TEACHER-CENTRED APPROACHES: LECTURES

• Lecture is a method of transmitting knowledge to students by talking

at them.
• Unless a teacher posses the necessary skills, effectiveness of lecture
can be very limited.
• Lectures are limited in promoting deeper learning and development
of higher cognitive skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, and
applying knowledge.
• It is ineffective in promoting mastery of a performance technique or
technical procedure, improvement in communication skills, personal
and social adjustment, and retention of the subject knowledge.
LECTURE METHOD
• Lectures encourage surface or non-conceptual approach to learning.
• Research shows that only 62% recall materials just presented, 45%
recall after 3-4 days and 24% recall 8 eight weeks later.
• With all the disadvantages, lectures can be effective if it is used for
right purpose, well planned, eloquently delivered and supplemented
with thought provoking students activities.
• When presented efficiently and enthusiastically, lectures can
stimulate interest, challenge students’ thinking, and raise issues that
students will want to follow up.
When is lecturing appropriate?
Lecturing is appropriate when:
➢The purpose if to present key information to students.
➢For universities and advanced level secondary education students.
These students have necessary study skills, motivation, attention span
and self-management skills.
➢When introducing a new topic, providing overview of the lesson to
arouse interest about issues that can be pursued later by different
methods.
➢Bringing students up to date with recent information that is not
readily available through other media
Lecturing is appropriate when:
➢Presenting information in a quick, concise and integrated way that
would otherwise take students a great deal of time to research and
discover for themselves.
➢Providing an opportunity for review and revision of course material
(e.g., prior to examinations).
When is lecture method least appropriate?
✓Lectures are least appropriate with young children.
✓Lectures are inappropriate for most children with learning difficulties.
✓ Lecturing is inappropriate when the subject matter clearly requires
hands-on processing by students.
✓Lecturing is inappropriate if the objective of the lesson is to promote
affective outcomes such as change in beliefs, attitudes and emotions.
✓ Lectures are also inappropriate for fostering students’ creativity and
initiatives.
Techniques for enhancing lectures
1. Intersperse the presentation time with frequent periods of questions and
discussions.
2. Use visual materials such as videos, overhead projectors and power
point.
3. Embed lectures with activities that require students to interact with the
lecture materials.
4. Establish an anticipatory mind set in students by asking provocative
questions, displaying a picture or object or simply state lesson objectives.
5. Use advanced organisers: This is a concise set of information that
prepares the scene and paves the way for new learning.
Techniques for enhancing lectures
6. Use graphic organisers on the whiteboard or chalkboard. A graphic
organiser may be in the form of a concept map, a web of ideas, a
diagram, an incomplete table of data, or any similar device.
Limitations of lectures
1. Too long lectures that exceed the attention span of even those who are
interested are ineffective.
2. In lectures individual differences such as prior knowledge, experiences
and motivation are ignored.
3. It is not possible to know whether every student has understood the
material.
4. Some students lack confidence to ask questions or raise issues in a large
group.
5. AudioVisual and ICT equipment may malfunction and cause
interruptions.
6. Many lecturers are not particularly effective or charismatic presenters.
Inquiry-based method
1. Should science teaching focus on product of science or process of
science or both?
2. Is there a way basic education students could know all the facts,
laws, theories and principles produced by scientist?
3. Which is better between students understanding how science is
done and knowing the results of what others have done?
4. Which is the prime goal of teaching science according to our
curriculum?
5. How would you accomplish the goal of teaching science process
when employed to teach?
Inquiry-based method: Tanzania curriculum
• Inquiry based approach is
emphasised in the curriculum.
• However, shortage of resources,
large class sizes, and exams that
largely measure recall of
knowledge may limit teachers
use of inquiry-based approach.
Inquiry-based method
• To help students learn how to do science rather than learn about science,
we can employ inquiry-based approach to science teaching.
• You should note however that effective teachers draw on the repertoire of
teaching techniques and make selection of the most appropriate methods
depending on the classroom context.
No single method meet the needs of all children: Consider the following
factors:
1. Nature of the subject/content
2. Teachers’ personality
3. Age, interest and capabilities of learners.
4. Context of the classroom
What is a scientific Inquiry?
Dr. Jane Goodal’s inquiry & Discovery
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This is an activity that involves
1. Making observations;
2. Posing questions;
3. Examining books and other sources of information to see what is already
known;
4. Planning investigations;
5. Reviewing what is already known in light of experimental evidence;
6. Using tools to gather, Analyse, and interpret data;
7. Proposing the results.
Essential features of inquiry
1. Learner engages in scientifically oriented questions.
2. Learner gives priority to evidence in responding to questions.
3. Learner formulates explanations from evidence.
4. Learner connects explanations to scientific knowledge.
5. Learner communicates and justifies explanations.
Inquiry-based science teaching

There are various forms of inquiry-based teaching.

• Unguided inquiry/free inquiry
• Guided inquiry
• Coupled inquiry
• Structured inquiry
Free inquiry method
❑Students decide what is important for them to learn.
❑They set up their individual and unique learning activities to explore
the topics they have chosen.
❑They devise and explore their own inquiry situations.
❑They review different sources of information including books,
internet and magazines to see what has been learned before.
❑The teacher act as a resource and co-inquirer. Students are both
physically and mentally involved.
❑ Generally, students inquire into scientific phenomena, figuring out
things for themselves.
Advantages of free inquiry
1. Students are actively engaged for they study topics of their
interests.
2. This method promote the development of science process skills
among students.
3. The learned material is meaningful to students.
4. It helps students achieve a long-lasting learning outcomes.
Disadvantages of free inquiry
1. This method does not provide enough guidance.
2. It can result into frustrations for the beginning learners who still
need to depend on teachers’ guidance.
3. It reduces teachers control of subject content.
4. It requires additional materials and equipment which might be
missing in our schools.
5. It may cause management problems: each students could be
studying something different at the same time.
Guided inquiry
• This combine teacher control of teaching and free discovery.
• In guided inquiry, the teacher selects the topic and sets the direction.
• The teacher set the direction by introducing the unit and the lessons,
and providing structure for the investigations.
• The teacher develops the initial activity by asking the open ended
questions that students may pursue through reading books and
subsequently investigate or inquire what they don’t understand.
• Students may also ask questions, adopt teachers suggestions or
modify the structure when carrying out investigation.
Guided inquiry
• Students develop their own conclusions as they construct their own
conceptualizations.
• Guided inquiry involves learning by doing
• The teacher serves as guide (not director), resource person, and
coinquirer.
• He/she listens to students and asks and probes by asking more
questions to understanding students thinking and guide them.
• The classroom is hands-on and laboratory focused. Students typically
work in small groups to construct meanings and discovery concepts
that are new to them.
Guided inquiry
• Students check their conclusion to see if they have explanatory and
predictive power.
• They check if they have used input from others that are available.
They share and discuss findings among themselves and with the
teacher to confirm the validity.
• If they cannot confirm the validity of their findings, they embark on
further investigations to develop revised conclusions and reconstruct
conceptualisations.
• Students inquiry is hands-on and minds-on exploration of resources
and materials including books, internet and videos.
Advantages of guided inquiry
1. This method helps students construct their own knowledge while
exposing them to the content suggested for their grade level.
2. It allows students to investigate topic of their interest in-depth and
to ask and investigate their own questions.
3. Students develop cross cutting skills such as learning to learn,
independent thinking, critical thinking, and problem solving.
4. This method provide enough guidance and structure that eliminate
confusion that may result from wandering in unguided inquiry.
5. Under this approach the class is manageable and the content of
curriculum is covered.
Disadvantages of guided inquiry
1. Inquiry may take more time than is allowed for science.
2. When children develop their own questions, the questions do not
necessarily relate to the required curriculum.
3. Teachers may be uncomfortable responding to all questions posed
by children.
4. Teachers may feel unprepared to help children with difficult
questions because of their perceived lack of background
knowledge.
5. Teachers may be more comfortable with greater classroom
structure than the freedom suggested by open-ended inquiry.
Coupled inquiry
• Coupled inquiry combines a guided-inquiry investigation with an
open-inquiry investigation.
• The teacher invites students to inquiry by choosing the first question
to investigate specifically focusing on the syllabus.
• After the guided inquiry, a more learner-centred approach is taken by
implementing an open-inquiry investigation.
• Since the guidance was provided in the first phase, in the open
inquiry phase students often generate questions that closely relate to
the syllabus.
• Specific concepts can be explored using a more traditional approach
to help students connect concrete experience to abstract concepts.
Coupled inquiry: Phases
• Invitation to inquiry
• Teacher initiated guided inquiry
• Open inquiry
• Inquiry resolution
• Assessment
Read more on these phases.
Structured inquiry
• Structured inquiry is sometimes referred to as directed inquiry.
• It is mainly directed by the teacher.
• Typically, this results in a cookbook lesson in which students follow
teacher directions to come up with a specific end point or product.
• Students engagement in the task is limited to following teacher
instructions.
• Simply following directions in a cookbook style does not actively
engage students’ minds.
• Therefore, in strict sense structured inquiry is not a true inquiry.
• To encourage thinking, students must be involved in making decisions
and choices of classroom investigations.
Structured inquiry
How can teachers make structured inquiry more learner-centred?
• By ask students to devise the procedure for carrying out the
investigation
• By taking away a prepared data table so that students must consider
how to create their own table.
• By asking students to determine which data should be or could be
gathered instead of prescribing the method.
• By asking students how an experiment could be improved for a better
investigation.
• Generally, most the practical exams in Tanzania are structured.
Summary
• The purpose of learning different types of inquiry is to help teachers
plan for and reflect on the type of investigative activities they and
their students do in schools.
• It should help to increase the variety.
• Under normal circumstances neither extremely free inquiry nor
extremely structured inquiry is recommended.
• Instead teachers should use varieties of inquiry based activities
depending on the context.
Why use inquiry based methods
• It is emphasised in the curriculum.
• It motivates students.
• It makes science learning enjoyable.
• It helps to build team work and cooperative skills in science learning.

Why not use? Some critics of inquiry approach claim that the approach
leaves less time for teaching content of science.
Examples of inquiry-based lessons
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tion.html
Problem-based method

• What is a problem?
→A problem refers to a question or issue that is uncertain and so must be
examined and solved.
→Characteristics of problems: Perceived need for solution, affective
connotations.
• Problem solving is a uniform process of identifying potential
problems, defining and representing the problem, exploring possible
strategies, acting on those strategies, and looking back and evaluating
the effects of those activities.
Problem-based method
Some define problem solving as involving four processes:
1. Understand the problem.
2. Make a plan.
3. Carry out the plan.
4. Evaluate its effectiveness.
Problem-based method
• Problem based method involve presenting students with a real-life issue
that requires a decision, or with a real-life problem that requires a solution.
• The approach encourage students to apply their theoretical knowledge in
real-life.
The approach connects problem investigated to real-life in two ways:
• First the projects or problems used often reflect or are based on real-life
scenarios.
• Second the process of working in a team to collect evidence and critically
think often reflect real-life situation students will encounter in the future
life.
Problem-based method…
• The approach is useful in building critical thinking skills and abstract
reasoning. It encourage students to solve real-life problems rather
than seeking a correct solution.
How problem-based method works
• Teachers and students identify a problem which could range from
highly complex problem with no solution to simplified problems with
few options.
Steps in problem solving

1. Identification of a problem
2. Analysis of the problem and gathering information relevant to the
problem
3. Selecting one or more hypothesis
4. Testing hypothesis
5. Making conclusion about the solution to the problem.
Identification of a problem
• Teachers need to encourage students to raise questions or propose
problems. Teachers may for example devise boxes and boards where
students can post questions/problems.
• When starting new topics, lists of potential questions/problems can
be brainstormed and used in planning the work with the students.
• There should be a school climate where questions are treated
seriously and teachers should be role models.
• Teachers will need to help students frame questions or problems so
that they can be investigated and solved.
Analysis of the problem
• This involves identifying the key variables-independent and
dependent variables.
• Reading the key literature to develop conceptual understanding of the
problem
• Listing what is known about the problem
• Identify the knowledge needed to understand the problem and solve
it.
• Once the list of known is available, it is easy to identify what is
unknown and focus on solving the unknown.
Advantages of problem-based method.
1. It encourages self-directed in learning.
2. It prepares students to think critically and analytically.
3. It empowers students to identify, locate and use appropriate
resources.
4. Issues studied are linked to real world and are interesting to
students.
5. Students actively participate
6. knowledge and strategies acquired are likely to be retained and
transferred to other learning situations.
Disadvantages of problem-based method
• Some students have difficulty in identifying irrelevant information
from what is not relevant to the problem being solved.
• Some students lack flexibility in their thinking and therefore approach
an issue from a very narrow perspective.
• Younger students tend to be rigid in deciding the solution.
• Some problems and issues are very complex. They may call upon
knowledge and experience that the students do not possess.
• Teachers have difficulty adopting a facilitative, rather than a directing
and instructing role.
Disadvantages of problem-based method
• Students are often incapable of executing the tasks associate with
problems based method independently. They often rely on teacher’s
assistance and direction.
• Some issues or problems may require access to information and
resources that the school does not possess.
Assignment
In your respective groups search and read the following articles:
1. The Quest for Quality Science Education Experiences in Tanzanian
Secondary Schools by John Kalolo (2015).
2. Science education in Tanzania: Challenges and policy responses by
L. Semali and K. Mehta (2012).
3. The role played by contextual challenges in practising inquiry based
science teaching in Tanzania schools by Mkimbili, Tiplic and
Odegaard (2017).
Assignment cont…
• Discuss the problems of science and mathematics teaching in
Tanzania
• Make the summary of the key problems/challenges
• Propose the solutions that you as a science/maths teacher will pursue
when employed to teach in schools.
• Write a two pages group report which should be submitted on the
23rd April.
• Prepare a PowerPoint presentation of 5 slides maximum ready for
presentation from next lecture.