Effective Teaching Methodologies and Core Competencies
Methodology: Concepts and Types
Defining Methodology
- A description of a process.
- A way to arrive somewhere.
- A system which comprises some principles, practices, and procedures.
- Includes methods, techniques, and procedures.
- Answers the question, “How do I teach?”
- Etc.
Classifications of Teaching Methodologies
By Student Participation
ACTIVE: Students are involved, research, create, build.
PASSIVE: Students are directed in all their actions.
By Adaptation Level
COLLECTIVE EDUCATION: The teacher teaches to the average.
INDIVIDUALIZED EDUCATION: The teacher respects the individual pace, adapting the means to individual characteristics to achieve the objectives.
PERSONALIZED EDUCATION: Total adjustment of objectives and means to the individuals’ characteristics. The teacher respects the individual pace, adapting the means to individual characteristics to achieve the objectives.
By Communication Mode
VERBAL: Using words, exposure of the educator or learner’s responses (the traditional method).
INTUITIVE: Learning takes place through direct contact with things, through observation and the senses.
By Content Organization
GLOBAL METHOD: It works all the content or areas related to each other and links together the activities around thematic clusters (e.g., centers of interest) or around common objectives (e.g., Projects).
SPECIALIZED METHOD: It works the contents divided into areas and develops into independent activities to achieve different objectives.
By Student Grouping
INDIVIDUAL WORKING: The teacher teaches a single child.
GROUP WORKING: The activities are worked in groups.
MIXED WORKING: The activities can be worked in groups or individually.
By Teacher-Student Ratio
INDIVIDUAL: This involves students working independently of each other.
SIMULTANEOUS COLLECTIVE: The teacher teaches to a group of children.
MUTUAL OR RECIPROCAL: The teacher prepares a small group of students in certain skills, and then they teach to a small group what they have learned.
By Reasoning Approach
DEDUCTIVE METHOD: This is where the study comes from the general to the particular.
INDUCTIVE METHOD: This is where the study is presented through particular cases, and it is suggested to discover the general principle that governs them.
ANALOG OR COMPARATIVE METHOD: When the particular data presented enable comparisons that lead to a conclusion.
By Teaching Conception
DOGMATIC METHOD: It requires students to observe without question what the teacher teaches, and they assume that this is the truth if the teacher says so.
HEURISTIC METHOD: The teacher encourages the student to understand before setting, using explanations or theoretical thinking.
Key Competences in Education
Basic or key competences are the set of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and experiences that the student must achieve at the end of compulsory education.
- They are not new knowledge, but knowledge in action.
- They can be applied to a wide range of contexts.
- They allow solving complex requirements.
- They are not the minimum contents.
- They are more than the simple memorization or instrumental application of knowledge in given situations.
- They involve the understanding and transfer of knowledge to real-life situations.
- They require relating, interpreting, inferring, interpolating, inventing, and transferring knowledge to solve problems.
Infant Education: Methodological Orientations
- Significant learning.
- Globalization.
- Physical and mental activity as a source of learning and development.
- Play as a proper activity for the stage.
- Creating a warm and safe atmosphere, where they establish relationships that give them confidence and security.
- Interaction.
- Adequate organization of the environment, space, material resources, and time.
- Varied and stimulating material.
- Flexible and appropriate organization of activities according to the different rhythms.
- Time organization respecting the needs of: affection, activity, relaxation, rest, food, experiences, relationships, communication, and movement.
- Collaboration between teachers and families.
- Existence of an educational team to ensure consistency and continuity of teaching action.
- Unity of educational criteria between home and school.
- A global, continuous, and formative assessment.
- Preventive and compensatory nature.
- Attention to special needs.
- Some general guidelines.
Specific Infant Education Methods
Some specific methods for Infant education include the treasure basket, the heuristic game, working corners, and cooperative learning.
The Treasure Basket
- For 6-12 month old babies.
- AIM: To stimulate children’s five senses:
- Touch: Textures, forms, weight, etc.
- Smell
- Tastes: Different flavors
- Hear: Sounds from hitting, wrinkling objects, etc.
- See: Colors, hues, forms, brightness, and dimensions
The Heuristic Game
- For 12-24 month old babies.
- AIM: To discover the properties of objects through the question, “What can I do?”
- Two parts:
- Exploration block: Children act freely with the material, experimenting, classifying, comparing, etc., respecting their individual pace.
- Collection block: Children collect all the material and put it into their bags.
Working Corners
(Further details about working corners would be beneficial here if available.)
Cooperative Learning
(Further details about cooperative learning would be beneficial here if available.)
Educational Terminology
ABILITY (CAPACIDAD): It can be interpreted as the potential or aptitude inherent in every person to acquire new knowledge and skills.
ACTIVE LEARNING: A process whereby learners are actively engaged in the learning process, rather than “passively” absorbing lectures. Active learning involves reading, writing, discussion, and engagement in solving problems, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Active learning often involves cooperative learning.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: An aim expresses the purpose of the educational unit or course, whereas an objective is a statement of a goal which successful participants are expected demonstrably to achieve before the course or unit completes.
ASSESSMENT: The process of documenting, usually in measurable terms, knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs.
ATTITUDE: A person’s perspective toward a specified target and way of saying and doing things.
BRAINSTORMING: An organized approach for producing ideas by letting the mind think without interruption. In group sessions, the participants are encouraged, and often expected, to share their ideas with one another as soon as they are generated.
CLOSED CURRICULUM: It is when the elements or content of the curriculum are determined by the education authorities responsible for curriculum development. The development of the curriculum is external to the individual center. Teachers are limited to its specific application with a particular group of students. It adheres to a centralized design. It prescribes in detail the objectives, content, materials, and methods to be used by all teachers in all areas of education.
COOPERATIVE LEARNING: Proposed in response to traditional curriculum-driven education. In cooperative learning environments, students interact in purposely structured heterogeneous groups to support the learning of oneself and others in the same group.
CORE CURRICULUM: It is a consequence of understanding the curriculum as something to be determined by the education authorities and schools together. It involves a number of curricular requirements established by the authorities which, before being put into practice, should be adapted to the particular environmental characteristics in which they will be developed by teams of teachers.
CURRICULUM: The what, how, when, evaluation, and the “what for?” of education.
EDUCATION: A social science that encompasses teaching and learning specific knowledge, beliefs, and skills. Licensed and practicing teachers in the field use a variety of methods and materials to impart a curriculum.
EMERGENT CURRICULUM: It emerges as a result of events, casual lessons, and so on. It is not written but must be controlled by the center.
EXPLICIT CURRICULUM: Means all aspects of the curriculum that are raised openly (explicitly) by a school community. It is what we are trying to achieve with the educational act, expressed in some way. Not to be confused with the open curriculum.
HIDDEN OR IMPLIED CURRICULUM: Consisting of all those factors present in an educational context (less obvious values, attitudes, strategies, etc.) that directly affect the educational process but are not expressed explicitly. It is not written and comes from the teacher-student relationship.
INDIVIDUALIZED INSTRUCTION: A method of instruction in which content, instructional materials, instructional media, and pace of learning are based upon the abilities and interests of each individual learner.
INSTRUCTIONAL SCAFFOLDING: The provision of sufficient supports to promote learning when concepts and skills are being first introduced to students.
KEY COMPETENCES (COMPETENCIAS BÁSICAS): The ability to integrate knowledge, skills, and attitudes in a practical way to solve problems and react appropriately in a variety of contexts and situations. In other words, it is the integration and application of theoretical and practical knowledge in settings outside the academic context.
KNOWLEDGE: Defined as expertise and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.
LEARNING: The process of acquiring knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values through study, experience, or teaching, that causes a change of behavior that is persistent, measurable, and specified, or allows an individual to formulate a new mental construct or revise a prior mental construct (conceptual knowledge such as attitudes or values). It is a process that depends on experience and leads to long-term changes in behavior potential.
LECTURE: An oral presentation intended to teach people about a particular subject, for example, by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical information, history, background, theories, and equations. A politician’s speech, a minister’s sermon, or even a businessman’s sales presentation may be similar in form to a lecture. Usually, the lecturer will stand at the front of the room and recite information relevant to the lecture’s content.
LESSON PLAN: A teacher’s detailed description of the course of instruction for an individual lesson. While there is no one way to construct a correct lesson plan, most lesson plans contain similar elements.
OPEN CURRICULUM: A curriculum is described as open when it is not predetermined, and teachers are responsible for producing it. It is characteristic of a decentralized approach to education, which renounces the purpose of unifying and standardizing the curriculum for the benefit of a better fit and greater respect for the characteristics of each educational context.
PLANNING: Used for the timing of activities. It is the distribution of a set of activities in a given time frame.
PROGRAM: This term is generally used to refer to the ordered set of classroom content. Traditionally, it has been understood as a list of topics or content.
PROJECT: This term is used to refer to educational intentions and how they are implemented. They can be defined as the exposure, adaptation, and development of objectives and educational experiences intended for a specific level, stage, cycle, or teaching area.
SCHEDULE (PROGRAMACIÓN): This term refers to the development of an appropriate program for a period of time. It includes a number of elements: objectives, content, activities, resources, etc., and the term is often used in reference to the implementation of the curriculum in the classroom.
SKILLS (HABILIDADES): The learned capacity to carry out predetermined results, often with the minimum outlay of time, energy, or both.
TEACHING: Traditionally, this has involved lecturing on the part of the teacher. New instructional strategies, such as team-based learning, put the teacher more into the role of course designer, discussion facilitator, and coach, and the student more into the role of active learner, discovering the subject of the course.