Teacher Gonzalo Humberto Ayulo Paihua

TWO TYPES OF TEACHING

Educational research and educational philosophy hold that teaching beliefs and
practices conform to one of two pedagogies: the didactic or the constructivist. The
Didactic approach is the more traditional one. It views student learning as through a
linear progression from basic skills such as numbers and operations to solving complex
problems, while the traditional view believes in this progression, it defers the advanced
skills until later to advanced placement courses in high school.
For the most part, students in elementary and secondary schools lack sufficient
knowledge to engage in analysis and synthesis, consequently, except the advanced
most time on conveying knowledge. This notion of what students learn suggests certain
didactic beliefs about how students should learn it. For example, students begin
learning a given subject at basically the same point: either the student knows the
teacher should make the key decision about what to cover, when to cover it, and how
to convey it, in the belief that teachers are the ones full of knowledge, while students
are receptacles of that knowledge.

Finally, student progress should be assessed primarily through tests that determine if
students have the knowledge and abilities covered in that unit. One of these didactic
beliefs suggest a classroom in which teachers lecture about an algorithm to solve
routine problems and students then apply the algorithm to a series of problems where
the numbers or words change, but the structure remains the same.

The Constructivist approach is the polar opposite, it holds that basic skills usually have
to be part of advanced skills, both because the advanced problem are more exciting for
students to learn and because it helps them get the big picture. For example, while
there is no doubt that students need a unit on the schedules, this can be combined into
a lesson on the meaning of multiplication and its visual representation. Thus
development is an interactive process, where basic skills are together with more
advanced skills (thinking skills).

Like the didactic approach, the constructivist beliefs suggest a certain set of practices,
such us customized teaching, where teachers are viewed as facilitating student
construction of knowledge. Students engage in work in three formats as a whole class,
in small groups, or as individuals. Teachers should divide students into four groups
working on projects, with the teacher walking around and assisting each group when it
gets "stuck”; if students are having trouble learning, the solution is to give them more
drills or repeat the same information.
 Teacher Gonzalo Humberto Ayulo Paihua

According to constructivist pedagogy’s view, students should think as abstractly as

possible, and this in turn is facilitated through exposure to the most concrete and
practical illustrations of concepts, if students are having trouble learning a concept, the
solution is to give them an example from a different context; and if they are having
trouble problem solving, then the way to learn for those particular students might
change. On the other hand, students model what the teacher is doing for a peer, where
students work in pair or groups of three, then the peer reciprocates. This technique
ultimately gives control to the student, but only after the teacher has given the
metacognitive greater concreteness.

In my own teaching, I always find that the Constructivist Approach of moving from
concepts to their illustrations in problems is crucial for student learning and responses
all learning styles. I can see that constructivist approaches are superior there as well.

FITTING EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY INTO PRACTICE

Technology is a better fit with the constructivist approach than the didactic. In didactic
approaches, the computer becomes a substitute for the teacher or other materials.
In the late last century, before the computer revolution, there used to be teachers that
gave worksheets to their students, they preferred reading the newspaper and then
collected the sheets at the end of the class.

In a didactic computerized classroom, like the teachers we showed, the teacher has
the students walk into a computer lab at the beginning of class, sit down in front of their
computers, and do drills while the teacher sits in front of his or her computer and plays
solitaire. In this situation, the computer is a substitute for a worksheet and the teacher
as well. In concert with the constructivist approach, computers become one of many
tools students can use to concretize concepts. The teacher’s role is to try to convey the
initial abstraction to students and help students try to convey it to one another.

To make the concept concrete, students and teachers could choose from a variety of
strategies. In chemistry, they might create solutions in a laboratory. In civics, they might
go on a field trip to meet a local public official. And in geography, they use the Internet
to collect information about a place and produce a set of slides that visually represents
the environment, culture, history, and demography of it. Because the constructivist
focus on problem solving means that students do most of the work, computers only
replace teachers to the extent that teachers have given students freedom to make their
own mistakes and successes on a computer as well as on a field trip or in a lab.
 Teacher Gonzalo Humberto Ayulo Paihua

The truly challenging question for those of us who advocate a constructivist role for
educational technology is this: What is the value-added of the technology above and
beyond good teaching? Since teachers can select any number of tools to achieve their
goals, why are computers a necessary option? The answer, I believe, is that learning
consists of three pieces, the teacher, the student, and the medium and it is not possible
to separate one out from the others.

Think of computers as similar to language. Teachers and students use language to

communicate with one another. That language imposes some constraints on what the
two groups can say, but it provides opportunities. Computers, field trips, and chemistry
labs are similar in that they provide what are referred to as "teachable moments"
where, through doing something, a student makes sense out of something the teacher
was trying to convey. Just as an effective teacher needs to have five different phrases
for defining a given concept, the teacher needs to have multiple media for illustrating it;
and in fact, computers in and of themselves provide multiple media for learning.

Keywords: Didactic approach, Constructivist approach, thinking skills, customized

teaching, peer, the teacher’s role, problem solving , value-added of the technology,
teachable moments

Abstract from: Using Technology Wisely. The Keys to Success in School

by Harold Wenglinsky.
 Teacher Gonzalo Humberto Ayulo Paihua

ACTIVITIES

I. In Two Types of Teaching, analyze the following announces and choose the
best definition.

1. The Didactic approach…

a. takes places on how teachers involve students through interesting

activities.
b. solves problems from elemental abilities on learning process.
c. analyzes and synthesizes information from particular situations.
d. holds students are the center of the learning process.

2. The Constructivist approach…

a. looks for engaging students, calculating and giving basic resolutions.

b. identifies successful learning on concrete thinking.
c. proposes complex problems are challenging for students to learn.
d. says students just find solutions on their own context.

3. We, as teachers, can develop learners’ thinking skills when…

a. we consider only basic skills as part of the learning process.

b. our students receive concrete knowledge.
c. We just asses knowledge and covered contents, developed in a period
of time, through evaluations.
d. we let students to analyze different situations to get the solution.

4. We say teachers put in practice “customized teaching”, where they are

viewed as facilitating student construction of knowledge, because…

a. students work in as a whole class, in small groups, or as individuals

only.
b. teachers guide students and monitor the groups they divided first, giving
them the chance to think about the answers from different points of
view.
c. when the students are having trouble learning, the solution is to give
them the answers.
d. teachers repeat the information every time to engage students to learn
and keep them doing what the instructions rule.

5. The teacher use a peer, when…

a. the teacher monitors the students in the learning process.

b. the students works in pair or groups to get the knowledge, guided by the
teacher.
c. the students works in pair or groups and learn by themselves.
d. the student learn by himself.
 Teacher Gonzalo Humberto Ayulo Paihua

II. In Fitting Educational Technology into Practice, read the following text and
fill the blanks with the following pedagogic terms:

the teacher’s role - problem solving – ‘value-added of the technology’ -

teachable moments

When learners try and do their best to get the answers, _______________
makes them to understand mistakes and successes are part of life, where
computers are only tools and sources to achieve objectives.

However, they can discover in the learning process, using the computer as
a _______________, guided by teachers, a chance to surf on the unknown.

Through following tasks and steps, the _______________ take place where
a learner notices the teacher is trying to transmit and engaging him or her
on new knowledge.

Finally, _______________ is crucial so that the students can develop

criteria of what exists around them; in this way, they make learning
meaningful to themselves.
 Teacher Gonzalo Humberto Ayulo Paihua

VOCABULARY

Didactic approach:

The didactic approach to teaching primarily involves lecturing and is essentially

teacher-centred (Entwistle, 1997). Fry, Ketteridge & Marshall (2003) reminds us that
although the lecture remains a major method of teaching in adult and continuing
education, and is still recognised “as a useful teaching tool” as it can provide a
framework of ideas and theories but it needs to be complemented by interaction and
adult-oriented strategies due to attention span and lack of participation.

Constructivist approach:

The Constructivist approach holds that people construct their own understanding and
knowledge of the world through experiencing things and reflecting on those
experiences. Constructivism is a theory that asserts that learning is an activity that is
individual to the learner. This theory hypothesizes that individuals will try to make
sense of all information that they perceive, and that each individual will, therefore,
“construct” their own meaning from that information. Driscoll (2000) explains that
constructivist theory asserts that knowledge can only exist within the human mind, and
that it does not have to match any real world reality.

Thinking skills:

Critical thinking gives you the tools to use scepticism and doubt constructively so that
you can analyse what is before you. It helps you to make better and more informed
decisions about whether something is likely to be true, effective or productive.
Ultimately order to function in the world, we have to accept the probability that at least
some things are as they seem. This requires trust. If we can analyse clearly the basis
of what we take as true, we are more able to discern when it is reasonable to be
trusting and where it is useful to be skeptical. (Cottrell, 2011)
 Teacher Gonzalo Humberto Ayulo Paihua

Customized teaching:

Customized teaching or personalised learning aims to provide a more tailored

education for every learner. It begins with an in-depth understanding of each learner's
needs, and then seeks to provide relevant and challenging opportunities that support
them as they progress in their learning and development. Decisive progress in
educational standards occurs where every child matters; careful attention is paid to
their individual learning styles, motivations, and needs; there is rigorous use of pupil
target-setting linked to high-quality assessment; lessons are well paced and enjoyable;
and pupils are supported by partnership with others well beyond the classroom.
(Miliband, 2004)

Peer:

Peer technique is typically applied on the same age or slightly older students than the
group with whom they are working. They may work alongside the teacher, run
educational activities on their own, or actually take the lead in organizing and
implementing school-based activities. Peer educators can help raise awareness,
provide accurate information, and help their classmates develop skills to change
behaviour. Some of the ways they are doing this in schools around the world include:

 Leading informal discussions.

 Video and drama presentations.
 One-on-one time talking with fellow students.
 Handing out condoms, leaflets and brochures.
 Offering counselling, support and referral to services.

In Peer Education and HIV/AIDS: Concepts, Uses and Challenges, UNAIDS, 1999.

The teacher’s role:

The teacher’s role in lessons according to the Hejny teaching method is demanding,
but in an entirely different way to that we are used to from traditional teaching. The
teacher is not a lecturing figure of authority with knowledge and skills. Yes, the teacher
does know and can do, but does not demonstrate this in any way. If anyone explains
things, it is the pupil. The teacher is in charge of organizing the lessons, encouraging
pupils’ work, setting appropriate tasks, sharing the pupils’ joy over their discoveries,
 Teacher Gonzalo Humberto Ayulo Paihua

and mediating their discussions. He or she also plans and supervises lessons such
that each pupil has appropriate work to do. The teacher assigns challenging problems
to especially able pupils, and helps less able students to find a problem-solving
strategy. He or she is a tacit guide throughout the lesson, but does not assume the
lead. (Henny Method: An approach to mathematics teaching and child development).

Problem solving:

Effective problem solving usually involves working through a number of steps or

stages, such as problem identification, structuring the problem, looking for possible
solutions, making a decision, implementation and monitoring/seeking feedback. (Skills
You Need, 2011)

Value-added of the technology:

Value-added of technology has become a ubiquitous component of undergraduate

education (Laird and Kuh, 2005; Green 1996). The use of computers and various forms
of information technology (IT) on college campuses are commonplace among students
and faculty, reflecting the societal embrace of personal and mobile computing in terms
of its usefulness and acceptance over the past fifteen years or more (Dolence and
Norris, 1995; Green, 1996; Oblinger and Hawkins, 2005a). Whether it is e-mail, the
internet, office software, social-networking or mobile devices, information technology
has found its place inside and outside the classroom for academic purposes thereby
affecting the student experience.

Paper prepared for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational
Research Association, Denver, CO, April 30, 2010.

Teachable moments:

A teachable moment is an unplanned opportunity that arises in the classroom where a

teacher has an ideal chance to offer insight to his or her students. A teachable moment
is not something that you can plan for; rather, it is a fleeting opportunity that must be
sensed and seized by the teacher. Often it will require a brief digression that
temporarily sidetracks the original lesson plan so that the teacher can explain a
concept that has inadvertently captured the students' collective interest.
 Teacher Gonzalo Humberto Ayulo Paihua

Taking this tangent is worthwhile because it is organically timed to maximize impact on

the students. Ultimately, the teachable moment could evolve into a full-blown lesson
plan or unit of instruction. Here are a few examples of teachable moments and how you
can make the most of them. (Lewis, 2016)