Chapter 5 Principles Of Education And Teaching Learning Process Questions and Answers
Question 1. Specific aims of education.
Answer:
- Definitions of education by Indian philosophers Famous Indian philosophers or educationists have given the following concepts of education with their own meanings:
- Education means training for the country and love for the nation.
- Education is a realization of self.
- Education is self-realization and service of the people.
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Aims Of Education: Education is a purposeful and planned activity undertaken by the educator and the learner to achieve clearly defined objectives or ends in view. Without an end or objective, no purposeful activity will have the real force which directs it and makes it meaningful.
1. Individual aim: Education should aim at the training and development of an individual. Only a well-trained individual can understand his rights and obligations towards society.
Some important individual aims of education are as follows: Development as an individual human being
- Moral and spiritual development
- Cultural development
- Harmonious development
- Promote positive physical development
- Provide a sense of complete living
- Development of the right personality
- Development of good citizenship
- Development of good leadership
2. Social aim: An individual is born with certain potential and natural endowments. It is the task of education to develop these into distinct individual personalities. Personality development does not take place in a vacuum.
It takes place in association with others, in cooperative living, and in working together for the welfare of a group or society. As per historical evidence, in ancient Sparta, it was believed that each individual was born not for himself but for his country. A socially efficient individual conforms to certain standards of conduct known as moral conduct.
3. Vocational aim: Education should have a utilitarian aim. This means that education should help an individual earn his livelihood himself which is an essential function of life that cannot be ignored. This aim makes an individual economically self-sufficient, gives purpose to the educational activity, and bridges the gap between pure literary education and vocation.
4. Cultural aim: Culture is a complete whole and includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. True education is not satisfied if members of society take up and preserve only the existing manners and customs.
5. Moral aim: A strong character includes physical fitness, resolution, and willpower. Moral virtues like honesty, loyalty, tolerance, justice, self-control, and sincerity promote the social efficiency of an individual.
6. Spiritual aim: Ancient Indian educators defined education as a means for salvation. Dr.Radhakrishnan said that the aim of education is neither national efficiency nor world solidarity but making an individual feel that he has within himself something deeper than intellect, call it spirit, if you like. However spiritual aim does not find any place in the Western education system.
Question 2. Aims of nursing education.
Answer:
Aims of nursing education: Nursing education has its aims in common with the aims of education in general as well as specific. The nursing education aims are determined by the health needs of society, the needs of students, the philosophy of nursing, current trends in education and nursing, and advancement in science and technology. The many nursing aims are listed below:
- Intellectual aim: Theoretical and practical knowledge is essential for rendering intelligent and efficient nursing services. Professional nursing practice is based on scientific principles and evidence-based practice.
- Leadership aims: Nurses plan, organize, and manage healthcare activities and programs. They have to evaluate the quality and structure of healthcare services. They have to coordinate and collaborate on the health care services. Thus, education aims at identifying potential nursing leaders.
- Professional development aim: Each nurse should be educated in a manner to enables her to develop the appropriate skills and attitude essential for professional practice.
- Personality development aim: Nursing education should aim at an all-round development of the individual in all aspects. The nurse should grow and develop as a person of self-awareness, self-direction, and self-motivation.
- Generating and utilizing research evidence: Evidence-based practice and ongoing research is vital for the growth of the nursing profession. Therefore, nursing education must pay emphasis on the utilization and development of resource evidence.
Ensuring a safe, quality, and cost-effective case: It is the prime responsibility of nursing education to it equip its professionals to provide safe, quality, and cost-effective care to the common man.
Question 3. Function of education.
Answer:
Functions of education Education is the process of living through a continuous reconstruction of experiences. It is the development of all those capacities in an individual that will enable him to control his environment and fulfill his possibilities.
- A child is born with certain endowments which are developed per the demands of society through education. Education enables the child to manipulate his environment.
- Thus, education provides important functions for the individual as well as the society. The functions of education can solely be for an individual or the society and nation at large. Some essential functions of education are discussed below.
Function of education towards an individual: Education participates in the growth and direction of an individual as described below
Growth and development of the individual: Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi said when we leave the earth carelessly to nature, it bears weeds and thistles. In the same way when we leave a child’s education to nature alone, he develops only confused impressions in his mind.
Thus, only environmental and natural growth is not sufficient for the complete growth and development of an individual. To this must be added a systematic course of formal training. Moreover, only one-sided growth will not serve the purpose. The whole personality of the child should develop physically, intellectually, morally, socially, and spiritually.
- Direction and guidance: Direction refers to minimizing unnecessary and confusing movements. When an immature child responds to a stimulus, much of the superfluous energy is wasted. This wastage can be saved if the child’s activity is properly directed towards a goal. One can be directed by his internal tendencies or by external stimuli. The teacher, therefore, in the direction program should take into account the external factors of an environment as well as the child’s inborn tendency
- Preparation for adult life: Preparation of a child for the responsibilities or privileges of adult life has been considered to be the chief function of education from ancient times
- Conservation of traditional knowledge: Preserving old traditions, values, ideals, customs, and ways of thinking is also a function of education.
- Transmission of culture: Transmitting the cultural heritage to the younger generation is achieved through education.
- Progressive development: Reconstructing new experiences, unfolding new dimensions of knowledge, and furthering civilization and culture.
- Develop vocational efficiency: Education enables the person to acquire the knowledge and skills to efficiently perform the tasks related to a particular vocation or professional field.
- Achievement of self-sufficiency: Self-sufficiency can be gained by the individual through education because after the due education person can earn her livelihood as well as become cognitively and economically independent.
- Holistic personality development: Education must be aimed at developing an individual’s holistic personality.
- Moral and character development: An ideal education must be helpful for an individual to develop good moral values and character.
- Creating awareness of past and present and preparing for the future: Education must make an individual become knowledgeable about the past and present scenarios of social and professional pursuits as well as prepare him to manage future expectations and needs.
The function of education towards the nation: National progress depends on an individual’s hard work, energy, selflessness, and devotion. Education plays an important role in inculcating these qualities in individuals. The Kothari Commission Report rightly said that the destiny of India was being reshaped in its classroom.
The important functions of education for a nation are given below
- Ensuring national development: National development largely depends on the education of a country. It is directly proportional to the literacy rate as well as the availability of human resources.
- Promoting national integrity: India is a country of diversity having a strong sense of casteism, communalism, provincialism, regionism, and linguistic antagonism that could serve as barriers to national integration. Education can help break these barriers and promote national integration.
- Continuous supply of skilled workforce to the nation: Every country requires a skilled workforce for the smooth functioning of its service sector. It is the main national function of education to ensure the continuous supply of skilled workforce to the country.
- Developing leaders for the nation: Leaders are the main role players in the overall development of a country. Leaders are essentially required in social, economic, political, and cultural sectors and education can realize this requirement by preparing leaders to meet a country’s present and future needs.
Function of education towards society As biological life is maintained and transmitted by nutrition and reproduction, the same way social life is maintained by education. Education is necessary and an inevitable result of society’s need to guide the growth and development of its younger members to produce an improved generation. History bears evidence that as education advances, civilization also advances.
Some selected social functions of education are as follows:
- Improving social efficiency: Education ensures the overall holistic development of individuals, who could be good individuals in a society. It ultimately promotes social efficiency and the society flourishes in the right direction.
- Civilization and cultural security: Education teaches individuals to gain civic sense so that a positive civilization can be expected for its members. In addition, education must ensure cultural security so that important traditional culture can be preserved and utilized by future generations.
- Preparing good citizens: The main function of education is to prepare good citizens in a country so that a civilized society can be expected and each individual has the privilege of enjoying full social freedom, human honor, and rights.
Question 4 . Factors affecting education.
Answer:
Factors affecting the aims of education: Educational aims are affected by certain factors such as philosophy of life, elements of human nature, religious reasons, political ideology, socioeconomic reasons, cultural reasons, and the intention of exploring new knowledge, which are described as follows:
- Philosophy of life: Both educational aims and philosophy of life are very closely related just like two facets of the same coin. Education is the best means of propagation of the philosophy of life and philosophy gives the basis for the aims of education
- Elements of human nature: Human nature is always considered for determining educational aims. Idealism infolding divinity in man is considered the main aim of education.
- Religious factors: Religion is an inseparable determinant of educational aims. In India, Buddhism focuses on the adoption of ahimsa and truth in the education system and Sikhism focuses on patriotism as the aim of education.
- Political ideologies: Political ideologies certainly have a say in determining educational aims. The educational aims of a democratic political system can be quite different from those of an autocratic political set-up.
- Socioeconomic factors: These factors play an important role in affecting the aims of education. The social system, social ideology, and economy of a country are important factors to affect the aims of education.
- Cultural factors: Education plays an important role in transmitting cultural heritage and traditions from one generation to another. Culture also develops educational aims by itself.
- Intellectual factors: As education is fully scientific today, it has to aim at exploring new information and knowledge. from one generation to another. Culture also develops educational aims by itself.
- Intellectual factors: As education is fully scientific today, it has to aim at exploring new information and knowledge.
Question 5. Definition of learning.
Answer:
Teaching and learning activities are twin activities involved in the total educational process. Teaching and learning are closely related and they are reciprocal to each other. Teaching cannot be thought without an idea of learning and learning is not possible without teaching activities.
Any activity can be called learning so far as it develops the individual and makes his/her behavior and experiences different from what they would otherwise have been.
- Learning is a process that results in the modification of behavior.
- Learning may be considered as a change in insights, behavior, perception, motivation, or a combination of these.
- Learning is the process by which behavior originates or changes through practice and training.
Question 6.Characteristics of learning.
Answer:
Characteristics of learning Learning is the acquisition of knowledge and/or skills through education and experience. Our ability to learn and our intellectual capacity are intangibles.
A detailed discussion about the characteristics of learning is given below.
- Learning is unitary: The process of learning helps the learner respond as a whole person in a unified way to the whole situation or total pattern. He responds intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and physically and these occur simultaneously. He reacts to the whole learning situation rather than to any single stimulus.
- Learning is individual and social: Learning is in a sense an entirely individual matter. Each individual must learn his or her own activity. In a larger sense, all learning is social, as it takes place in response to the environment in which there are other individuals as well as physical things. Learning is social because it takes place as a type of response to an individual’s social environment. It is important that each person do his or her own learning irrespective of their individual differences, their capacities, and level of intelligence.
- Learning is purposive: Learning is not only active but active in a specific direction. It helps individuals achieve goals or purposes in their lives. Learning cannot be meaningful and efficacious without persistent selective and purposeful effort. Learning not only contributes to an individual’s purposes at times but enables him/her to make more intelligent adjustments in the future.
- Learning is creative: Human learning is both selective and creative. Man is the only creature on earth who is not merely a creature but a creator as well. Learning helps a man to be more creative in life. It is the process of personal choice-making. Learning helps him be creative for the betterment of the society.
- Learning modifies the behavior of the individual: Learning affects the conduct of the individual. True learning takes place only when the individual acquires a type of knowledge or a skill that changes his or her attitudes and appreciations in response to a real need and modifies his or her conduct in accordance with new learning and therefore is changed.
- Learning helps in the organization of experiences: The process of learning is not mere acquisition of facts and skills through drill and repetition. It involves the organization and evaluation of learning materials. The learner reorganizes his or her experience and behavior.
- Learning helps us make choices in life: Change is a law of nature and things are changing around us in the universe at every movement. Therefore, learning is as essential as food and physical exercise so that one can make wise decisions and adaptations to the changes one witnesses in his surroundings. Thus it will not be wrong to state that changes as well as learning are lifelong processes because as changes in life take place every day, learning is also needed every moment to make the best choices and decisions in life.
- Learning helps bring changes in life: Every one of us needs change and progress in life; however, questions arise on how one can achieve fast and prompt changes and progress in life. The answer is learning, because when one acquires new knowledge he/she tries to apply it on the ground that ultimately brings about change and progress in life. All rapid changes and human progress in the world are the result of new learning.
- Learning helps in continuous professional development: Learning does not end after a particular course or educational program but is needed throughout life for the continuous professional development of the individual. For example, healthcare professionals including nurses regularly engage in professional education such as seminars, symposiums, workshops, and conferences essential for their continuous professional development.
- Learning helps keep in tune with trends and developments in particular fields: Learning provides an individual, with a new way of thinking and professionals must acquire new knowledge to meet the pace with emerging new demands of their consumers. For example, India is catching up with medical tourism; nurses and healthcare professionals have to equip themselves with the emerging healthcare demands of these new healthcare consumers. Learning helps such individuals be in tune with new trends and the development of their profession.
Question 7. Principles of learning
Answer:
Principles Of Learning: Basic fundamental principles of learning
Motivated by adjustment to new things universal in nature
- Never-ending growth
- A continuous process
- Goal-directed or purposive
- Active and creative
- Aroused by individual and social needs
- Response of the whole individual to the total situation
- Transferable
- Possible on cognitive, affective, and conative side
- A process, not a product
Learning brings a progressive change in the behavior of learners The main principles of learning are discussed below.
- Brings progressive change in behavior: Learning brings a progressive change in behavior as the individual reacts to situations and this is how learning leads to improvement in an individual.
- Learning is motivated by adjustment: The individual has to adjust to the new environment.
Learning is universal in nature: Man is a rational animal and learns more than other animals from nature; however, learning does occur in other animals since it is an omnipresent phenomenon. - Learning is never-ending growth: Every individual has an inspiration to learn more. One achievement leads to further incentive, pursuit, and effort. Therefore, learning is the never-ending growing phenomenon of an individual.
- Learning is a continuous process: Learning is continuous and not restricted to childhood but grows with life. Death is the end of learning.
- Learning is goal-directed or purposive: When the purpose or goal of learning is clear, vivid, and explicit, learning becomes meaningful and effective to the learner.
- Learning is active and creative: Learning largely depends on the activities of a learner. It is said no learning can take place where there is no self-activity. Learning results from the activity and experience.
- Learning is aroused by individual and social needs: Learning depends on individuals: their needs, problems, interests, attitudes, ambitions, and needs of society. Learning may be quick and fast for some individuals and in others it may be slow or steady. No learning can take place in the absence of a social environment.
- Learning is transferable: Learning is a transferable phenomenon, which may transfer from one learning generation to the next generation of learners. A transfer of learning content may take place but the amount of transfer may vary from situation to situation and from individual to individual. Transfer occurs when there is a similarity of content, techniques, ideas, procedures, interests, and attitudes.
- Learning is a process not a product: Learning is an ongoing process as it goes on and on and is a never-ending process; the death of an individual is considered as the end point of learning. Therefore, it is considered a lifelong process rather than an end product of a particular point of life.
Question 8. Factors influencing learning.
Answer:
Factors influencing learning are classified under two main headings: intrinsic and extrinsic factors
1. Intrinsic factors: Intrinsic factors are from within the individual learner such as age, intelligence, attention, interest, holistic health, maturation, fatigue, insight, ability, capacity, and motivation.
- Age: Age can impact the capability to learn. A child can learn faster and an aged person will have difficulty learning the modern ways of knowledge.
- Intelligence: The mental ability of an individual can affect learning. Individuals with subaverage intelligence will learn later than individuals with normal intelligence levels.
- Attention: Attention plays an important role in the education and training process. Attention is not static. It fluctuates from one object to another. Inattention by trainees is responsible for poor learning.
- Interest: Interest is an inner disposition or a tendency of readiness to perceive. Effective learning requires assimilation and interest. Interest should be aroused before learning begins and for satisfactory results, it should be maintained throughout the learning period.
- Holistic health: Physical and intellectual health promotes effective learning. Without sound intellectual or physical health, an individual is unable to fulfill the demands of the learning process.
- Maturation: Learning depends on intellectual age. Maturation means intellectual and social maturity and psychological readiness. The changes associated with normal growth are called maturation.
- Fatigue: Every physical activity involves the consumption of energy. Human efficiency is the ratio between achievement and energy spent. Mental fatigue is caused by a loss of interest and the monotonous nature of work. When an individual is tired He/she cannot pay attention or concentrate on learning activities.
- Insight: Insight also plays an important part in learning. Without clear insight, it is impossible to achieve predetermined goals of learning. Insight is based on the ability to synthesize the perceived facts and factors. It involves creative and imaginative thinking.
- Ability or capacity: Different species of animals have different capacity to learn. Man is known to have a greater capacity to learn than other living beings. Even men vary in their ability to learn.
- Motivation: Motivation is a general term that encompasses the states of the individual under which he attends to certain aspects of his environment. As a result, his behavior is both initiated and directed.
2. Extrinsic factors: Extrinsic factors are from outside the individual learner and interfere directly or indirectly with an individual’s learning process such as the nature of knowledge, the meaningfulness of content, practice, learning situation, and environment, clarity of content, task-oriented learning, verity in content and teaching methods, student involvement and teacher enthusiasm.
- Nature of knowledge: If knowledge is interesting in nature, an individual can learn it more efficiently.
- Meaningfulness of content: Meaningless material can neither be learned easily nor kept in memory for the long term. If the material is meaningful, the individual will learn it more effectively and easily.
- Practice: Practice, exercise, repetition or drill are interchangeable terms that are presumed to have something to do with learning. Simple acts are learned in single trials, but complex acts are learned through exercises or repeated trials.
- Learning situation and environment: A learner should have a conducive environment to learn that will promote the learning process. For example, adequate ventilation, lighting, temperature, odor-free environment, absence of nose disturbance, rodent, and insect-free environment, and availability of good library resources.
- Clarity of content: Clarity is the ability of the learner to clearly see, hear, and understand what is being said. Threats to clarity include small fonts, slurred speech, obstructions to sight, and ambiguous language.
- Task-orientated learning: People tend to learn better when they are engaged in tasks.
- Variety in content and teaching methods: A variety of ways used by the teacher can enhance the students’ learning. Some people learn by listening, some by seeing, and some by doing.
- Student involvement: Student involvement in the whole teaching-learning process is crucial for his or her learning. Active involvement of students not only motivates them but also arouses interest in particular activities.
- Teacher enthusiasm: The enthusiasm of the teachers or presenters is contagious. If the teacher shows interest in a topic, the learners are more likely to be interested.
Question 9. Nature of learning
Answer:
Following are some of the significant views about the nature of learning:
- Behaviorist view: Learning is a change in behavior as a result of experience. Men and other living beings react to the environment.
- Gestalt view: According to this view, learning depends on gestalt or configuration (wholeness of the situation). Learning is a total reaction to the total situation.
- Hormic view: This view was developed by McDougall. It stresses the purposeful nature of learning, i.e. learning is a goal-directed activity.
- Trial and error view: This view was put forward by Thorndike. He conducted many experiments on dogs, cats, and fish and concluded that most learning takes place by trial and error.
Question 10. Explain the method of learning/Process of learning.
Answer:
- Motive of the learner: Motive or need arises first. Motive is the force that impinges or compels the individual to behave react or do a particular task.
- Establishing goals: If a motive or need is present, the goal is set up by the teacher and learner.
- Teacher-student adjustment: Adjustment on the part of the students and teacher to each other and the environment
- Change in the student’s behavior: During this phase, inappropriate behaviors are dropped and new behaviors are acquired by the student. Changes in behavior in an individual take place after due interaction of the student with the educational environment and/or teacher.
- Fixation or stabilization of behavior: Later the changes in the behaviour of the learner acquainted are expected to be fixed and stabilized for permanence.
Question 11. Enlist the relationship between teaching and learning.
Answer:
Relationship Between Teaching And Learning
- Both teaching and learning may be formal or informal.
- Both are goal-oriented.
- Good teaching results in good learning.
- One can observe teaching but not learning.
- Both teaching and learning require skills, creativity, and intelligence and operate on definite principles.
- Good teaching requires good communication skills and good learning requires good listening skills.
- Only good learners become good teachers.
- Relationship Between Teaching and Learning The most important moments in teaching and learning are how the teacher teaches and how the learner learns. What is responsible for those few moments? The best college courses and teachers so involve students that they learn as much as they can about the subject outside the classroom. Moreover, instructors who are motivated by their subject. foster students’ interest through personal examples. A teacher’s interest infects lectures and discussions and can spread the student’s work outside the class.
- Relationship Between Teaching and Learning When teachers cannot make students learn, they can promote learning by helping students become motivated to learn, handle information and experience, develop knowledge, attitude, and skill, and transfer their learning from the classroom to the real world.
- In addition to the general role of the teacher as a helper, literature on the relationship between teaching and learning identifies three specific roles.
- Relationship Between Teaching and Learning: The teacher as human relations specialist teacher as facilitator the teacher as motivator
- Relationship Between Teaching and Learning: Learning is infused with the complexity of learners‘ lives. A variety of different factors are interrelated and integrated into the learning process. Learning is therefore not predictable as a product of input but created through constant negotiations between individuals, social environments, and broader social influences.
- Teachers and researchers need to pay attention to the beliefs about learning, teaching, language, and literacy that learners and teachers bring with them to the learning-teaching encounter. Beliefs also shape curricula and teaching materials. There are likely to be matches and mismatches among these beliefs.
- Relationship Between Teaching and Learning: Both teachers and learners come to class with purposes and goals. Teachers and researchers should identify participants’ purpose as a key factor in learning events. A full understanding of learning in adults must take account of social aspects of learning, including the political and institutional context in which it takes place, the broader sociocultural context in which learning is situated, and the social life in classrooms.
- Relationship Between Teaching and Learning: Social interaction is the key mechanism through which learning takes place. Its characteristics need to be studied in detail as a means to understand the dynamics whereby teaching can facilitate learning.
- Teaching is best characterized as the creation of ‘learning opportunities’ through the management of interaction. The concept of ‘learning opportunities’ accounts for how different learners learn different things from the same learning-teaching event, and provides a rationale for approaches to teaching which do not attempt to specify exactly what is to be learned.
- Relationship Between Teaching and Learning: There are several different types of potential outcomes from learning-teaching events: learning about content, learning how to learn, learning about language, learning about social relations, re-constructing identities, and wider benefits of learning such as increased self-assurance. Researchers and teachers should seek to establish learners‘ perceptions and interpretations of teaching-learning events.
- Relationship Between Teaching and Learning: Rather than trying to make generalizations about particular teaching methods, it is more useful to try to understand how learning opportunities and possible outcomes emerge in particular contexts. For the process to be meaningful, learners’ other languages and/or interpreters need to be used.
Question 12. Maxims of teaching
Answer:
Maxims of teaching: The maxims of teaching may be defined as rules for presenting difficult terms and concepts to make them easy to comprehend in classroom teaching. A teacher employs some specific ways to organize teaching to make the terms and concepts communicable up to the cognition or rational process and level of learners.
They are the guidelines for teaching. The maxims of teaching are very helpful in obtaining the active involvement and participation of learners in the teaching-learning process. They quicken the interest of the learners and motivate them to learn. They make students attentive to the teaching-learning process.
Features of maxims of teaching
- Maxim helps in organizing teaching-learning activities.
- It makes the presentation of terms and concepts easily understandable.
- It enables the teacher to make his communicate with the mental level of the students.
- It is an important component of instructional procedure that is used in designing and presenting content in an effective way.
Essential maxims of teaching following are some of the essential maxims of teaching
- From simple to complex or easy to difficult: The nature of this maxim is more psychological in that a child learns easy things and then proceeds towards complex things. For example, initially, nursing students are taught about basic care procedures and then about complex procedures such as electrocardiogram (ECG) and central venous pressure (CVP) monitoring.
- From known to unknown: This maxim is based on the appreciative mass theory of learning. It assumes that student-acquired knowledge is given by linking with actuarial knowledge so the student can learn better and retain for a longer time. Students have some knowledge and teachers should enlarge this knowledge.
- If we link new knowledge with the old knowledge we can make teaching clearer and effective. This maxim makes a link between the old and the new. If the teacher does not follow this maxim, then it is possible that students may be confused and may be interested in learning.
- From part to whole: B.F. Skinner gives emphasis on the part of the whole maxim of teaching. He assumes that a student learns well if the content is presented in small parts.
- From whole to part: According to the Gestalt school of psychology, whole is more important than the parts. The whole is more motivating, understandable, and effective than the study of various parts. A teacher should organize his activities in such a way that students can perceive the whole and then its parts because the whole attracts first. For example, while teaching chambers of the heart, the teacher should show the entire heart first and then proceed with teaching the structure and functions of each part of the heart.
- Proceed from concrete to abstract: This is also a psychological rule of learning. Herbert said ‘Our lessons should start from the concrete and end in the abstract’. A child’s imagination is greatly aided by concrete material. ‘Things first and words after’ is a common saying. Rousseau said, ‘Things, things and things’. Children cannot think in abstractions in the beginning. Young children learn first from the things they can see and handle. Students learn from perception and experience about objects. After perception, concepts that are partially concrete and partially abstract in nature are formed.
- From particular to general: Particular facts are easy to understand as compared to general facts. Particular facts and examples should be presented to the children before giving them general rules and principles. Particular is an inductive method and general is a deductive method. The process of induction is easier to comprehend than the so-called deductive one.
- From analysis to synthesis: Analysis and synthesis both are intellectual processes. This maxim is most frequently used in creative teaching. Analysis is an intellectual process. When a student comes to school, his knowledge is incomplete, indefinite, and imperfect. Analysis makes the student’s incomplete, indefinite, and incoherent knowledge complete, definite, and coherent. A teacher should begin teaching with analysis so that complex problems are divided into systematic and comprehensible units. Synthesis must be performed in the end to make the knowledge definite and fixed. Analysis is useful for understanding and synthesis is useful for fixing this knowledge in students’ minds.
- From empirical to rational: Empirical knowledge is based on the observations of students and has a significant role in a student’s learning process. A student acquires most of his learning through observations. Learning by imitation is also based on observation. The activities of the teacher should be so organized that they can provide new experiences through observation and the teacher should then proceed with the logical aspect.
- From psychological to logical: The psychological approach takes into consideration student interests, abilities, aptitude, developmental level, needs, and reactions. The logical approach considers the subject matter and its arrangement into logical steps and orders. An eminent writer remarked, ‘logical procedure has its place in the middle of a lesson but the approach must be determined psychologically’. First, the teachers should keep in mind the selection of the subject matter to be presented. After this, the teachers should have a logical approach to arrange the matter into logical orders and steps.
- From actual to representative: The child learns more easily and quickly from actual, natural, and real objects rather than from representative objects like models, charts, and other aids.
For example, while learning about a milk plant, an actual visit to the milk plant will make the learning more vivid and rapid rather than from a picture or model. - From induction to deduction: Induction means drawing a conclusion from a set of examples. The process of induction calls for perception, reasoning, judgment, and generalization.
- The teacher should proceed from induction to deduction, i.e. first present the principle or generalization before students and then verify the truth of this principle by applying it to particular instances. Induction discovers knowledge and deduction is the consequence of such discoveries.
- From general to specific: Explain general rules first and then specific ones. For example, while teaching pediatric nursing, the teacher explains the principles of pediatric nursing and then teaches about various disease conditions and the procedures related to child health.
- From specific to general: In certain situations, it is imperative to proceed from specific to general. For example, the role of iron in the body has to be specified before generalizing the consequences of anemia on the body.
- From indefinite to definite: The ideas of students in the initial stages are vague. These ideas should be made definite, clear, precise, and systematic by adopting effective teaching methods. To make these ideas definite, the teacher can use audiovisual aids and other strategies as needed.
- Proceed from overview to details: Students can easily comprehend if the teacher proceeds from an overview to details. For example, while teaching about the instruments used for performing an endoscopy, the teacher should introduce all instruments by listing down their names before explaining their uses and the ways to handle each instrument in detail.
- From observation to reasoning: The teacher has to provide an opportunity for the students to see and notice the factors involved in a particular topic or context before explaining the reasons associated with it or eliciting reasons from the students.
- To follow nature: This maxim of teaching is based on the philosophy of naturalism. Rousseau has given the concept of following nature. The child is the center of educational processes. A child should be given full freedom to learn according to his own ways. The teacher’s role is to observe his behavior and learning activities. There should be one teacher and one student in an ideal situation.
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