APPROACHES PRINCIPLES/CHARACTERISTICS/VIEWS
Child or Learner- Centred
Approach
Subject-Centred Approach
Problem-Centred Approach
- Learner-centred approach do not employ a single method. This approach emphasizes a variety
of types of method that focuses on what the students are learning, it changes the role of the
teachers from a provider of information to facilitating student learning.
- Learner-Centred teaching focuses on the process of learning.
- Student learning methods include:
o Active learning in which students solve problems, answer questions, formulate questions
of their own, discuss, explain, debate, or brainstorm during class.
o Cooperative learning, in which students work in terms on problems and projects under
conditions that assure both positive independence and individual accountability.
o Inductive teaching and learning, in which students are fist presented with challenges
- In a subject-centred approach to curriculum, each content area contains its own set of skills
and concepts for mastering the concepts,
- The teacher presents content and skills to students in a logical sequence.
- The focus is on the delivery of the subject content by the teacher for students to acquire.
- Importance is laid on topics or concepts included in the subject around which all the teaching
and learning revolve.
- Textbook is the only source and main source of the teacher
- Word by word, phrase by phrase, the matters are presented before the teacher.
- The content or the subject matter of the textbook is itself a guide to the teachers to divide his or
her methodology.
- Insistence on the students to memorize the facts by repeated reading.
- Questions given at the end of the chapter are to be asked to the students for assessment of
learning.
- The students answer the questions both orally and in written form by occupying from the
textbook.
- They may produce the answers orally and in written form by reproducing the exact content.
- Problem-centred approach provides a vehicle to achieve goals and objectives identified in the
curriculum
o Evidence from research and international studies suggests that are students are proficient
in procedures but do not have the conceptual understanding to solve problems.
- Problem-based curricula provide a learning environment in which competencies is fostered not
primarily by teaching to impart knowledge but through encouraging an inquisitive style of
learning
o Preliminary discussion in small groups, contextual learning, integration of knowledge and
an emphasis on patient problems, have several cognitive effects on student learning,
these effects are increased retention of knowledge, enhancement of integration of
basics sciences concepts into chemical problems , the development of self-directed
learning skills and the enhancement of students’ intrinsic interest in the subject matter.