1

UNIT- 3

ACTIVITY–BASED AND GROUP CONTROLLED INSTRUCTION

Activity Based Instruction

Activity Based Instruction approach is unique effective effort to attract out of

school children to school. Activity based instruction is an approach to education
focusing on the idea that students should be engaged through actions. In activity
based instruction, an educator serves function of facilitator, assisting students
through the instruction process and providing them with guidance. Various
actions and tasks can be used in this type of program, allowing students to be
come directly involved in the instruction process, rather than remaining passive.
The teacher who are involved in implementing this method have developed
activities for each learning unit which facilitate readiness for learning,
instruction reinforce and evaluation. Activity-Based Learning is a type of
teaching where children learn at their own pace through various Supervised
activities. It is a more interactive and engaging method of teaching children. It
allows for monitoring factors such as coordination, speech, motor skills and
social skills amongst other important factors.
It is a fun approach to learning since it boosts the development of the brain
in children by providing constant stimulus by prompting them to respond.
Activity-based learning is achieved mainly in three ways which are,
experimentation, expression and exploration.

Advantages of Activity Based Instruction

1. Children learn on their own pace.
2. There is clarity in the subject content.
3. Classroom environment is highly enthusiastic.
4. Students are truly engaged in the class.
5. Student creativity will develop.
6. Student participation is ensured in every situation.
7. Freedom to student to choose their activity.
8. Multi grade and Multi level is learning effectively addressed.
9. The communicative skill will be developed.
10. The gap between student and teacher will be reduced.

Classifications of Activity Based Instruction Role Play Method

Role play is the one of the teaching methods provide experience through
effective confrontation and developing new ways of looking at things. Role play
is a discussion technique that makes it possible to get maximum participation of
group through acting out.
Role play is an educational technique in which people spontaneously act-out
problems of human relations and analyse the enactment with the help of other
role players and observers.

Value of Role playing

 2

1. The actor really tries to feel the part of the character.

2. Enjoyed the people who do it.
3. It does not require any instrument.
4. Involves group through participation.
5. Helps to understand the point of view.
6. Develops leadership skill.
7. The students live through the character.
8. Helps to develop new skill for dealing with problem in human relations.
9. The students fully involved, so the classroom will be very active.
10. Instead of fear to face problem arouses interest to solve the problem.

Steps of Role play

1. Selection of Role–Decides exactly what you want the group to learn
from the role play.
2. Establishing situation for Role play–Design the situation to fit the
objectives they want to achieve.
3. Establishing roles and selecting participants-Sketch out clearly the type
of people involved.
4. Presenting the Act – Talk about the objective of the role playing during
the presentation and explain the skill and in sight the activity hopes to
acquire.
5. Role-playing Action –play through and is supposed to be the most
difficulty stop.
6. Discussion and Analysis of Action – Discussing with role play and
analysis the result of the role play. Observe whether the purpose is
achieved out or not.
Advantages of Role play
1. Allow students to develop an understanding of other perspectives.
2. Encourage students to work with others in analyzing situations and
developing solutions.
3. Provide opportunity to apply concepts they have learned.
4. Gives students to effectively contrast problem solving methods by role
playing a situation several times.
5. Offers a channel through which feelings can be expressed and feedback
processed.
6. Helps to build self esteem and confidence.
7. Helps to build real communications kills.
8. Helps to develop ability to observe and analyse situation.
9. It develops independent thinking ability among the students.
10. It develops decision making skill on the spot.

Demerits of Role play

• It requires expert’s guidance and leadership.
• Participants may be threatened.
• Used as an educational technique, not a therapeutic one.
• It mainly depends on only student’s imagination.
 3

• Consumes more time.

Simulation Teaching
It has been found that simulation is new trend in effective technique of
teaching. Student teachers can practice simulation teaching with their peers in
the classroom following up discussion and evaluation of concept. The
simulation technique has been used in various areas of training Program. The
astronauts are not able to give direct training in actual space situation but
instead they are given training in an artificial Zero gravity area in the earth.
Similarly in driving schools also the learner easily trained in the simulated video
situation initially. When they are fully trained then only, they were allowed to
take care in the real situation. These are the best examples for simulation
teaching.
The definition of simulation is an artificial situation of the student-teacher in
the classroom with the peers. It is experiencing the student-teacher through
artificial situations on how to manage with different classroom situation. When
the student teacher go through the training, he become adjustive to teaching
problems and most of the time may not be wasted in teaching situations. For
that reason only teaching also simulation teaching is very important. Simulation
teaching avoids any risk or going off target in the process coming to terms with
the adjustment of complex skill learning without the fear, stress of the real
situation. The best way is to furnish examples of teaching problems and
situations in structured
way so that the student teacher is able to generalize the common features from
the specific examples.

Steps in simulation teaching

There are no recommended steps for steps framing for simulated teaching.
But the following steps are recommended for guidelines.
1. Selecting the role players. A small group of four or five student’s
teachers is selected. The role assigned is rotated within the group so as
to offer every one equal chance.
2. Plan the topic to be skilled in a particular skill through simulated
technique. Allot topic for each actor according to their interest and
talent.
3. A details plan for actor interaction should be prepared.
4. The teacher should prepare procedure or method for evaluation.
5. Conduct the first session and the skill which we select. Provide feedback
on his performance if required conduct second session to improve the
skill.
6. If the student teacher performed well the teacher plan to move on to the
next skill.
Characteristic of Good simulation
The following points should be very important for the Good simulated
teaching.
1. The objectives must be defined clearly.
 4

2. Participant must be prepared to do certain roles.

3. The participants must be motivated by other student teachers.

4. Participant performance should be in the well planned and structured
guidelines.
5. We choose the interested participant only. If anybody not interested, we
must motivate them by explaining the importance of Simulation.
Merits of Simulation Teaching
1. Simulation helps to in the integration of theory and practice.
2. The simulation method show boosted interested and excitement in
learning process.
3. It breaks the conventional routine classroom learning and introduces the
new in the whole learning activity.
4. Student teacher variations removed in the process. Both students and
teacher involved in the whole process.
5. Simulation is suitable for all the categories of students as gifted,
moderated and slow bloomer students.
6. It develops communication skill among the students.
7. Teaching learning is made more realistic situation. So they actively
participated in the process.
8. No risk is involved. The decisions are made and carried out without
physical or psychological harm to the stake holders.
9. Simulation motivates both teacher and students. It changes the teacher’s
behavior and introduces novelty in the whole process.
10. Simulation sharpens the decision-making skill.

Limitation of Simulation method

1. The use of simulation cannot be applied in all subjects.
2. Simulation cannot be used for small children.
3. It takes more time preparation and practicing.
4. Simulation method reduces the seriousness of learning because learning
is high cognitive activity.
5. Some of the simulation situation is too difficult to prepare.
Incident Method
Incident method is one of the approaches of teacher professional
development. An incident is any unplanned event which takes place during the
class. It is something we interpreted as a problem in a particular context, rather
than a routine occurrence. This incident is said to be critical because it is
valuable and has some meaning. Incidents happen but critical incidents are
created because of their importance. Teachers can critically analyze any of their
lessons and can make particular event critical by reflecting on it. The teacher
asks not only what happened but also why it happened. They then use the
incidents for future reference.
If something goes wrong in the classroom or outside classroom, teachers
need to ask what happened and what is reason it to happen. Students say that the
incidents can be framed as questions. For example, if students score low marks
in the class, the teachers can begin with the question ‘Why do you score low
marks?’ If incidents are analyzed in this way, they can become the turning
 5

points in the teachers ’career and can lead to changes. Critical incidents can be
both positive and negative classroom events. Analysis of critical incidents helps
teachers know more about how they teach. It also helps them to question their
own teaching practice which enables them to develop professionally. The main
purpose of analyzing a critical incident is to identify good practices of teaching
a teacher is adopting. It also aims to identify those practices which are not
working well.
Merits of Incident Method
1. It helps the teachers identify and solve problems.
2. It can create a considerable level of self-awareness: When teachers
analyze critical incidents they experience in their classes, they become
more familiar of what they are doing. As a result, they can notice a gap
between what they are doing and what they are supposed to do.
3. It can develop an evaluation of routines and procedures: There may be
some techniques or strategies of teaching preferred by a teacher which
have become the routines. It means they are the procedures taken for
permitted by the institution. But when a teacher analyzes critical
incidents, he can evaluate such routinized techniques on the basis of how
his students are responding to those techniques whether it is correct or
any modification required.
4. It can encourage teachers to give rise to critical questions about
teaching: Once teachers start analyzing critical incidents occurring in
their classes, they develop the habit of looking at everything. They
become careful about whether Something they are going to adopt will really
work or not.
5. It can change the beliefs to the level of awareness: Teachers hold several
different types of trust about different methods of teaching. And the trust
they hold about learners, learning, teaching, etc. have an influence on the
way they teach. When teachers analyze critical incidents, they become
aware of their trust and can also change them, if necessary.
6. It can create opportunities for action research: Action research is
classroom research that a teacher conducts to solve some practical and
real problems in his classes. After analyzing the critical incidents,
teachers can focus their attention on some particular problems and can
carry out action research to solve those problems.
7. It can provide are source for teachers: When teachers keep a record of
critical incidents of their classes, this collection can be used as a
resource by both new teachers and experienced teachers and this
collection can be used as a reference for future.
Incident Method Steps
1. Describe the incident: This is the description Stage. In this phase, a
specific incident elaborately described and documented.
2. Explain its meaning: In this stage, the issue is explained by the teacher
in terms of its meaning or value. It is also interpreted in terms of the role
it plays. It shows that at first, an incident is described

Those incidents which have significance in a wider context are viewed

 6

to be the critical incidents.

3. Self-observation: Teachers follow different ways to observe and record
their own teaching process such as written narrative, audio videotaping,
keeping a teaching journal, etc. The first step in analyzing critical
incident is to find all the relevant events that occur in the classroom
through any of the above ways and write them in the note form.
4. Describing the incident: when teachers write a detailed description of
what actually happened in their classes. This detailed description should
be related to the incident which is interpreted to be critical.
5. Self-awareness: The teacher explains the way particular incident
happened. The teacher tries to look at the incident from every possible
ways to explain why it happened.
6. Self-evaluation: This step is said to be the most difficult and important.
In this final step, the teacher evaluates what changes were caused due to
the incident in his practices in teaching.

Case Study Method

Case study is a form of qualitative descriptive research that is used to look at
individuals, a small group of participants. This qualitative method of study
emphasizes detailed contextual analysis of a limited number of events and their
relationships.
Case study method may be defined as “It is systematic inquiry into an event
or a set of related events which aims to describe and explain the phenomenon of
interest. It refers to the collection and presentation of detailed information about
a particular participant. It gives depth study of a particular situation”.
Importance of Case study
1. Case studies are a great way to improve the learning experience, because
they get learner involved, and encourage immediate use of newly
acquired skill.
2. Case helps the teacher make the difference between knowing what to do
and knowing how, when and why to do it.
3. Through the case study result we can identity problem faced by the
students and we can help to the student to come out from the problem.
Merits of Case study
1. We can utilize case study as a teaching method.
2. Practical application and testing of scholarly knowledge.
3. Provides an approximation of various professional environments.,
Classroom, school ground.
4. Case study results will help to improve students’ performance.
5. We used as teaching tool.
Steps followed in case study
1. Identification of the person and address.
2. Collect the family and health details
3. Case history is prepared taking into consideration the chronological
event in the individual development
4. This is analyzed in the case conference and after assessing the current
 7

status of the individual.

Gaming Method
Educational games are a new addition to the array of instructional
techniques to the teachers. Educational games have been defined as “activity
among two or more individuals decision makers seeking to achieve their goal in
some limit content”. Educational games are usually simulated and at least
representing real life situations for the purpose to understanding problems arises
in the classroom situation. Children may be taught to simulate most of the social
manners through toys and their manipulation. The gaming practice may or may
not help the students to achieve their objective, but it will deliver a qualitative
experience for the students.
These games usually do not require one against one competition. As in real
life, winning is often relative and social some groups may win one or more than
others. And it is necessary in some social studies games as in real life for all the
players to cooperate to attain some common goal.
1. Games can be used the raise question and to generate hypotheses.
2. They are applicable to the understanding and testing hypothesis category.
3. It is mainly used in the application category.
4. Educational game may require students to make value judgments and to act
in terms of their values.

Role of the Teacher

Educational games require the teacher to play a relatively non–directive and

non-managing role. In the gaming situation he behaved as consultant or referee.
While students play the educational game, the teacher should take round among
the students so as to be readily available as a consultant to those who need help
in interpreting the rules. The teacher should be main figure during the post-
game discussion to help students to determine the extent to which they
understand the main ideas that structure the game. The teacher should ask some
question to the students to understand the key feature of the game.
Educational games are mostly used in social studies class room to develop
skills like decision making, problem solving and understanding the social
process. For example, conducting model parliament, mock polling in the school,
releasing budget in the parliament, playing the corona awareness games are
some of the educational games.
Prioritization Exercises
Prioritization has always been a big challenge in our daily life, because we
have a lot of work to do at single time. We may feel that every work is
important and every work is urgent. This is because of an unorganized set of
knowledge and information we have life. Prioritization is all about doing the
right things in right order and at the right time. It is the process of determining
what is the most important.
Importance of Prioritization
• Prioritization helps to minimize the wastage of time.
 8

• It allows us concentrate on core activities for the day.

• It helps persons to groom a better life.
• It helps us to plan advance our future life.
• It allows us to do works in relax manner.
• It helps to increase the productivity.
• It makes us the better leader of our own life.

Group Controlled Instruction

In our traditional classroom we emphasis cognitive development only. The
reason we mainly dependents upon only teacher instruction methods like lecture
method, demonstration method like that. So other than the cognitive
development is completely ignored to the students. To develop all the skills like
presentation skill, Narration skill, dramatization skill we introduce Group
controlled instruction in our curriculum
Group Controlled Instruction Concept and Definition
When instruction is organized in such a manner that students carry out the
instructional activities together in a group it is called Group Controlled
Instruction. Group Controlled Instruction is based on the fact that every member
of the. Group actively participates in the instructional activity. Instructions
activities here are arranged in a group where all the members interact with each
other. To attain objectives like critical ability to examine other views, develop
creativity and ability to cooperate
The Group controlled instruction may be defined as. “Instruction is
organized in such a way that the students carry out instructional activities
together in a group. Learning takes place due to interaction among the group
members. Learning in this method of instruction controlled by the group which
is working as a team”.
Importance of Group Controlled Instruction
Through the traditional methods the students learn and develops all the
required skill, but they never get trained how to lead adjustable life in our
society. In recent days leading the life without stress is not so easy. It is very
essential in this era to teach the students community to lead the life without
stress. In the Group Controlled Instruction the individuals develop a feeling of
challenging with one another, defeating one another, at the same time they
develop the team spirit among them. Group controlled instruction provides
complete understanding of knowledge through participation in group work like
discussion, debate and group project. It develops the skills like tolerance,
Critical thinking, and team spirit, helping tendency, stress management, trust
and Confidence. This skill will be very useful to the students to lead the life
without any stress and easy life.
Types of Group Controlled Instruction
 9

Group Interactive Sessions

Students make presentation on allotted topic and discuss it in a group.
Through this discussion they develop the ability to clarify their doubts,
understanding others’ views on his topic and tolerate others criticization.
Through this student develop their expression power, accepting others’ views,
Critical thinking, argue with others to prove their view and team spirit. They
also develop the skills like stress management, Time management, listening
skill, Trust worthiness, Excellent communication, Self-confidence and Problem-
solving skill.
Elements of Group Interactive session
To organize Group Interactive session, we can select students from the
whole class or class may be divided into two groups and we select the students
from a particular group for one session and selecting students from other group
for another session. Mainly there are four categories are required for the session,
they are Chairperson, Speaker, Participants and Recorder. One of the students
may act as Chairperson, the chairperson conducts the proceedings of the
session. The speaker has to explain his presentation in front of team with his
evidence and data. Until the presentation over, nobody should not interfere in
the presentation. After the presentation over then the participants have to
allowed to discuss in program. The proceedings of the sessions may be
systematically observed and recorded by the recorder.

Pre- interactive session Activities

The secondary school students are not trained for Group controlled
instruction. So, it is necessary to train the students for the above. We must
change the seating arrange for this session. Due to this reason organizing the
interactive session is challenging task for a school teacher. The steps for pre-
interactive session are listed below.
Assign Separate period to interactive session:
Separate period should be allotted for the interactive session. This activity
must be conducted in the regular school. This will also have to make it
compulsory for all the students.
Topic Allotment:
You should allot the topic to the participants so that they can prepare for
 10

presentation. We should give small portions to the students to present in about

30 minutes. If the topic so lengthy it can splitted and given to the different
students for the presentation.
Fixing dates for Presentation:
The dates of presentation should be fixed previously and informed to the
students also. Students may be asked to prepare the write-ups in well advance.
Motivating the students for preparation of write-ups:
The teacher should encourage student to start work immediately, such as
browsing from internet etc., the teacher must provide continuous motivation to
the students for preparing write-ups.
Seating Arrangement:
The regular classroom arrangement is not suitable for interactive session.
Teacher should make arrange the classroom for their needs well advance.
Giving introduction to the students:
Initially the students do not know anything about the interactive sessions.
So, the teacher should give instruction about the purpose of the session,
expectation and how can we evaluate the session. Then only students can
understand their role and responsibilities of the evaluation.
Circulating the write-ups:
The student must prepare write-ups well in advance. The prepared write-ups
should be circulated among the all the students. The teacher should assign the
student for the presentation.
Demonstration by the teacher:
Initially the teacher should demonstrate the interactive session with the help
of other teachers. By observing this demonstration, the students can clearly
understand about the demonstration process. After that the student can do the
interactive session individually.
Conducting Interactive Sessions
Initially organizing the interactive session in school is very challenging task.
It would be advisable that teacher should function as the chairperson to conduct
interactive session at the starting stage. The students may show a lot of
hesitation to participating in discussion. The procedure for conducting the
interactive session is given below.
Initiator
The teacher can call the student to make presentation and introduce the
topic. After briefing the introduction teacher should request the speaker to make
the presentation. After the presentation over the teacher should help the
participant to recall the main points of the discussion.
Motivator
In the School level generally the students not aware of interactive session.
Some student feel hesitates and hence withdraw themselves from active
participation. Some other students do not interact in the discussion because of
the fear that they may commit mistakes. Due to these reasons maximum
students will become passive listener. To change this attitude the teacher should
make some effort to motivate the students.
 11

Facilitator
The teacher should be act as facilitator for the successful discussion. You
should summarize the ideas expressed by the participants. Teacher should rather
be an attentive listener than a compulsive speaker.
Elaborator
When speaker not able to express ideas, elaborate his views. The teacher
should facilitate them by asking questions or raising points.
Moderator
Overall environment of session with a view to maintain warmth of
interpersonal feelings. Keep the total time allotted in mind and organize so each
student expresses his ideas. When tension comes, maintain neutrality and
mediate and sum up without hurting feelings.
Controller
For the successful interactive session controller is very important. When
discussion goes beyond the context, bring back to the theme is main role of the
controller.
Closing the session
Teacher should close the session with in the time allotted. To highlight the
discussion, they should take notes during the session. Teacher should commend
desirable behaviours and caution against the undesirable ones.
Post- interactive session Activities
The main objective of post-interactive session activities is to accumulate
these activities with the complete full session. Being the organizer of an
interactive session should have a clear idea about what proceeds’ and succeeds
an interaction session. The post-interactive session activities are observing the
students’ reaction, suggestion, discussing points and opinion.
Group Activities Involving Teamwork
The teacher will study Group activities which involve team mode and the
process of their organization. The group activities can be organized periodically
for all the subjects. Considering the nature and the process of organizing these
activities, there are three method of learning involving team work Cooperative
learning, Group Project and Group Investigations.
Cooperative Learning Methods
The cooperative learning methods is very useful to develop the skill of
cooperation, belongingness and team spirit and to reduce individual
competition. It is Group or peer learning method. The students work together to
achieve the common goal, it will develop the team spirit among the students.
The intrinsic motivation is developed among the students than the individual
learning. The cooperative learning is very useful for learning various skills and
knowledge.
Organising cooperative learning Formation of Groups
Teacher should divide the class into small groups. While forming groups,
teacher should keep in mind the heterogeneity among students in respect of sex,
intelligence, religion and communities.
 12

Preparation of cooperative learning sheets

The learning sheets consist of objectives, activities to be done and
evaluation items. The teacher should prepare the learning sheets well in advance
and taught to the students.
Orientation to the students
Initially teacher should inform to the students about how cooperative
learning will be organized. Each and every point should be discussed in the
group. If a student not able to understand any concept, the other student could
be explained well by another student. They should be informed that they will
not be evaluated individually; rather the entire group performance will be
assessed.
Conducting the cooperative learning session
The teacher should fix the time for cooperative learning and distribute the
learning sheets to the groups. The learning sheets should provide flexibility to
the students. The students may modify the learning sheets according to their
requirement. Every member in group may be evaluated. In each the group
members may help each other to learn well. The teacher should provide
feedback to each group about whether they are in the right direction or not.
Finally, each group should report about their group work.
Merits of cooperative learning
1. It will create mutual dependence, feeling of being accepted, Liked and
supported by fellow students.
2. Students can express teachers feeling into their own language and enrich
their understanding.
3. The cooperation mentality will develop among the students.
4. Team spirit will develop.
5. The students can analyse themselves.
Group Investigation
We can’t find certain topics and answers for some doubts raised by the
students in the school book. Questions whose answers are not readily available
requite investigation method. Such questions to carry out to group investigation
method. The process in which a group of students select questions and tries to
find out their solutions collectively in a scientific manner is called group
investigation.
Organizing Group Investigation Selection of Problem
You may give some example problems and guide the groups to select a
suitable problem for investigation.
Cooperative planning
The members of the group will select the work like collection of evidence,
source of evidence and analysing the data. They should also fix the time to bed
the investigation work. They should also decide the way the report on the
investigation will be prepared. Time must be estimated for each activity.
Implementation
Work should be started according to the plan. Every member should try his
best to complete the allotted activity within the time. Evidence from the entire
source should be collected and documented.
 13

Analysis and Synthesis

This step is very important and essential one. Through this only we can
come to conclusion. The collected evidence should be analysed and synthesized
logically in order to arrive at correct results.
Preparation of report and presentation
A brief report of the work done should be prepared by each group. The
report should contain about how the work was done and the findings arrived. It
should be very brief; the number of pages is five or six. The report should be
presented by each group coordinator.
Evaluation
The teacher should evaluate the work of each team on the basis of their
observation. The teacher should provide feedback to group on the basis of their
reports.
Group Projects
In some cases, the group investigation may be a group project work. In the
school level there are many activities which cannot be completed by an
individual and which require a group of students work together to complete the
task. Some of the group projects are listed below
1. Working model for electric motor.
2. Model of human heart.
3. Importance of Plantation
A group project means a planned well-structured set of activities which are
undertaken by a group of students with fixed objectives and which results in a
practical accomplishment. The steps are definite but not rigid to be followed in
completing a group project work.
Steps in a Group Project Formation of Groups
Teacher should divide the class into small groups. While forming groups,
teacher should keep in mind the heterogeneity among students in respect of sex,
intelligence, religion and communities. Each group must contain 5-7 students.
Proposing
The objectives of the project are stated. The students may need teacher’s
guidance in selecting the project and framing the objectives.
Planning
Selected activities are identified and allotted to different members of the
group. Project work is planned in such a way that involvement of all the
members of the group is should be verified.
Implementation
The project work should be carried out by the members of group according
to schedule. Students should be encouraged to discuss their allotted activities
frequently and help each other in completing the project work. The group as a
whole should come out with a finished product.
Evaluation
The group project should be evaluated on the basis of the attainment of these
two objectives. The teacher should observe the result of the project how they
closely with objective of the project. It is also advisable to arrange an exhibition
of the products and invite some other teachers who could judge and evaluate the
 14

projects.

*******************************