Winners Are Readers

 CHILD EDUCATION:

THERE IS MORE TO LEARNING IN TEACHING

I

t is shear ignorance to think that teaching a subject or topic is just about passing the intellectual message to the child. Indeed, the concept of teaching has been grossly been misconceived. Little wonder people think anybody who knows a subject can teach the subject. Professionally, a teacher sets out to perform his teaching role by first setting up the objectives for teaching the topic. These are things he expects the child to do at the end of the lesson so as to confirm the child satisfactorily learned the lesson - we call such behavior LEARNED BEHAVIOUR. Each of the objectives must have 3 elements 

(1) the objective must describe in behavioural terms what the child is expected to do at the end of the lesson. It must be in an active, measurable term eg. The student should be able to state or recite, give, name, list, summarise, describe, the new behaviour supposedly learned.

(2) the objective must describe the condition or circumstance under which the learned behaviour will occur, eg. Solve ACCURATELY, list CLEARLY, read out WITHOUT THE AID OF THE TIME TABLE, discuss IN TEN MINUTES, recall WITHOUT ERROR, etc.

(3) The objective must show the extent to which the specified behaviour will be expected, eg. list AT LEAST 5 characteristics ..., give NOT LESS THAN 3 reasons why ..., mention about 10 WAYS to avoid ... Take for example a lesson on uses of water. A well stated lesson objectives could go like this: At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to (a) Name clearly 3 uses of water (b) Say in 3 sentences in his class work why water is useful (c) Explain vividly in one page why irrigation is required by plants during dry season.

It is important to point out that the learning process takes place in 3 behavioural domains - the affective behavioural domain, the cognitive behavioural domain, and the psychomotive behavioural domain. In stating lesson objectives, of these 3 domains are considered - depending on the nature of the lesson taught. The affective domain tests the child's ability to pay attention, show interest, and follow the teaching. The teaching objectives in this respect tests the the child's receiving power, his responding power, his value (or degree of interest) for the lesson. With the affective domain, the teacher sets such objectives like: At the of the lesson the child should be able to

* volunteer to join the debating team

* participate in the classroom drama

* willingly carry out a titration experiment

* accept to draw acute angles with the compass

* choose to read A,B,C ... J voluntrily.

Note that affective domain is most stimulated in the student-centered learning process.

T

he COGNITIVE DORMAIN is on the other hand a learning process that tests the child's ability to know, comprehend and evaluate. A teacher is charged with building positive changes in the child's cognitive behaviour and he must test this in every lesson. In setting the lesson objectives to test changes in cognitive domain, he requires the child to be able to tell, list, enumerate, explain, summarise, etc.

The 3rd, the PSYCHOMOTIVE domain, is on testing the physical ability of the child as in using a tool or instrument. For teachers that are in kindergatin classes, the psychomotive domain dominates most of the learning objectives as the pupils here are expected to deminstrate the learned behaviour. Same is for those in creative arts and practical sciences - physical demonstration rather than intellectual expression is key. Other areas where psychomotive domain are essential include speech lesson (pronounciation as in oral English), Non-verbal communication (using hands and fingers as in sign languages for deaf & dumb), hand-eye-ear coodination as in dictation, handwriting, typing, use of musical instruments, sewing, etc.

In all, teaching to a professional is a business of behavioural change. Every contact with a child should guarantee a positive change in the child - whether intellectually, physically or in stimulation of interest.

Vivian Emmanuel,

Education Consultant