Teaching Methods

The prevalent teaching is based on the Constructivist theories of modern education practice. Teachers are expected to acquaint themselves with the social learning practices of education as well as the need to differentiate in the classroom.
It is important that before preparing a programme of learning, teachers should understand the developmental and social needs of their pupils. The school does not value teacher-fronted passive learning. Teachers should facilitate learning rather than give information. Pupils should be active and independent in their learning. They should become knowledge-able as opposed to knowledgeable.
This method guides learning and creative thinking and provides the opportunity to develop lasting habits of learning. It involves asking questions about the world around us and what it entails, and finding the answers to those questions.
This implies that the pupils are actively responsible for their own learning. The teacher’s role increasingly becomes that of facilitator. A passive model of pupil learning is not valued.
It also implies that the pupils are able to develop and demonstrate their abilities in a variety of ways. The inquiry-based teaching method requires the pupils to pursue the answers but the way in which the answer is sought is open. Pupils may apply a variety of methods and means.
Assessment methods are not merely based on the right or wrong answer or a body of knowledge, but rather on the growing abilities of the pupils to formulate hypotheses, design, experiment and analyse the results.
Teaching should be integrated across the curriculum. This implies the value not only of knowledge but equally importantly skills and values.
The acquisition of skills, values, concepts and knowledge is a social learning process. No child learns in isolation but with his or her peers and from competent facilitators such as teachers, parents and other competent people. An additional benefit of this method is the development of good communication skills, facilitated by the frequent exchange of ideas, interactions with each other and the sharing of the findings and the answers. (The ideas of the education philosophers Dewey, Vygotsky et al as well as Bloom’s Taxonomy are important)