The following suggestion is kept in view while delivering a lecture:
(i) The teacher should stop after every 5-7 minutes so that students may be able to have control over the facts noted by them.
(ii) The teacher should start his lecture slowly and gradually increase his speed.
(iii) An outline of the lecture to be delivered be given to the students and they be encouraged to ask questions.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
(iv) Voice-volume of the teacher should be tuned according to the need and importance of the point to be emphasised.
(v) The lecture should stimulate the emotions imaginations, feelings and creative tendencies of the learner.
Problem – Solving Method
Life is full of problems and successful person in life is one who is adequately equipped with knowledge and reasoning power to tackle problems rationally. The function of education is to prepare children for life. Problem solving therefore must be encouraged in schools.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Problem Solving may be defined as a planned attack upon a difficulty or perplexity in which a person uses his ability and capacity to find a suitable and satisfying solution.
In this method teacher motivates the pupils to make conscious, planned and purposeful efforts to arrive at an explanation or solution to some educationally significant difficulty.
Yoakum and Simpson define it as, “a problem that occurs in a situation in which a felt difficulty is clearly present and recognised by the thinker. It may be a purely mental difficulty or it may be physical and may involve the manipulation of data. The distinguishing thing about a problem, however, is that an individual, who meets it as needing a solution, recognises it as a ‘challenge’. It is a method in which some difficulty to act in an educational setting is felt and an attempt is made in a conscious, planned and purposeful way to find its solution”.
Gates has defined the problem thus, “A problem exists for an individual when he has a definite goal and he cannot reach by the behaviours pattern which he already has available”.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Problem Solving is not merely a method of teaching. It is in fact a method of organisation of subject matter.
Special Features of Problems
(i) Problems should have a direct bearing on the learning process.
(ii) Problem should be interesting, meaningful and worthwhile from the student’s point of view.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
(iii) Problems should be correlated with the life of the children.
(iv) Problems should arise out of the real life needs of the children.
(v) Problems should be well defined.
(vi) Problems should have certain educational value.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Problem solving method involves active participation of students but in it physical activities are not necessary. Problem solving method is the process of raising problems in the mind of students which stimulates purposeful reflective thinking in arriving at a solution involving the following.
(a) Stimulation presenting difficulty, perplexity or doubt requiring the solution.
(b) A goal or end for which no ready answer can be given.
(c) A desire or motive that stimulates and attempts to find the answer.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Pre- requisites of Problem Solving
(i) It should emerge out of the felt needs of the student’s activities.
(ii) It should be clearly defined, interpreted and delimited.
(iii) For solving it sufficient data be collected in a systematic manner.
(iv) Data be then properly organised an evaluated.
(v) Decision be made very cautiously and only after sufficient data has been collected and organised.
(vi) Results are verified to ascertain their correctness.
Steps in Problem Solving
Important steps in this method are:
(i) Selection of the problem
(ii) Working on the problem
(iii) Concluding step
For making a proper selection of the problem following procedure is generally adopted:
(a) The Formation and Appreciation of the Problem
The nature of the problem should be made very clear to the students. They must also feel a necessity of finding out a solution for the problem.
(b) The Collection of Relevant Data and Information
The students should be stimulated to collect data in a systematic manner. Full Cooperation of students should be secured. They may be invited to make suggestions as to how they could collect the relevant data. The teacher may suggest many points to them. He may also ask them to read certain books. He may also ask them to organise a few educational trips to gather the relevant information.
(ii) Working on the Problem
It depends upon whether the work is to be done by adopting deductive or inductive method. It involves following steps:
(a) Organisation of Data
The students should be asked to select the relevant material and to discard the superficial one and arrange the selected data in a scientific manner.
(b) Making Hypothesis for Solution of the Problem
For this discussion should be arranged collectively or individually with each pupil. Panton suggests, ‘The teacher’s aim should be to secure that, as far as possible, the essential thinking is done by the pupils themselves and their educative process produces the particular solution, formulation or generalisation at state” Care should be taken that judgment is made only when sufficient data is collected
(iii) Concluding Step
It includes checking and verifying results as also the application and summarization of the conclusions.
Testing Conclusions
No conclusion should be accepted without being properly verified. The correctness of conclusions must be proved. The students must be taught to be critical, to examine the truths which they discover to see that they fit all the known data. We should keep our minds free of every bias in the process of problem-solving.
Teachers Role in Problem-Solving Method
Valentine Davis quotes Professor Pasher who suggests the following points in problem-solving:
(i) Give them (the students) a chance to define the problem clearly.
(ii) Aid them to keep the problem in mind.
(iii) Get them to make many suggestions by encouraging them
(a) To analyse the situation in parts.
(b) To recall previously known similar cases and general rules that applies.
(c) To guess courageously and to formulate guesses clearly.
(iv) Give them time to evaluate each suggestion carefully by encouraging them
(a) To maintain a state of doubt or suspended conclusion.
(b) To criticise the suggestion by appeal to know facts, minister experiments and scientific treatises
(v) Get them to organise the material by proceeding
(a) To build an outline on the board.
(b) To use diagrams and graphs.
(c) To formulate concise statement of the net outcome of the discussion.
For the success of this method we need teachers who have the ability to see the problems clearly, the power to analyse with a keen discernment and the facility to synthesise, draw conclusions with an uncanny accuracy.
Teaching Procedures in Problem-Solving Method
Following procedures may be adopted while teaching by this method.
(i) Introducing problem procedure.
(ii) Directing work procedure.
(iii) Application approach.
(i) Introducing Problem Procedure
(a) By setting the stage for the problem.
(b) By helping students in formulating an exact idea of the problem after the observation and comparison with their past experience.
(ii) Directing Work Procedure
(a) By motivating students and creating proper attitudes for work.
(b) By helping the students in formulating the hypothesis.
(c) By helping the students in collection and proper arrangement of relevant data.
(d) By helping the students in evaluating the hypothesis.
(iii) Application Approach
(a) By suggesting to students various possible applications of the results of the problem.
(b) By summarising the findings of the students.
(c) By stimulating the students with a desire to use the knowledge gained.
(d) By arranging some suitable exercises for the practical application.