Models of Teaching

Models of Teaching Summary
Information-processing models emphasize ways of enhancing the human being¡¦s innate drive to make sense of the world by acquiring and organizing data, sensing problems, and generating solutions to them, and developing concepts and language for conveying them. The book discussed eight different information-processing models which include: Inductive thinking, Concept attainment, The Picture-Word Inductive Model, Scientific inquiry, Inquiry training, Mnemonics, Synectics, and Advance organizers. The inductive thinking yields the ability to analyze information and create concepts which is generally regarded as the fundamental thinking skill. This model has been used in a wide variety of curriculum areas and with students of all ages-it is not confined to the sciences. Phonetic and structural analysis depend on concept learning, as do rules of grammar. The structure of the field of literature is based on classification. The study of communities, nations, and history requires concept learning. Even if concept learning were not so critical in the development of thought, the organization of information is so fundamental to curriculum areas that inductive thinking would be a very important model for learning and teaching school subjects. Concept Attainment is an indirect instructional strategy that uses a structured inquiry process. It was designed to clarify ideas and to introduce aspects of content. It engages students into formulating a concept through the use of illustrations, word cards or specimens called examples. Students who catch onto the idea before others are able to resolve the concept and then are invited to suggest their own examples, while other students are still trying to form the concept. For this reason, concept attainment is well suited to classroom use because all thinking abilities can be challenged throughout the activity. With experience, children become skilled at identifying relationships in the word cards or