate in reinforcement activities.

Example: Teaching about the Water Cycle

Suppose a teacher wants to teach students about the water cycle.

• Advance Organizer (Expository): The teacher might start by saying, "Today, we're going to learn about how water moves around our planet in a continuous journey. Think about rain falling from the sky, rivers flowing to the sea, and clouds forming. These are all parts of a big, repeating process called the water cycle. We'll explore how water changes form and location, and why this cycle is essential for life."
• Learning Material: The teacher then explains evaporation, condensation, precipitation, collection, transpiration, etc., using diagrams and descriptions.
• Reinforcement: Students might draw their own water cycle diagram or discuss how the water cycle affects their local weather.

Inquiry-Training Model

The Inquiry-Training Model, developed by Richard Suchman, is designed to foster students' ability to think independently, ask questions, and investigate phenomena to discover principles and concepts. It is a student-centered approach where learners are presented with an unfamiliar situation or problem and are encouraged to explore it through systematic questioning. The teacher's role is to guide the inquiry process without providing direct answers, thereby helping students develop their own investigative skills and problem-solving strategies.

Core Principles and Objectives

This model aims to develop students' intellectual autonomy and their capacity for scientific thinking. Key objectives include:

• Developing systematic inquiry skills.
• Learning to formulate hypotheses and design experiments.
• Understanding cause-and-effect relationships.
• Developing problem-solving abilities.
• Fostering curiosity and a desire for knowledge.
• Learning to analyze data and draw conclusions.

Phases of the Inquiry-Training Model

Suchman outlined five phases in the inquiry process:

1. Encountering the Phenomenon: The teacher presents students with a puzzling situation, an anomaly, or a mysterious event. This is designed to stimulate curiosity and raise questions. For example, the teacher might show a video of an object behaving in an unexpected way.
2. Identifying the Problem: Students are encouraged to observe the phenomenon carefully and articulate what they find puzzling or problematic. They begin to formulate questions about why the event occurred or what the underlying cause might be.
3. Gathering Information through Questioning: This is the core of the model. Students systematically ask questions to gather information about the phenomenon. Suchman suggested that students should ask "yes/no" questions initially, which the teacher answers truthfully. As students gather more information, they can move to more complex questions. The teacher's role here is crucial: to answer questions accurately and provide the necessary data without revealing the explanation.
4. Formulating Explanations (Hypotheses): Based on the information gathered, students begin to develop tentative explanations or hypotheses about the phenomenon. They try to connect the pieces of information to form a coherent understanding.
5. Testing and Refining Explanations: Students test their hypotheses by asking further questions, designing mini-experiments (if applicable), or seeking more data. They refine their explanations based on the results of their testing, working towards a scientifically sound conclusion. The teacher guides this process, encouraging students to justify their conclusions with evidence.

Teacher's Role

The teacher is a facilitator and a source of information, but not an instructor in the traditional sense. Their key roles are:

• Presenting the puzzling phenomenon.
• Answering students' "yes/no" and other factual questions accurately.
• Refraining from providing direct explanations or answers.
• Encouraging systematic questioning and hypothesis development.
• Guiding students to test their explanations.
• Helping students to articulate their findings and conclusions.

Student's Role

Students are the active investigators. They are expected to:

• Observe the phenomenon critically.
• Formulate questions about the phenomenon.
• Ask systematic questions to gather information.
• Develop hypotheses and explanations.
• Test their hypotheses and refine their explanations.
• Arrive at a reasoned conclusion based on evidence.

Example: A Puzzling Situation with Dominoes

Consider a teacher presenting a scenario: A single domino falls and knocks over a line of 10 other dominoes, but the last domino in the line does not fall.

• Phase 1 (Encountering): Teacher shows a video or demonstrates this setup.
• Phase 2 (Identifying): Students ask, "Why didn't the last domino fall?" or "What was different about the last domino?"
• Phase 3 (Gathering Info): Students ask questions like:
  • "Was the last domino standing up?" (Yes)
  • "Was the domino that hit it in the right position?" (Yes)
  • "Was the last domino glued down?" (No)
  • "Was the last domino smaller than the others?" (Yes)
  • "Was there something blocking the last domino?" (No)
  The teacher answers these questions truthfully.
• Phase 4 (Formulating Explanations): Students might hypothesize: "Maybe the last domino was too light to be knocked over by the one before it," or "The spacing between the last two dominoes was too large."
• Phase 5 (Testing): Students might ask: "What if we used a heavier domino?" or "What if we moved the second-to-last domino closer?" The teacher might confirm that if a lighter domino is used, it's harder to knock over. The conclusion is that the size/weight difference of the last domino was the key factor.

Comparison of the Models

While all three models aim to enhance student learning, they focus on different cognitive processes and employ distinct pedagogical strategies.

Model	Primary Focus	Teacher's Role	Student's Role	Key Skill Developed
Concept Attainment	Concept formation, classification, identifying attributes	Facilitator, provides examples, guides identification	Active observer, hypothesis generator, tester	Analytical thinking, concept definition
Advance Organizers	Integrating new information with existing knowledge	Provider of conceptual scaffolding	Relator of new to old information, active learner	Meaningful learning, knowledge organization
Inquiry-Training	Developing investigative and problem-solving skills	Facilitator, information source, guide for inquiry	Active investigator, questioner, hypothesis tester	Critical thinking, scientific reasoning, problem-solving

Understanding these models allows teachers to diversify their instructional approaches, catering to different learning objectives and student needs. Each model provides a structured way to engage students in higher-order thinking, moving beyond rote memorization towards deeper understanding and skill development.