Enabling Strategies

1. Tri-Question. This will enable the students to probe into events. Three questions are
asked: 1) What happened? 2) Why did it happen? And 3) What are the consequences? In
the lesson, you do not just ask what happened and that’s the end. Digging into the “why”
and asking ho it affects the students and you and all others is indeed meaningful.
2. Role Playing and Socio-Drama. Classroom experience for social studies students in
simulation, role-playing, and sociodrama provides not only an interesting way of
learning, but also an appreciation for the complexity and interdependence of social
systems in the modern world. Role-playing requires a student to assume an identity other
than his own to increase his understanding of another person; sociodrama adds the
element of problem solving for the role-players, usually in a simple verbal model; and
simulation, the most complex, incorporates both techniques into a game structure.
In preparing any of the techniques the teacher first must select the social process to be
reproduced and the concepts and objectives to be comprehended and achieved, and
secondly he must determine whether the illustrative situation will be hypothetical or a
replication of actuality. The situation must be thoroughly researched by the teacher, who
is responsible for constructing the model and making his students aware of the purposes
and theory related to their experience. For simulation, the game as well as devices to
indicate power relationships must be designed. An annotated bibliography is included to
provide the teacher with background information on the theory of the techniques,
concrete examples and instructions concerning its uses, and materials enabling him to
analyze a political process and construct a verbal model.
3. Moral Dilemma Method. In a moral dilemma a person is torn between two actions.
What are the crucial features of a moral dilemma? 1) The person is required to do each of
the two actions; 2) The person can do each of the actions; 3) The person cannot do both
of the actions; 4) The person thus seems condemned to moral failure; no matter what she
does, she will do something wrong (or fail to do something that she ought to do). The
famous Heinz example illustrates moral dilemma. Heinz dilemma is a story about an
ethical dilemma faced by a character named Heinz that was used by Lawrence Kohlberg
to assess the moral reasoning skills of those he asked to respond to it. Having exhausted
every other possibility, Heinz must decide whether to steal an expensive drug that offers
the only hope of saving his dying wife.
A woman was on her deathbed. There was one drug that the doctor thought might save
her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered.
The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug
cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of
the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the
money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told
the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later.
But the druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it.”
So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's laboratory to steal the drug for his wife.
Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why
not?
4. Debate. As an instructional method, debating involves students in expressing their
opinions from two competing perspectives with the goal of contradicting each other’s
arguments (Chang & Cho, 2010). An opportunity for decision may be given after
opposing views are presented in alternating statements.
5. Modular. Modular approach is an emerging trend educational thinking that shifts
traditional method of instruction to an outcome-based learning paradigm. Modularization
is based on the principle of dividing the curriculum into small discrete modules or units
that are independent, nonsequential, and typically short in duration.
6. Reporting. Aims to provide students with information in a direct way and in
uninterrupted manner. The student-reporters act like an authority of the topics assigned to
them.
Features of Reporting:
 One shot activity. One student or more reports at a time succession. The teacher
makes a follow up and additional inputs if needed.
 Highly Cognitive. The aim of the activity is to deliver factual information about a
topic.
 Student-Centered. When a student assigned to report, he/she collects, organize,
and share certain information.
7. Discussion. This is the Discussion Method, also called the Socratic Method after the
Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, who would engage his students with questions and
dialogue. Discussion methods are a variety of forums for open-ended, collaborative
exchange of ideas among a teacher and students or among students for the purpose of
furthering students thinking, learning, problem solving, understanding, or literary
appreciation. Participants present multiple points of view, respond to the ideas of others,
and reflect on their own ideas in an effort to build their knowledge, understanding, or
interpretation of the matter at hand. The Discussion Method demands that students come
to class well prepared. Compelling them to think out their arguments in advance and to
answer their peers’ questions and counter-arguments, it sharpens their powers of reason,
analysis, and articulation. It thus provides them with fundamental skills necessary for
success in any discipline or profession.
8. Demonstration. A method of teaching that relies heavily upon showing the a model
performance that he/she should match or pass after he/she has seen a presentation that is
live, filmed or electronically operated. Verbal explanation plus live display. The “doing”
method- shows the step by step procedure in a job task, using the exact physical
procedures if possible.
9. Spider Web. Spider Web Discussion is an adaptation of the Socratic seminar in that it
puts students squarely in the center of the learning process, with the teacher as a silent
observer and recorder of what s/he sees students saying and doing during the discussion.
Her method is used when the teacher wants students to collaboratively discuss and make
meaning of a particular learning concept – be it a novel or a math procedure.
Wiggins explains further:
“Spider Web Discussion is a classroom philosophy, not a one-off activity. It’s a culture.
It’s about understanding that learning is a complex process that plays out over time,
 through allowing students to grapple with challenging ideas…. The process of Spider
Web Discussion trains students to work together collaboratively in solving problems and
to self-assess that process. The result is deep, high-level inquiry led and assessed by the
students themselves, whether they are in 2nd grade social studies or high school
geometry” (p. 5).

Wiggins intentionally used the word spider in naming this process for two reasons. First,
she approaches the student discussion as an emerging web. In fact, as she listens and
captures key elements of the student dialogue, she charts the discussion process, which
produces the spider web diagram.

References:
APA Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association. Retrieved September 22,
2021, from https://dictionary.apa.org/heinz-dilemma
Berdine, R. (1984). Increasing student involvement in the learning process through debate on
controversial topics. Journal of Management Education, 9(3), 6-8.
Crystal Green, Laurelyn Mynhier, Jonathan Banfill, Phillip Edwards, Jungwon Kim, Richard
Desjardins. (2020) Preparing education for the crises of tomorrow: A framework for adaptability.
International Review of Education 66:5-6, pages 857-879.
Discussion Methods. Discussion Methods | Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning. Retrieved
September 22, 2021, from https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/resources/teaching-techniques-and-
methods/discussion-methods
Garvey, D. M. G. (1967, November 30). Simulation, role-playing, and Sociodrama in the Social
Studies. with an annotated bibliography. The Emporia State Research Studies. Retrieved
September 22, 2021, from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED028102.
Gassenheimer, C. (2018). A+ Alabama Best Practices Center. Spider Web Discussions Help
Students Take Ownership of Learning. Retrieved from https://aplusala.org/best-practices-
center/2018/01/11/spider-web-discussions-help-students-take-ownership-of-learning/?
__cf_chl_managed_tk__=pmd_PlHDXg4Hdy3ttE7cGGsCUh_o_vNHcf_xU7Sa6T90HSw-
1632285965-0-gqNtZGzNAyWjcnBszRHR
The discussion method. Thomas Aquinas College. (n.d.). Retrieved September 22, 2021, from
https://www.thomasaquinas.edu/a-liberating-education/discussion-method.