Seminar

Concept of
teaching
SUBMITTED TO: PRESENTED BY:
MRS. PRATHIBHA.J. SARANYA. S
ASST. PROFESSOR 1ST YEAR MSc NURSING
GOVT. COLLAGE OF NURSING GOVT. COLLAGE OF NURSING
TRIVANDRUM TRIVADRUM

CONCEPTS OF TEACHING
INTRODUCTION
Education encompasses both teaching and learning, proper conduct and
technical competency. When a person imparts information or skills to another, it
is common to describe the action as teaching. Imparting may mean to share
experiences or communicating information, for instance, lecture. Teaching is
regarded as both an art and science. As an art, it lays stress on the imaginative
and artistic abilities of the teacher in creating a worthwhile situation in the
classroom to enable students to learn. As a science, it sheds light on the logical,
mechanical, or procedural steps to be followed to attain an effective
achievement of goals.

DEFINITION
• Teaching is a system of directed and deliberate actions that are intended to
induce learning through a series of directed activities designed to induce
learning.
-Heidgerken, 1953

• An art and science in which the content is structured and process used to
enable student learning.
-Bevis,1989

PURPOSES OF GOOD TEACHING

• Development of wholesome personality (changing, habits, attitudes, reconstituting
ideas and changing interests) of the learner. It aims the advancement towards
growth in all spheres of the human personality.
• Also the immediate mastery over the subject with its skills is an important
purpose.
• To help the students to:
o Acquire, retain and be able to use knowledge. o
Understand, analyse, synthesise and evaluate knowledge. o
Achieve skills. o Establish habits. o Develop attitudes.

CHARECTERISTICS OF GOOD TEACHING

To be a good teacher, he/she must understand the following triumphs of good
teaching:
▪ Good teaching treats each child unique and it recognises that
catering to individual differences bring strength.
▪ It enables the child to learn for himself.
▪ It provides opportunities of activities in which a good teacher
keeps the students active and the teacher is aware of the fact, that
to keep the students disciplined and engaged with some activity.
▪ Good teaching involves skills in guiding learning in which the
teacher motivates his students and stimulates them through his
personality and his activities, the personality and activities of the
students by creating such situations.
▪ Good teacher reduces the differences between the teacher and the
taught.
▪ Good teaching is an active and living process where the teacher
seeks the cooperation of the learners.
▪ Good teaching must create an environment of acceptance,
sympathy and understanding, where a good teacher always creates
a cordial atmosphere in the learning situation. He always ensures
student’s emotional stability and security.
▪ Good teaching involves careful planning. The teacher studies the
individual differences of the students and then prepares his subject
matter to plan a lesson to be taught.
▪ Good teaching is democratic. A teacher always aspects the
individuality of his students and keeps democratic ideas, contents,
methods and objectives in view.
▪ Good teaching is progressive. A good teacher aims at improving
his modes and techniques steadily and helps the student to make
progress in life by helping him to adjust himself to his
environment.
▪ Good teaching leads to emotional stability. A good teacher knows
that unguided expressions lead to wilderness and there are very
powerful inherited urges which always cry for expression. For
which teacher helps in providing his students suitable
opportunities which assist in training and sublimating their urges
and emotions.
▪ Good teaching is both diagnostic and remedial. It makes use of
various measuring instruments ad discover the intelligence,
aptitude and interests of students and accordingly plan and
perform his job of teaching.
 CLASSIFICATION OF TEACHING BEHAVIOUR
Teaching behaviour can be broadly classified as follows:
• Authoritarian teaching behaviour.
• Democratic teaching behaviour.
• Laissez Faire teaching behaviour.
Authoritarian teaching behaviour:
It is bases on classical theory of organisation: task centered. It has an
assumption that members of the organisation are primarily passive instrument,
capable of performing work and accepting direction but not initiating action. In
this type the teacher:
▪ Exercises a firm centralized control.
▪ Directs every action of his students.
▪ Does all planning for class and gives directions.
▪ Tells the students what to think as well as what to do.
▪ Thinks and regards himself as the only active agent in teaching and considers all students as
passive listeners of instructions and information. In this type, teaching confines to memory level.
There is no place for developing feelings and attitudes of students. There is no scope of criticism.
Democratic teaching behaviour:
It is based on the human relation theory of organisation: relationship centered.
The main assumption of this theory is that members bring to their organisations
attitude, values and goals, that they have to be motivated to participate in the
system or organisation behaviour. The attitude and morale of the workers are
important in the explanation of the organisation behaviour. In this type of
teaching, the teacher plays the role of democratic group leader. His main aim is
to lead his students in the study of significant problems in the area in which he
is teaching. There is always scope in such classroom for interchange of ideas,
evidences and insights, give and take the respect of one another’s idea. The
teaching models recognised here are motivation, planning, counselling as
evaluation.
Laissez Faire teaching behaviour:
It is based on the modern theory of organisation: task and relationship centered.
It has an assumption that members of the organisation are decision makers and
problem solvers and that perception and process are central to the explanation
of behaviour or organisation.
This assigns more place to the learner. This tend to be child or learner centered. It is
evident here that student is more active than the teacher. Teacher’s job is to create the
situation for the learner. The teacher leaves the students on their own. Here the students
decide what they want to do and how they will do it. This type of teaching may be
organized even at reflective level.

STAGES OF TEACHING
One of the analysis of teaching describes the whole process as comprising of three
different stages:
Pre teaching + Teaching–learning process + Post teaching
Pre teaching:
Pre teaching consist essentially of the planning of the lesson. The
planning of the lesson is not merely the designing of a lesson plan but it
includes identifying the objectives to be achieved in terms of students learning,
the strategies and methods to be adopted, use of teaching aids and so on.
Teaching-learning process:
The second stage includes the execution of the plan, where the learning
experiences are provided to students through suitable modes and evaluation of
students learning is done.
Post teaching:
Post teaching includes the performance evaluation of students, the extent
of students achievements and problems, reflecting on the performance of self
and also on deciding on changes in the way of proceeding with the entire
process of teaching-learning if required.

LEVELS OF TEACHING
Autonomous level of teaching-learning
Autonomous level of teaching-learning is based on the educational
philosophy which believes that human beings are inherently active. They
generate ideas from within themselves. Education should not be imposed by
outside agent but on the other hand it should be child-centered. The teacher
should promote each student’s heightened intuitive awareness of himself by
creating an appropriate environment in which students can realize three basic
human awareness which are choosing agent, free agent, and responsible agent.
The main responsibility of the teacher is to awaken awareness, freedom
and responsibility in his students but these qualities are not to be awakened on
the cost of personal freedom of the student. Teaching should proceed in a highly
permissive way with in which each individual student develops largely of his
own through the exercise of his feelings. The teaching is completely student-
centered.
Memory level of teaching-learning
Memory level of teaching-learning means committing factual information
to memory and nothing else. If we examine our traditional teaching as it is being
carried out .we find that in majority of the cases it operates at memory level.
The teacher gives factual material which the students memorize without
understanding it. This type of teaching seems to be based either on mental
discipline theory which emphasizes the importance of vigorous exercise for the
development of mental faculties or S-R conditioning theory of learning in which
bondage is formed between the stimuli and responses without involving any
purpose. To provide instruction at memory level is not of great use for the
development of intelligence. But most of the teaching at the primary stage
carried on memory level to teach fundamental skills such as spelling or rules of
arithmetic, etc.
Understanding level of teaching-learning
The verb “to understand” conveys different meanings as for example, to
perceive the meaning of, grasp the idea of to comprehend; to be thoroughly
familiar with or to apprehend the character or nature of; to comprehend the
meanings of words as a language; to grasp clearly as a fact or realize.
• Understanding as seeing relationship:
The first category of the meaning of the verb “to understand”
emphasizes the comprehension of meaning of some thing when it is taken
out of that particular context. Suppose a teacher who goes to teach a class
without having any previous experience of that class. The class has the
children of diverse habits-some are good and some are bad. Diversity in
the behaviour of the students creates problem for the teacher and he is
puzzled. To solve the problems, he starts collecting information from
other colleagues and the community.
After collecting the information he finds that problems of his
students are deep-rooted. Teacher on the basis of his information forms
some generalization as the behaviour of children can be explained by the
nature of the social class into which they are born. The teacher can classify
his students in more meaningful way.
Thus we can say that seeing solitary facts in relation to a general
principle is the essence of understanding implied by first definition of the
term.
• Understanding the use of a fact:
 This category of definition lays emphasis of the use of knowledge in some
goal, for example, as soon as a student sees what something is for, he
understands it. Of course, the degree of one’s understanding is always relative.
According to this definition, purpose is always understanding. It
harmonizes well with the cognitive field outlook. It emphasizes
progressive improvement for his own purpose and restructures his life
space.
• Understanding as noun:
Understanding is also used as “noun”. The noun refers to the product of
acts of understanding. We go through experimental process of trying to
see how certain relationship may be put to use. We find a relationship
between something done and the consequences of doing it. An
understanding is generalised insight. Often it may be put into words but
not always.

MODELS IN TEACHING LEARNING PROCESS

Learning is a process of growth and development where by the learner
acquire a body of knowledge, develops ideas which make a part of one self and
develops the ability to use such knowledge in the pursuit of chosen ideals.
Learning is the part of education, which bring modification of behaviour.
Teaching is a process which facilitate learning by encouraging learner to think,
feel and do. Teaching is system of directed and deliberate actions that are
intended to induce learning through a series of activities designed to induce
learning. Both teaching and learning involve series of actions and activities. A
model tries to explain the concept involved and its interrelationship. It is a
visual aid or a picture which highlights the main ideas and variables in a process
or a system. The main models discussed and compared are by the following
personals:
• John Carroll (1963)
• Proctor (1984)
• Cruickshank (1985)
• Gage and Berliner (1992)
• Huitt (1995)
John Carroll's Model
It is basically related to school learning. However, it can be applicable to
nursing as well. Carroll states that time is the most important variable in school
learning, A simple equation for Carroll's model is
School learning = f (Time spent / Time needed)
• Time spent is the function of opportunity and perseverance.
 •
Opportunity is determined by the class room teacher the specific measure
is called allotted or allocated time (that is allocated for learning by
classroom teacher).
• Perseverance is the students involvement with academic content during
that allocated time.
• Carroll proposed that perseverance be measured as the percentage of the
allocated time during which students are actually involved in the learning
process, and was labelled as engagement rate.
• Allocated time multiplied by engagement rate produced the variable
which Carroll proposed as a measure of time spent, which came to be
called engaged time or time on task.

Application of John Carroll’s model in nursing

Learning = f (Time spent/ Time needed) Time
spent = Opportunity + Perseverance.

Opportunity: It depends upon the allocated time for theory and practical for
each subject by the Indian Nursing Council, the university, the institution,
faculty planning faculty commitment and the ability to provide comprehensive
teachinglearning experience
Perseverance: It is the nursing students involvement with the academic content
during that allocated time. It includes the number of days/hours attended, leave
taken, quality teaching and learning, motivation, aptitude, attitude, intelligence,
memory, immediate need, etc.
Engagement rate = Time spent in teaching-learning/ Time allocated for
teaching and learning
Time on task = Engagement rate * Time allocated for teaching and learning

Students can learn if:

They are given enough time to learn the concept and information taught in
school and is provided quality instruction. By quality instruction it is meant that
the teacher should
• Organize subject matter into manageable learning units.
• Develop specific learning objectives for each unit.
• Develop appropriate formative and summative evaluation measures with
sufficient time allocations.
 •
Plan and implement group teaching strategies with sufficient time
allocations, practice opportunities and corrective instructions for all
students to reach the desired level of mastery.
Proctors' Model
This model emphasizes the importance of schools' social climate in the
teaching-learning process. The school climate is influenced by a number of
factors. The two important factors are student characteristics and the interaction
among the individuals involved in the schooling process.
Application in Nursing
Student learning α School climate
Student learning or achievement is directly proportional to school climate.

School climate = Student characteristics + Interaction among the

individuals
• Student characteristics include race, gender, economic level and past
academic performance, attitudes, norms, beliefs and prejudices.
• Interaction includes the input of administrators, teachers and students.
The outcome of learning and student's achievement will go up when the
institution has good qualified faculty members, adequate infrastructural
facilities, committed students, quality instructions, corrective feedback, and
good communication among students, parents and educators. On the other hand,
adverse or negative attitudes on the part of the instructors and administrators
will erode student's self-esteem and consequently lower the achievement level.
It is hypothesized that there is a cyclical relationship among the variables and
changes can be made at any point along the way. These changes will affect the
institutional achievement, which will continue to affect the social climate of the
school.

Cruickshank's Model
It is based on the classroom and teacher. He has taken the concept of
Mitzel and Biddle and incorporated it in his model. Mitzel classified variables
as Product, Process and Presage. Biddle classified variables such as school and
community contents formative experiences, classroom situations, teacher
properties, teacher behaviour - intermediate and long term consequences
 •
Application in Nursing

Product ↔ Process ↔ Presage

Product is the outcome of learning on the part of the students. It is the
gain in knowledge, changes in attitude and skill attainment in nursing
students.
• Process involves interaction between student and teacher in various
contexts such as class room, hospital, community set-up.
• Presage is the teacher's intelligence, experience and success and other
teacher characteristics such as personality, attitude, aptitude experience,
motivation, commitment and sincerity, etc. Presage is supposed to affect
the process and then, of course, process will affect the product.

Biddle variables include the following

• School and community contents: It includes the philosophy, aims and
objectives, climate of the school and environment, facilities available in
the institution and in the environment.
• Formative experiences: It is the experience gained from the past events
by the teachers, administrators, students, etc.
• Classroom situations: The climate, physical facilities, furniture, control
of external noise, adequate lighting, ventilation, seating facilities, etc.
• Teacher properties: Teacher's personality, attitude, knowledge.
experience, communication and assertive skills.
• Teacher's behaviour and intermediate and long-term effects: Ability
to handle the students of various personalities. problematic students, way
of disciplining the students, techniques used to correct the wrong
behaviours of the students, being impartial to all students, maintaining
good interpersonal relationship with the students, etc.

Gage and Berliner's Model

This model is classroom and teacher-based and centers on the question,
"What does a teacher do?" A teacher begins with an objective and ends with an
evaluation. Instruction connects objectives and evaluations and is based on the
teacher's knowledge of the student's characteristics and how best to motivate
them. If the evaluations do not demonstrate that the desired results have been
achieved, the teacher re-teaches the material and starts the process all over
 •
again. Classroom management is subsumed under the rubric of motivating
students. Gage and Berliner suggest that the teacher should use research and
principles from educational psychology to develop proper teaching procedures
to obtain optimal results.

Application in Nursing
𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠
𝑜𝑏𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑠↔ 𝑒𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛
 The teacher starts teaching with the formation of specific learning
objectives and based on this, she instructs the students. After the instruction, she
evaluates the student. So instruction connects the objectives to evaluation.
Evaluation in turn helps them to revise or modify the specific learning
objectives and prepare for further instruction or remedial instruction.

Huitt's Model
This model is not only classroom, teacher and student based, but includes
additional contextual influences as well. This adds variables related to context,
and student and teacher characteristics. Huitt advocates that the important
context variables must be considered because our society is changing rapidly.
From this perspective, children are members of a multifaceted society, which
influences and modifies the way they process learning as well as defines the
knowledge and skills that must be acquired to succeed in society.
His model shows a relationship among the categories of context (family,
school, home and community environment), input (what students and teachers
bring to the classroom process), classroom process (what is going on in the
classroom) and output (measure of learning done outside the classroom).

Application in nursing
Input → classroom process → output
Input: It is the beginning of teaching-learning process. Input variables include:
• Teacher characteristics such as values, beliefs. knowledge of student,
teaching-learning process, communication skills, personality, etc.
• Student characteristics such as study habits, learning style, age, sex,
gender, race, ethnicity, motivation moral, socio-emotional, cognitive,
character development and aptitude, etc.

Output: It is the end of the teaching-learning process. Educators must identify

or propose an end result or outcome of teaching and learning. Until the outcome
objectives are known, nothing else can be considered. Output measures are gain
in knowledge, learning new concepts, reading, language, mathematics, etc.

Classroom processes include teacher's behavior, student's behavior and other

variables such as classroom climate, student leadership roles, etc.
• Teacher's behavior includes planning (getting ready for classroom
interaction), management (getting the class under control) and instruction
(guiding the learning process). Planning activities have a little predictable
relationship with student achievement. The other two are moderately
 related to student achievement. Lack of a strong relationship may be due
to teacher inconsistency, which depends on change of the time of day or
the characteristics of a particular group of students. The 3 variables such
as correct feedback by the teacher, reinforcement and level of student
teacher interaction are the classroom predictors of student's success.
• Student's behavior includes planning preparation for the class, learning
readiness, need, preference for learning and learning styles, study habits,
age, sex, gender, race, ethnicity, motivation, moral, socio-emotional,
cognitive, character development and aptitude, etc.

Context variables include mother's education, family expectation, technology

at home, facilities in the institution, institutional climate, specific need of the
community, prevailing health problems, demand, etc.

Intermediate outcome: Academic Learning Timer (ALT) is the best classroom

process predictor of student achievement. ALT is defined as the amount of time
students are successfully involved during the learning of content that will be
tested. Huitt proposes that ALT should be considered as the "vital signs of a
class room. It is influenced by:

• School year: The number of days available for going to school.

• Attendance year: The number of days the student actually attends school.
• School days: The number of hours the student attends school each day
can influence ALT.
Teaching and learning is the fundamental concept of nursing education. The aim
of nursing education is to prepare the nurses with head, heart and hand. The
knowledge of nursing is enhanced by teaching and learning. The above
mentioned models and concepts can be understood and applied in nursing
education to facilitate teaching and learning.

PRINCIPLES OF TEACHING
• Principle of individual difference:
Teaching must take into consideration the individual differences of
children in various aspects.
• Principle of motivation:
Teaching must be based on various techniques which appeal to the
motives of students.
• Principle of stimulation:
Best learning take place when the teacher is successful in arousing
the interest of the students.
• Principle of goal setting:
A definite goal should be set before each child according to the
standard expected of him. Immediate goals should be set before
small children and distant goals for older children. It must be
remembered that the goals should be very clear and children must
understand these goals.
• Principle of association:
Thorndike points out that things which we want to do together
should be put together. Many different things should be brought
together as apart of one process.
• Principle of emotional development:
Children should be placed when they show good result. This will
give them encouragement to show all the more better results and
they develop confidence.
• Principle of law of readiness: This law is indicative to learner’s state to
participate in the learning process. According to Thorndike readiness is
preparation for action.
• Principle of law of effect:
It states that a response is strengthened if it is followed by pleasure
and weakened if it is followed by displeasure.
• The law of principle of exercise or repetition:
Learning is better and concrete when the concept are repeated
often. Exercising a particular skill often help in skill learning.
• Law of use and law of disuse:
Anything which is used is remembered and learned well than
which is not used or less used. The learner tend to forget the
concept or skill which is not used.
• Principle of attitude:
The learner performs the task well if he has the attitude set in the
task.
• Principle of law of similarity: This law states that “other things being
equal”. The stimuli that are more similar to one another will have greater
tendency to be grouped. This learning of similar things is easier than
learning dissimilar things.

• Principle of law of proximity:

 According to this law “perceptual groups are favoured according to
the nearness of parts”. This means that we perceive all closely
situated or located things as groups.
• Principle of activity or learning and doing:
Children are active by nature and the teaching method that is not
based upon the student activity is not in accordance with the
progressive educational theories. Activity does not mean physical
activity. If a pupil is to develop overall personality then it is
necessary for him to be active in all ways, to exercise all the
power he has.
• Principle of self education:
Best teaching is enabling the child to learn by his own efforts.
Teacher must fire the imagination of her students. Children must
be left free to express themselves for the best education, i.e. self
education.
• Principle of change and rest:
Psychological experiments in learning have demonstrated that
lack of attention and monotony can be overcome by making
appropriate provisions for change, rest and recreation. While
framing the time table, it is kept in view that subjects and
activities are provided in a way that the students do not experience
boredom and fatigue.
• Principle of feedback and reinforcement:
Learning theories point out that the immediate knowledge of
results and positive reinforces in the form of praise, grade,
certificates, token money and other incentives can contribute to
make the task of learning joy able.
• Principle of training senses:
Senses are said to be the gateway of knowledge. The power of
observation, identification, generalisation and application can
only be appropriately developed through the effective
functioning of
• Principle of creativity:
Opportunities should be provided to the students to explore
things and events and creativity which must be explored and
developed to the maximum extent.
• Principle of group dynamics:
Under the influence of group behaviour, appropriate changes in
the behaviour of the members of the group can take place.
 Individuals who constitute the group think and feel as the group
feels and do as the group does. A suitable climate for group
dynamics is to be created in the classroom environment.
• Principle of correlation:
Mahatma Gandhi was of the firm view that correlation should be
the basis of all work. He advocated that correlation of the learning
task should be established with the craft, physical and social
environment.

MAXIMS OF TEACHING
Maxims of teaching are accepted truth or general rule of conduct or the law
which are essentially to be followed by the teacher while teaching.
• Proceed from known to unknown:
The teacher has to correlate the learning of students with their
experience and previous knowledge. The teacher has to start with
something which is known to the students and then proceed to
unknown.
• Proceed from concrete to abstract:
This is simply the application of common sense in teaching. It is
quite natural that students learn first the things which are seen and
handled by them. Students can comprehend new ideas only when
they are taught with sufficient illustrations. So every teaching
activity should be enriched with sufficient illustration.
• Proceed from simple to complex:
It is always better to teach the most simple lessons first and then
the complex one. For example while conducting classes on
paediatric nursing, the teacher has to teach simple topics like
differences between paediatric nursing and adult nursing before
proceeding to complex procedures and disease conditions.
• Proceed from easy to more difficult:
This is self-explanatory. When planning to teach the nursing
management of cirrhosis of liver, the teacher has to arrange the
different aspects of the disease condition in an increasing order of
difficulty like definition, classification, etiology, pathology
pathogenesis, etc.
• Proceed inductively:
In inductive teaching, teaching is made effective with the help of a
suitable. Usually the topic is introduced to the students by way of
stating a befitting example and through analysing the example they
 would be able to understand the general rules, definition, formulas,
etc.
For example a teacher can start the class on amputation by asking a
simple question like “what do you do to save your rose plant if one
of its branches is severely infected with pests or fungus and not
responding to pesticides”. Naturally, students suggests the cutting
down of the infected branch in order to save the entire rose plant.
When the students give their answer, teacher can correlate the rose
plant with the human body and can introduce the topic as follows
“just like the infected branch of the rose plant sometimes the limbs
of the human body can also get infected or damaged beyond repair.
In such a situation in order to save the life of the patient we have to
cut down the infected limb and this cutting down of the irreparably
damaged limb is called amputation. Let us see the details of
amputation” thus the teacher can progress further into the topic.
• Proceed from general to specific:
While proceeding from general to specific, general rules are
explained first and from that specificity is arisen. While teaching
growth and development, the teacher explains the universal
phenomenon of growth in general by citing plants and animals and
then proceed to specific features of growth and development
exhibited by human beings.
• Proceed from specific to general:
In certain situations it is imperative to proceed from specific to
general. First the teacher has to present the specific facts to the
students before the facts are taught to them in general. For instance
the role of protein in body building and repair has to be specified
before generalizing the consequences of under nutrition by
showing pictures of emaciate children as an example.
• Proceed from indefinite to definite:
The idea of students in the initial stages are indefinite and vague.
These ideas are to be made definite, clear, precise and systematic
by adopting specific teaching methods. For example a first year
nursing student has only some indefinite and vague ideas about
nursing and a talented teacher transforms these ideas to a definite
ones by providing details of nursing such as definition of nursing,
history of nursing, qualities of a good nurse, etc.
• Proceed from empirical to rational:
 Empirical knowledge is gained through observation and
experience. One peculiarity of empirical knowledge is that it lacks
scientific background. Rational knowledge is built upon a scientific
basis and is more dignified than the empirical knowledge. As a
result of their day-to-day life experiences students gain empirical
knowledge. Teacher has to proceed from this empirical knowledge
to rational knowledge by explaining the scientific aspects to the
students. First year nursing students possess the empirical
knowledge of placing a wet cloth on the forehead for reducing the
temperature. While teaching the nursing management of
hyperpyrexia, the teacher has to convert the above said empirical
knowledge to a rational one by explaining the scientific principle
of placing the wet cloth on the forehead for reducing the
temperature.
• Proceed from whole to part:
Whole is more meaningful to students than the separate parts of the
whole. The whole approach helps the students understand the
relationship between different parts and the resulting correlation
makes learning more easier and meaningful. While teaching
osteology, anatomy teacher has to give a brief description of the
whole skeletal system by mentioning its functions, total number of
bones, etc. before dealing with different individual bones or parts
of the skeletal system like clavicle, humerous, etc. This will help
the students to learn individual bones in relation to the whole
skeletal system in a more meaningful way.
• Proceed from part to whole:
In some situations, teacher has to proceed from part to whole for
providing information in a meaningful way. For example, while
teaching the qualities of an ideal chemical disinfectant, teacher
proceeds from part to whole by explaining the qualities one by one
and finally explains the whole qualities by the end of the class.
• Proceed from analysis to synthesis:
Analysis means breaking a problem into component parts and
synthesis is the reverse, i.e., putting together this separate parts into
a complete whole. This approach is widely used in teaching
nursing. Nursing management of a disease condition is taught to
the students analytically by splitting the content into component
parts like definition, etiology, pathology, clinical features, medical
or surgical management, nursing management, rehabilitation, etc.
 then they are trained to synthesis all these different components
into one whole as needed in order to provide meticulous nursing
gate to the patient in the clinical area.

• Proceed from overview to detail:

Students can easily comprehend, if the teacher proceeds from
overview to details. For example, While explaining the surgical
instruments needed for performing caesarean, teacher has to
introduce all the instruments by listing down their names before
explaining their uses and ways of handling each instrument in
detail.
• Proceed from observation to reasoning:
The teacher has to provide an opportunity for the students to see
and notice the factors involved in a particular topic or context
before explaining the reasons associated with it or eliciting reasons
from the students. For example, in the paediatric ward, teacher has
to provide a chance to the students to observe a 10-month-old child
who has been admitted with complaints of developmental delay
before explaining the reason by herself or asking questions to the
students regarding the hospitalization of the child.
• Proceed from psychological to logical:
This is the fundamental approach in teaching. Some of the maxim
like concrete to abstract and simple to complex are based on this
approach. Psychological aspect is student centered and concerned
with the receptiveness of the students, reaction of the students.
Recalling ability of the students, listening to student’s need, etc.
logical aspect is teacher centered and deals with the systematic
arrangement the content, decision regarding when to teach, etc.
during teaching the teacher has to consider the psychological
aspect before proceeding to logical aspect. For example, while
teaching 1st year students, even though the teacher possess an in
depth knowledge regarding the nursing care of a dying patient, in
order to teach this sensitive topic, the teacher has to consider the
psychological status or maturity of students before proceeding
logically by explaining the needed contents only in nonthreatening
manner.
TEACHING STRATEGIES TO CREATE EMPOWERING
LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
Siu HM, Spence Laschinger HK and Vingilis E (2005) mentioned certain
strategies to create empowering learning environments. They are:

• Strategies to increase student’s formal and informal power:

▪ Instil a shared governance approach to education with students.
▪ Encourage students to set goals and agendas for class sessions.
▪ Encourage students to decide educational content to explore in
class.
▪ Facilitate the educational use of small group projects or
assignments.
▪ Encourage students to facilitate the learning of their peers and
nursing faculty.
• Strategies to increase student’s access to opportunity:
▪ Encourage students to be self-directed and autonomous in their
learning.
▪ Encourage students to conduct self assessment of their learning
needs.
▪ Help students to develop their own individualized learning plans.
▪ Explore with students creative learning opportunities such as
attending nursing conferences, conducting an educational in
service, or developing an educational pamphlet.
• Strategies to increase student’s access to resources:
▪ Allow adequate class time for students to accomplish their learning
objectives and to share their knowledge development with their
peers.
▪ Be available to conduct self assessment of their learning needs.
▪ Direct students to use other resources, such as the library, nursing
experts, allied health care professionals, professional associations
and community agencies.
• Strategies to increase student’s access to information:
▪ Share with students your teaching and learning values.
▪ Discuss with students your expectations of them.
▪ Offer students your nursing expertise and knowledge.
▪ Provide students with verbal and written feedback about their
learning progress and performance.
 ▪ Encourage students to provide each other with verbal and written
feedback about their learning progress.
▪ Challenge students to critique the effectiveness of their learning
resources.
• Strategies to increase student’s access to support: ▪ Foster an open door
philosophy.
▪ Take time to listen to student’s learning need and ideas.
▪ Recognise student’s learning skills and accomplishments.
▪ Encourage students to assume roles and engage in learning
activities that showcase their strengths.
▪ Encourage students to pursue their individualized learning needs.
GENERAL FUNCTIONS OF TEACHING
• Explaining, informing:
The good teacher is expected to be well-informed in the areas in which
he teaches. He is expected to be able to communicate information needed
for background, enrichment and motivation and on many occasions to
explain relationship to children. He should permit the students to practise
the knowledge and skills they acquire in the class.
• Initiating, directing and administering:
One of the most important functions of teaching is concerned with
initiating, organizing, directing and making decisions. From morning till
evening, the teacher faces and handles many problems which require the
initiative, direction and administrative abilities. In modern administration,
students are associated in decision-making activities. The teacher as the
leader of the team should be able to initiate activities and get them
organized.
• Unifying the group:
In the beginning of the session, a teacher is confronted with a number of
children who are not unified. As they live together, they become a unified
group. An important task of the teacher is that of developing a group with
a group spirit, an identification with common purposes and some
common concerns.
• Giving security:
Many children are in need of warmth recognition, praise and friendly
atmosphere. There are children who feel a sense of loneliness, isolation,
rejection and economic insecurity. The teacher should identify the needs
of such children and when they need protection, he should protect them.
• Clarifying attitudes, beliefs and problems:
 It is a fact that many of our children are utterly confused by social
influences surrounding them. Looking at so many different ways of living
on TV, radio, movie and reading materials, etc. which introduce new and
unusual ideas. The child of today must surely be very much confused. He
hears nice things from the adults but sees and hears many things which
contradict they tell him. To help clarify these matters, the teacher creates
opportunities for children to state their attitudes, interests and problems,
to talk about their purposes and aspirations, to speak their beliefs and
convictions, to indicate what they think might and should be done, to
reveal and share some of the deeper feelings they harbour to tell about the
activities in which they are engaging and those in which they would like
to share. The teacher gives the children opportunities to compare,
observe, classify, interpret and puts them in a position to analyse, criticize
and summarize.
• Diagnose learning problems:
There are children in every class who do not make expected progress in
their studies, growth and development. The teacher must diagnose the
learning problems of individual students and should suggest the possible
course of action.
• Making curriculum material:
The curriculum in India is mostly framed at the state level for the entire
state without making provision for local variations. The teacher should
modify the curriculum in accordance with the needs of group and the
local community.
• Evaluating, recording and reporting:
The teacher has to evaluate the progress of the class as a whole and
individual students by means of tests and periodical examinations; He has
to report the progress to the principal and parents.
• Enriching community activity:
A school is said to be the miniature form of the society. The teacher
should remain in close contact with the community in which he serves.
Harmonious relationships between school and community are a
continuing and essential part of school life. Continuous efforts should be
made to enrich the community life function of teaching.
• Arranging and organising classrooms:
It is an important responsibility of a teacher to make the class room a
beautiful place for learning. Physical facilities should be appropriately
provided in the room. Arrangement should be flexible to change it to suit
the different occasions.
 • Participating in school activities:
The teacher should participate in other school activities in addition to his
routine teaching assignment. These may include excursions, picnics and
organizing some show etc. His participation in these activities is regarded
as one of the important functions of teaching.
• Participating in professional life:
every teacher is expected to enter wholly into professional life and to
make his contribution to the improvement of the profession, e.g. Nursing
profession.

QUALITIES OF A GOOD TEACHER

• Thorough knowledge.
• Psychosocial security.
• Excellent speech and delivery.
• Sense of humour.
• Well balanced personality.
• Professionally well groomed.
• Tolerant, fair, kind and patient.
• Leadership ability.
• Responsible.
• Motivator.
• Good communicator.
• Effective organiser.
ROLE OF TEACHER IN NURSING
• Instructional role:
▪ Planning and organizing courses:
o Selecting objectives. o Content and teaching, learning
activities, correlating them with other courses in the
curriculum.
▪ Creating and maintaining a desirable group climate which will
encourage and enhance learning and will lead to the development
of learner self-discipline.
▪ Adapting teaching and preparing and instructional materials to the
varying interests, needs and abilities of the students.
 ▪ Motivating and challenging students to pursue and to sustain
learning activities which will lead them towards acceptance of
responsibility for their own learning.
▪ Teaching involves many activities like:
o Supplying information needed or telling the source of
information.
o Explaining, clarifying and interpreting.
o Demonstrating or explaining a procedure, a process or
exhibiting materials.
o Serving as a resource person for group activities or group
projects or to the individual students.
o Supervising students’ performance in classroom, lab setting
and other learning experiences.
o Evaluating all the planned learning and teaching activities
and students’ outcome.
o A representative to professional nursing organizations and
other agencies for her faculty or for the institution.
o A public relations agent, she interprets the objectives and the
policies of her institution and helps in recruitment.
• Faculty role:
▪ In the case of college or university, the term faculty is used to refer
to the teaching staff. The role of the faculty will vary according to
the philosophy, objectives and setting of teaching institution.
o Chairwoman, secretary or member of one or more
committees.
o Counsellor of students in matters (academic and
nonacademic). o Researchers. o Resource persons to groups
outside the institution, other schools, health agencies.
• Individual role:
As an individual he plays personal role. o As a member of a family, a
church, a community and a citizen. o He has a dignified,
distinct personality.

CONCLUSION
It is an accepted fact that teachers are usually not born but made. Good teachers
nurture their knowledge and skills through constant and deliberate efforts. One
of the prerequisite to be good teacher is to understand the teaching learning
process in more depth. This facilitates better appreciation of the teaching
profession as well as the process of imparting education.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Sudha R. Nursing education principles and concepts. New Delhi: Jaypee
Brothers Medical Publishers (P) Ltd. 2013. p. 52-60.
2. Sodhi JK. Compressive textbook of nursing education. New Delhi: Jaypee
Brothers Medical Publishers (P) Ltd. 2017.p.43-47
3. Basavanthappa BT. Nursing education. New Delhi: Jaypee Brothers
Medical Publishers (P) Ltd. 2003. p. 236-276.
4. Neeraja KP. Textbook of nursing education. New Delhi: Jaypee Brothers
Medical Publishers (P) Ltd. 2003. p. 327-336.
5. Sankaranarayanan b. Learning and teaching nursing. 4th edition. New
Delhi: Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers (P) Ltd. 2012. p. 94-110.