Teaching is a polymorphous concept. At one level, it means the work which everybody does so long as they spend part of their lives in influencing the thoughts, feelings and behaviour of others (Morrison and Melntyre, 1973). At another level, it is the organized work people engage in for a living. In this regard, teaching is seen as a profession. At another level still, teaching has been used to refer to the body of doctrines perpetuated by a distinguished figure in society, for example, the teaching of Jesus. Yet at another level, teaching is used in connection with institutionalized efforts made by one person to help another to learn. It is this last concept of teaching that the rest of this review will focus on.
Van Dalen and Brittell (1959) defined teaching as the guidance of pupils through planned activities so that they may acquire the possible richest learning from their experiences, adding that learning is the result of experience and requires the active participation of the child.
The definition of teaching implies that the teacher does not give the learner education, for learning is a process that comes from within the pupil. But to put the pupil in this situation, the
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teacher has the onerous task of arousing the interest of the pupil so that he (the pupil) becomes ready to participate actively in the teaching-learning process. The teacher could achieve this by establishing attainable goals, by giving pupils both stimulus and opportunity to ask questions and obtain information, by analyzing their problems and proposing solutions, by practicing skills, by making judgments and by evaluating progress. The pupils must learn by themselves but the teacher comes in to point out obstacles which the pupils may be experiencing, answering their questions, helping to analyse difficulties, and providing encouragement in the activity being undertaken.
Clark and Starr (1967) on their part see teaching as an attempt to help someone acquire or change some skill, attitude, knowledge, idea or appreciation. In other words, the teacher‟s task is that of creating or influencing desirable changes in behaviour, or in tendencies towards behaviour, in his pupils. The implications of this definition is that teaching is a helping relationship which involves the teacher (usually a more mature and more experienced person) helping the student (a less mature and less experienced person), to acquire knowledge, skills or value, and hence, learn. Thus, it is helping the learner to learn to do or to be.
In another vein, Olaitan and Agusiobo (1991) hold that teaching is an attempt to bring about desirable changes in human abilities and behaviours. This means that teaching is to cause the learners to make certain desirable changes in their behaviour patterns which involve classroom chatting between teacher and pupils within certain defined activities. Teaching then implies and involves not only a change in behaviour but a means of sharing and communicating that result in the growth and development of a pupil in terms of knowledge, skill and attitude. It is apparently against the background of the foregoing that Nweke (1990) posits that teaching implies helping people to gain the knowledge and attitude which make them responsible citizens, earn a living and lead a meaningful and rewarding life. Odor (1990) throws further light on the concept of teaching by submitting that teaching is the process of guiding, stimulating, motivating and evaluating the learner in an organized educational institution through a well planned and selected educational programme of instruction towards the achievement of the desired goals, including the all-round development of the learner. Here, the teacher is seen as a person of many parts: a guide, stimulator or motivator, and evaluator, among others.
The idea suggested by Ezewu (1983) stated that teaching can be likened to selling. No trader can boast that he/she has sold so much goods when nobody bought anything from him/her.
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Consequently, an effective teaching is one that results in the pupils learning maximally what is taught them. To be able to do this, the teacher must identify the needs of his/her pupils and then prepare the materials or learning experiences that best match their needs. Therefore, the preparation, the strategies and the medium through which the learning experiences are communicated must also be compatible with the needs of the learners. It is in this regard that one can say that teaching is effective.
How do we then know that teaching is effective even after proper preparation and delivering of the lessons have been done? We know this through the process of assessment and evaluation. This is the method of knowing whether or not the learners have learnt what they were expected to learn from the lesson and the extent they have learnt. If, for instance, after a particular lesson, only 30% of the class is shown to have mastered the objectives of the lesson taught, this lesson cannot be said to be effective. But, if, for instance, about 70% or more of the class mastered the objectives, nobody will dispute the fact that the lesson was effective.
Therefore, it can be postulated that all things being equal, an effective lesson preparation leads to an effective lesson delivery, and an effective lesson delivery leads to an effective mastery of lesson objectives.
The objective of teaching is to help students develop their potentials on their own journey to adulthood so that they can become good, productive, and useful citizens to their nation. Thus, the future of the students depends on the good work of effective teachers. At this point, we need to clarify what we mean by effectiveness. The dictionary definitions of effectiveness are generally in terms of the extent to which something achieves its purpose; effectiveness is about doing the right things. It should not be confused with efficiency, which is about doing things right. Efficiency is important as an issue, but effectiveness is vital. By observing an effective teacher, it is possible to come up with a list of coherent set of actions that a teacher performs.
The classification of related set of activities forms the components of teaching. Three major components of teaching identified were preparations, execution and evaluation of teaching events.
24 Fig 2.1: Component of Teaching.
At the preparation stage, the teacher plans the lesson he/she intends to teach. It includes all the activities of the teacher that lead to putting the lesson together, i.e. objectives, appropriate subject matter, logical sequencing of the subject matter in a manner that the learner can follow, teaching aids, etc. The end result of this stage is the note of lesson.
The execution stage is where the teacher communicates the lesson to the students. He/she follows the plans as put down in the lesson notes in implementing the teaching methods/strategies. The classroom management, which is a part of execution and evaluation, entails classroom controls and hygiene. Arrangement of seats, grouping of students, classroom disciplines, cleanliness, etc., are all under this category.
Evaluation deals with ascertaining that the lesson is effective, i.e. that the students have learned; and that the teaching method/strategies were effective for the particular class that was taught. Thus, effective teaching is the teacher doing the right things in the teaching process so that at the end of the teaching events, he or she can truly say the goals and objectives of the lesson(s) have been achieved, i.e., the students for whom the lesson was planned have actually learnt.
The aim of an effective teaching technique is for the teacher to understand and interpret the goals and objectives of the school curriculum correctly and from it arrange teaching events that will lead the students to achieve these goals and objectives. This can be done by providing a wide variety of learning experiences through the use of various teaching methods and techniques
EVALUATION - Administration
of quizzes - Administration
of tests - Making
decisions EXECUTION
- Lesson delivery through teaching - Use of
instructional materials - Management of
pupils PREPARATION
- Statement of objectives - Selection of
content learning experiences - Selection of instructional materials - Preparation of
lesson
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at his or her command that are appropriate for the students and subject matter, and by the nurturing of creative responses in the students.
Teaching can also be seen as helping pupils to acquire the problem-solving skill and the ability to think for themselves. It is helping them to learn how to learn (Rogers, 1983), so that they do not only know how and where to obtain needed information, but to develop the habit of inquiring and so on, and thus prepare them more adequately for the process of life-long education. That way, teaching helps pupils to acquire the ability to benefit from the numerous opportunities for self improvement which exists in their environment. Furthermore, according to Akinpelu (1981), teaching is a systematic activity deliberately engaged in by somebody to facilitate the learning of the intended worthwhile knowledge, skills and values by another person, and getting the necessary feedback. This viewpoint on teaching seems to have the following implication:
(i) teaching is a systematic activity; \
(ii) (ii) teaching involves somebody making it possible for someone else to learn something,
(iii) teaching is objective based: and
(iv) teaching involves the continuous assessment of pupils‟ progress.
Rogers (1983) introduces another dimension to the discussion on the meaning of teaching when he stated that teaching is, “permitting the student to learn, to feed his or her curiosity”. He added that, “merely to absorb facts is of only slight value in the present, and usually of even less value in the future”. He concluded that “learning how to learn is the element that is always of value, at present and most importantly in the future”. Rogers‟ conception of teaching is intended to create classroom environments conducive to self- initiated learning. Another way of looking at teaching is as a process of getting a learner to become really educated, which according to Obanya (1980), means the harmonious all-round development of the individual by adequately cultivating the three H‟s – that is, the Head, the Heart and the Hands.
It would appear that the concept, „teaching‟ cannot be divorced from the performance of activities. Pinset (1962), views teaching as a complex process of co-operation and inter-communication between teacher and learner, not a one-way traffic in information from teacher to learner. Romiszowski (1984) agrees with Pinset (1962) on this score. Teaching would therefore
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essentially consist of setting the stage to enable someone to learn. It would involve creating or providing experiences from which learners will acquire knowledge, skills, attitudes and appreciation that will serve as tools in life.