KENYA MEDICAL TRAINING COLLEGE

NYERICAMPUS,

TEACHING METHODOLOGY.

BY HOSEA KIMOSOP.
• TEACHING/LEARNING METHODS.
Objectives.
By the end of the lesson the learner should
be able to;
Define teaching and learning.
state various types of teaching
methods,their advantages and
disadvantages.
 TEACHING/LEARNING METHODS

-Learning can be great fun,but only if the right method is applied at

the right time to the right type of learner.
-Varying methods of teaching can make learning fun because:
• Individuals are different & one method may be effective for one
learner but not for another.
• Every task involves a no. of sub-tasks,which are carried out
differently.One teaching method may not be appropriate for all
sub-tasks
• A variation of teaching methods results in a variety of stimuli.This
helps to sustain the attention & interest of the learner
TRADITIONAL TEACHING METHODS

-They include among others:

 Lecture methods
 Tutorial
 Demonstration
 Practical
 Role-plays
• Brainstorming
• Snow ball
 CT……..
 Simulation
 Fieldwork
 Clinical
 Projects
 Seminar or workshop
 Large group discussions
 1)PRACTICALS

• It is when students learn in their future working areas.

-A practical is where students perform tasks.
-Practicals have many advantages & a few disadvantages

Advantages
• It provides a better understanding of the lecture content
• It leads to creativity on the part of the student
• It is effective for stimulating independent thought &
changing attitudes
• It is a good way of achieving a desired level of
competence for the student
• It provides immediate feedback on the
performance of the teacher
• It provides time for the individual student to be
helped by the teacher
• It provides an opportunity for developing
interpersonal relationships between teachers &
students
• Is a two way learning process
• It provides an opportunity for detailed
discussion of the students’ work
Disadvantages
• It is not an economical way of using
manpower & resources
• It takes time to carry out practical work
• It needs administrative staff for
preparation & maintenance of materials
• It needs special accommodation for
students closer to the practical area
 2)LECTURE METHOD

-A lecture is a lesson given orally by a teacher.

 Teacher uses verbal messages to communicate with the
learners and there is no learner participation.
Advantages
• It is economical in the use of time
• Appropriate for large groups
• Use a single lecture theatre
• Delivery of content by expert
• Good means of introducing a subject.
• It provides wide field of knowledge in limited time.
• It provides an up to date view of the
subject and the latest result the teacher is
expected to have all updates and
students.
• Saves student time by summarizing a field
of study because the teacher comes to
class with summarized work
• It is an alternative method of teaching
when books are in short supply.
 Disadvantages

• Some students may be left behind

• Poor student involvement
• Impersonal
• No respect for individual pace
• Relatively ineffective for changing attitudes
• No immediate feedback
• No creative activity
• Not capable of helping to achieve all educational objectives
• Students regard knowledge as a closed system
• Does not provide the necessary repetition
• Does not teach the skills required
• Students learning concentration decline as
the lecture proceeds
• Information come from a single source
• Little time for questions
• Does not provide for teamwork
• Doesn’t help develop interpersonal
relationships between students & teachers
• Less popular with students than other methods
when there are many lectures
• Students of lower ability are probably helped more
in the acquisition of knowledge by discussion
• For interpretation of knowledge & problem
solving,discussion is probably more effective than
lectures
• To achieve the required standard of clinical
performance,other forms of learning & practical
work are necessary
• ways of improving lecture methods.
a. Intergrate questions in the lecture - use
examples
b. Maintain eye contact.
c. Vary your tone - use appropriate
language for the level of learners.
d. Feedback -collect feedack from students
to gauge their comprehension and adjust
accordingly.
Encourage critical thinking by posing a
thought provoking questions.

varried delivery - mixing up your teaching

style with story telling ,anectodes and vary
pace to maintain interest.
 FIELD VISIT

-Learners are taken to the actual area where activities are

taking place,such as a school,factory,water treatment
plant,etc,so that they are able to see &relate to what they
have learnt on the specific topic.
-The field visit may include some practicals.
-Going away from training institution to actually do the work in
which your are being trained.
Advantages
• It provides the actual experience.Some things cannot be
learnt in school.
• Students can observe and/or participate in the use of
theory through first hand experience in actual field situation
• Provides for creative & independent thought
on the part of the student
• Provides an opportunity for developing
interpersonal relationships between
students,teachers & field staff
• It can help promote the desired competence
& attitude
• Provides time for questions & discussions
• Information comes from multiple sources
• students can observe and participate in
the theory through first hand experience in
an actual field situation.
 Disadvantages

• It is not an economical way of using

manpower & resources
• It creates administrative problems in
arranging programs
• It may confuse students because there is
usually a wide gap between theory & practice
• If it is not well supervised,learning potential
may be lost & it may turn into a social event
 DEMONSTRATION

-A specific learning task is performed by the teacher while students

observe & learn
-This method is mainly used to show learners how to perform
-In demonstration,an opportunity must be given to the learners for a return
demonstration to ensure that they have understood.
Advantages
• It provides an economical way of using manpower & material
• It provides audio-visual observation of the subject
• builds confidence in a student
• enables learning evaluation
• reduces damage and waste
• motivates learners and makes learning more interesting.
• it provides safety and more accurately.
• Students will understand the subject better
when they see a demonstration of a
lecture
• It may be a good means of teaching where
resources are readily available
• It provides a way of pacing a student’s
way of learning
• It can provide a wide range of knowledge
in a limited time.
 Disadvantages

• It is a one way learning process from

instructor to students
• Students are just passive observers
• It may not provide for activity on the part of
the students
• It may not provide the necessary repetition
depending on the individual’s pace of
learning
• It has little regard for students’ individual
differences
• There is no immediate feedback to the
instructor on what has been learned
• It is relatively ineffective for achieving
competence unless students are given
opportunities to practice
A teacher may ue demonstration for the
following reasons ;
• When the experiment is dangerous.
• When the equipment is expensive .
• When the resources are limited.
• When there is limited time.
 INDIVIDUAL LEARNING

It is when an individual takes innitiative to learn.

Advantages
• Students can work at their own individual pace
• Students can learn at the time& place of their
choice
• Students can request teaching whenever
necessary
• Students can omit any parts they already know
• Teachers can prepare a standardized body of
information
• The method can provide for creativity &
independent thought on the part of the student
• It can help achieve the desired competence
• It can provide immediate feedback to the
teacher
• Students’ performance does not decline with
time
• Students learn how to express themselves
clearly
 Disadvantages

• It is an uneconomical way of using resources

• Information usually comes from a single source
& may lead to a one way learning process
• No teamwork &no interpersonal relationships
between students.
• It takes time to prepare materials for individual
learning
• It has no regard for the students’ individual
differences
 SEMINAR/WORKSHOP

-A seminar is a session headed by a teacher,a trained

senior student or an enthusiastic student from the
class,where an assigned subject is discussed.
-The subject has to be prepared beforehand &
presented by the student
-The other students will then discuss,criticize &
comment on the material presented.
-The teacher should be available to be consulted by the
group
-This is important,as the students may need to confirm
factual information with the teacher.
 Advantages

• It promotes interpersonal relationships

between students
• Students can learn a lot from each other
• It allows for teamwork & personal flexibility
• Teachers can encourage full participation
by all students
• It provides creativity & independent
thought on the part of the students
• It provides immediate feedback of
knowledge gained
• It facilitates exchange of ideas
• It trains students to work independently in
preparing papers for presentation
• It provides greater control of
communication between students &
teachers
 Disadvantages

• It is not an economical way of using manpower

unless senior students act as supervisors &
teachers are only called in as consultants
• It is too slow to cover more than a limited amount
of subject matter
• It may suffer from interruptions
• It cannot provide the repetition necessary for
individual needs
• Poses evaluation problems.
• Require highly competent instructor.
 TUTORIAL
-A tutorial is a discussion session between a teacher
& a small no. of students
-The smaller the no. of students,the more effective
the tutorial is
- no. of students in a tutorial should not be more than
8.
- However,the best ratio of teacher to student is 1:1.
-A tutorial must not be a mini-lecture given by the
teacher
-The teacher should talk as little as possible &
encourage the students to think & learn
independently
 Advantages
• Communication of knowledge is two-way
between teacher & students
• It provides personal contact between students
& teachers.
• Provides activity for the student
• Teachers can give full attention to individual
differences between students.
• It provides an opportunity for detailed
discussion of students’ prepared work
• It provides immediate feedback for both teacher
& student
• It encourages the creativity of the
learner,including the application of the
knowledge& problem solving
• The learner tends to regard knowledge as an
open system.
• It is relatively effective in changing attitudes.
• It provides more understanding of the lectures
• Less able students can be helped by the teacher
• Students performance does not decline as time
proceeds
• It provides time for questions
 Disadvantages
• It is not an economical way of using manpower
• It moves too slowly to cover&covers only limited
subject matter
• Students need to do some work on the subject
beforehand
• It cannot provide the repetition necessary
depending on the individual
• The instructor or an active student may
dominate it.
• It is liable to interruptions
 PROJECT

-A project is an assignment given to an individual

student,a pair of learners or a group of learners
in which they carry out a piece of independent
work on a particular topic
-The learners have to organize the assignment &
prepare a written report to submit to the teacher
-A project may be relatively simple,eg to be carried
out within a week,or it may be more complex eg
to be carried out over a period of several months
or even a year
 Advantages

• It provides activities & calls for creativity on the part of

the student
• It encourages initiative in the student
• It encourages learners to be independent
• Learners can work at their own pace
• It may provide opportunities for inter-personal
relationships between learners & people from other
departments
• The results of a project provide feedback of students’
progress to the teacher
• Information comes from multiple sources
 Disadvantages

• It takes time to carry out a project

• Learners may find the project adds too
much to their workload
• It creates administrative problems in
arranging programmes
• Unless sufficient time is allowed, the
learners may produce a superficial report &
gain the impression that this standard of
work is good enough.
 SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION

-It is giving a topic to a group of students to explore

over it .
-It is an appropriate technique for encouraging
learners to analyse,synthesise & evaluate the
knowledge that they acquire(higher order cognitive
skills)eg they may choose to look into the causes of
a disease or a custom practiced within a community.
-Group discussion can be instructor-centered or
learner-centred
 Advantages

• Allows use of the resources of the members of

the group;there is shared commitment to
learning;learners help each other with difficult
points
• Provides learners with opportunities to interact
with the instructor & fellow learners
• Learners learn to evaluate the logic of & the
evidence for their own & others’ positions,ie,
learning is through self-expression
&intercommunication
• Allows learners to become active participants
in the learning process rather than passive
recipients of information from one
source.Work becomes more motivation to
learn.
• Provides an opportunity for the synthesis of
varied experiences & data derived from
lectures,laboratories,clinics & readings.The
student grasps the idea of self-learning
without fear of failure
 Disadvantages

• Dominance of vocal& aggressive members over others

in a group may hinder equal growth of all members in
the learning process
• Group discussion does not guarantee that an objective
will be accomplished within a fixed time
• The members of the group must bring to the discussion
a body of information that is sufficiently broad & deep
• Lack of planning by the group leader or the group itself
concerning the agenda & specific learning objectives
• As the size of the group increase,the efficiency &
effectiveness of the method will decrease.
 SIMULATION

-This instruction method is used to enable

learners to develop skills in dealing with
“real life”situations & “problems” in a
classroom setting
-eg. The use of a skills lab & the practical
rooms
-It is better to make mistakes in these
practical simulations than in the real
setting with real patients/clients
 Methods of simulation

i)The simulation game

-Simulation games are educational games designed to
provide students with the opportunity to practice &
develop skills in problem solving,decision making &
communicating.
-Simulation games enable students to work out real life
situations through the technique of role play.
eg.a)take a written case history.Set M.C.Qs for the learner
to answer after listening to or reading the case history.
b)Present a recording of chest sounds for the learner to
listen to.Ask the learner to report on what he/she
heard.Compare this with the official report.
 ii)Simulators

-Simulators are operational models such as

the obstetrical phantom or model for first
aid teaching.
-They are devices or models that represent
real life situations & permit the learner to
interact with it in practicing skills relevant
to that real life situation
 Advantages

• Simulation can make a link between the training

situation & the real life situation.The more
similar the stimuli in the situations,the more
positive transfer there is from one to the other.
• Simulations provide a responsive
environment.There is always some immediate
feedback
• Simulation is a relatively cheap method & often
provides experience in a low-cost model for a
high-cost environment.
• Simulation can telescope time.Problems of real life
can be programmed in advance & dealt over a
variable length of time.The opportunity to confront
real problems in hypothetical setting means
subsequent problems cause less alarm,greater
confidence & less harm to all involved.
• Simulation allows learners to make their first
serious mistakes in a simulated situation rather
than in a real one.
• NB:The usefulness of simulation depends on its
accuracy or true reflection of reality.
 Disadvantages

• Simulation techniques cannot simulate all

dimensions of a real life situation.
• The planning & development time required
for a simulation technique may prove to be
costly.
 ROLE PLAY

-Role play is when the teacher suggests a

situation & students are given roles to play.
-This technique is somewhat like an ordinary play
in which each participant is assigned a
character,but in this case no lines are learned.
-The individual playing a specific role provides
his/her responses to the situation
-This technique is appropriate for an instructional
objective in the higher cognitive & affective
domains
Characteristics of role-play techniques

-Role play should deal with a well structured

problem situation
-The problem situation should not be
concerned with the personal problems of
the role players.However,the situation
should be familiar enough for the students
to be able to understand the roles & their
potential responses to the problem
-The objectives of the role-play session
should be made explicit.
-Students should volunteer for the various
roles rather than be assigned to them
-Role-play sessions should be analysed by
the group after the session & guidelines
for the analysis provided before the
session.
 Advantages

• The learner gets an opportunity to practise what

he/she has learned
• The learner is able to express his/her feelings
under the guise of make-believe
• This technique provides the leaner with an
opportunity to actively participate in the learning
process & also to get immediate feedback
• It imitates real life situations
• Gives more relevant perceptions in the student
learning
 Disadvantages

• Not all students may be able to dramatize or play roles

in different hypothetical settings
• Teachers may not be able to construct a real problem
situation or different roles to deal with it.
• It can be very expensive
• Gives anxiety to students if they do not know their roles
& objectives of the course
• It cannot measure all aspects of performance coz of the
use of substitutes
• Require creativity .
• Talented students may monopolize the activity.
 CRITICAL-INCIDENT
TECHNIQUE

-In this method,the learner learns from a crucial

incident which occurs in the course of study or
work.
-Due to the alarm it causes,he/she learns to
prevent a future occurrence,eg.a nurse who
didn’t observe a post-operative case
sufficiently has her patient bleed to death.On
certifying death,the bed was found to be full of
blood
 Advantages

• Learning not easily forgotten

• Data is collected directly from the
respondent in his/her own words
• Focus on unusual or extraordinary may be
more helpful than routine data
• Does not force the respondent into any
given framework
• Inexpensive & provides information
• Identifies even rare events that might be
missed by other methods which only focus
on common & everyday events
• Useful when problems occur but the cause
& severity are not known
• Emphasizes the features that will make a
system particularly vulnerable & can bring
major benefits
 Disadvantages

• Such teaching cannot be planned

• Everyday issues may be missed
• Often rely on memory,incident may be
equivocal(multiple interpretations)
• Reliability is weak
• Method has a built in bias towards incidents that
happened recently since these are easier to
recall
• Will emphasize only rare events,everyday issues
may be missed
Problem based learning
It is when students are confronted with an
open-ended instructed problem and they
work in teams to identify learning needs and
develop solutions with teacher as a
facilitator.
Advantages
• The students prefer getting solutions for
themselves than getting the directly from
the instructor hence responsible for their
• students are able to solve simple issues to
complex issues by themselves.
• The teacher moves from group to group
during discussions hence makes
clarifications for better understanding.
• Motivation for students as they own the
learning process.
Disadvantages
• It is time consuming because the teacher
has to move from group to group to help
the student come up with a solution.
• Only students who are willing to be
involved benefit from the project.
Brainstorming
It is discovery of new ideas and responses
very quickly without reference to any book
Advantages
• More reserved participants feel free to
contribute.
• leads to a very animated and energizing
session.
Disadvantages
• It is time consuming if it is a large group.
• Consumes alot of materials.
• The facilitator has to be knowledgeable.
Study assignment method
It is when the instructor assigns reading of
books, periodicals projects or research
papers or exercise for the practice.
Advantages
• Reduced classroom time
• Permits individual attention
• Increase coverage of number of materials.
Disadvantages
• Poses evaluation problems
• Produce non-standard results
• Provide careful learning and follow up.
Snow ball throwing technique
It is giving of a topic to students then the
teacher asks students to stand up then
either sings a song or play music using tape
recorder then the teacher throws a ball to a
student . The first student throws the ball to
another student in either left or right then
suddenly as the music stops the last person
with the ball answers the question,if he or
she cannot answer then the next person is
Advantages
• It gives the teacher an easy time to teach
• Helps in memory development
• Encourages students to be active in
speaking in speaking and participation in
the classroom.
Disadvantages
• It is time consuming because if the cannot
answer the teacher continues to another
student.
• Teacher has task of controlling the student
because students are anxious and make a
lot of noise as the ball is thrown from one
person to another.
• It is not an effective skill of speaking
because not all students will get chance to
< The end >