Improved Instructional Practices & Discussion Procedures

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Integrative Technique - is a term to designate what modern educators call the new learning, which aims to achieve the integration of the individual. Integration is used to describe a teaching procedure which relates varieties of subject matter to units of study or to problem-solving situations. This technique is a means of achieving both personal and social integrations of the individual. It can work effectively only in an integrative curriculum where learning opportunities are organized to promote integration or wholeness of the learner.

integration - means the act of combining into an integral whole

The teacher who uses integrative techniques in the classroom should be familiar with the principles involved especially those that pertain to subject-matter divisions, that is, learning experiences are unified around a certain core or theme for which the child has a felt need. Organized learning experiences are called units.

Unit - is an organization of activities or experiences around a purpose or a problem.

signifies the wholeness, oneness, or unity

Classifications of units of work categorized into 3 types:

1. Subject matter

2. Center of interest

3. Integrative experience

Subject matter units - are organized around textbook chapter or topics or around major generalizations and principles

Center of interest - based on interests, needs, dominant purposes of the pupils

Integrative experience unit - go further in seeking a learning product in changed behavior and the adjustment of the individual (Monroe,1950)

Characteristic of a Unit:

should be problem-centered

should be difficult enough to challenge the learner yet simple enough to be understood

should provide continuous development of the learner in all phases of growth, for a sequence of experiences, and for a variety of activities or experiences for the class and for individual learners

should be cooperatively planned by the teacher and group of learners.

should be planned with an understanding of how learning takes place

Principles Underlying the Planning of Integrative Activity Units

1. The learner is more important than the subject matter - Educations must aim at the development of the integrated personality of the individual.

2. Long-range plans and large units should be preferred to daily, isolated tasks.

3 Learning should be organized around real-life problems of the pupils, their needs, and interests.

4. Learning should be characterized by group planning, group work, and group evaluating. (should involve both the teacher and the students but with more participation and ideas from the latter)

5. Teaching and learning activities should follow democratic procedures.

6. Individual differences should be provided for by a wide variety of learning activities and experiences.

7. The atmosphere in the classroom should be permissive and happy.

permissive - not strict in discipline

Reference:

Principles of Teaching 1 (by Filipino author/s)

You can also check: http://www.angelfire.com/stars5/integrated_teaching/integration.html

https://www.mrsrichardsonsclass.com/integrating-science-reading-writing/

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Discovery Approach - refers to an inductive method of guiding pupils to discuss and organize ideas and processes by themselves.

Founder of discovery learning: Jerome S. Bruner (Experiment with a gorilla, banana, and 2 sticks)

inductive method - citing examples or specifics and letting students formed their own generalizations from the given examples.

Discovery approach let students use their prior knowledge to discover new ideas. It is the process by which children go through the logical process of observation, comparison and abstraction, generalization, and application.

Types of Self-discovery

1. Guided discovery

2. Pure discovery

Guided discovery - the teacher tries to draw out from his/her pupils' certain bits of information through properly organized questions and explanations leading them to the eventual discovery of particular concepts or principles

Pure discovery - the pupils are expected to arrive at certain concepts and principles completely by themselves (with little or no guidance from the teacher EXCEPT for the explanation of particular terms or references

Principles Underlying the Discovery Process

1. The learning process moves from a hunch to a stage of in-depth analysis and then to the point where knowledge claims are based on concrete, documentary evidence.

2. The classroom serves as a miniature laboratory and the community, a large-scale laboratory for exploration and discovery.

3. Children learn as a result of their observations and the experiences they undergo.

4. Children discover relationships and make generalizations in their own individual ways.

5. Learning through self-discovery is enhanced by individualized and small-group explorations.

6. The methods used by children in learning through self-discovery are similar to the ways in which scientists think, work, and organize knowledge.

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Process approach - similar to the discovery approach. It involves the ff. processes:

observing - the process of noting the characteristics of an object or objects.

involves the sensory perceptions such as taste (gustatory), sight (ocular), hearing (auditory), smell (olfactory), and touch (haptic).

describing or communicating - the process of telling what was perceived.

classifying - is the process of sorting and arranging objects into meaningful groups.

This aims to develop the skills in showing relationships, identifications and noting similarities and differences.

measuring - the process of determining length, weight, depth, width, area. volume, time, and temperature objects or things.

To give children the idea of standard measurement.

inferring - is the process of arriving at a tentative conclusion.

This aims to train the children in suspended judgment (to arrive only in conclusion after an empirical observation and experiment)

hypothesizing - is the process of giving a tentative explanation, which is yet to be tested for validity.

prediction - is the process of foretelling probable consequences based on observable and patterned facts. (aka projection or prognosis).

It develops analytical thinking.

controlling of variables - the process of setting up the same conditions, properties, or factors which may influence the end result of the experiment.

variables - something that is liable to change often, such as the weather, interest rates, or your teacher's mood.

experimenting - is the process of discovering concepts, principles, conclusions or testing hypotheses.

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