Modern pedagogical methods in preschool education: "Learning by demonstration" and "Contextualized learning"

 

It is neces

Modern pedagogical methods in preschool education Learning by demonstration and Contextualized learning

sary today to recognize modern teaching methods, given their effective impact on improving the quality of teaching and learning. Traditional methods are no longer able to meet the needs of education, especially with the speed of development that we are witnessing, so we must avoid wasting time following methods that have proven to be limited.

Modern and advanced teaching methods enable today's child to access, understand, and apply information by simulating reality in the classroom. These methods also contribute to evoking the characteristics of the society to which the learner belongs, helping him/her to face different situations and prepare for new challenges. By enabling the learner to use a variety of methods, they are able to deal with reality and improve it for the better.

This is the goal of the learning and teaching process, which seeks to create a school that is open to its surroundings, by integrating the community into the heart of the school, and transforming it into a dynamic environment by moving from passive to active learning, and from reception to self-learning.

Learning by demonstration:

The development of scientific and logical thinking in children is as important as the development of reading, writing and expression skills, as reasoning when building children's learning is the basis of good intelligence, as it helps to think, analyze, compare and draw conclusions, so attention must be paid to the formation of logical skills for children from an early age. Scientists have emphasized that the development of logical thinking in children at an early age is one of the key areas of development, so it needs serious attention. Evidence-based learning develops children's skills to improve their scientific thinking, refine their ideas, and encourage them to work in groups. It makes them familiar with logical reasoning techniques, argumentative discussion and active listening. It enables children to improve their understanding of the areas of organizing thinking and exploring the self and the surroundings through argumentation. This discussion helps children deal with contradictory ideas, leading to deeper and more successful learning.

Argumentation learning objectives:

Support constructive discussion by establishing speaking and argumentation roles.

- Support children's argumentative learning strategy by leading dynamic group discussions.

- Promote active listening that helps empower children to build new learnings Demonstrating helps children capitalize on constructive responses to their ideas.

- Demonstrated learning aims to monitor activities and better understand children's difficulties in order to find the most appropriate solutions.

- Demonstrated learning aims to look for new ways to solve a problem instead of giving them a ready-made solution.

- Demonstrated learning aims to provide a learning opportunity that suits the children.

- Demonstrated learning encourages children to express themselves, spark their interests and engage more.

How an educator can encourage demonstration learning:

The educator can support constructive discussion by establishing speaking roles, promoting active listening, and encouraging constructive responses to the child's ideas by:

- Asking questions that pique children's curiosity.

- Encouraging children to think scientifically

- Paraphrasing children's questions in scientific language.

- Ask thought-provoking questions that don't have obvious answers.

- Encourage children to express themselves orally.

- Encourage children to develop their cognitive abilities through argumentation.

Educators can also set up group research activities on a particular topic and ask children to compare their arguments in a class discussion, such as looking for pictures of forest animals and then comparing the pictures in class

Conclusion:

Evidence-based learning provides an opportunity to gain additional knowledge through a process that combines proposing, discussing, and defending ideas and allows children to prove themselves and express their ideas.

Contextualized learning:

It is a comprehensive learning process that aims to motivate children to understand the meaning of the subject they are studying by linking activities to the context of everyday life (personal, social and cultural context). So that children have knowledge about skills that can be applied flexibly, and it is considered an educational concept that links the content of the subject to real-world situations, that is, it is a study method that takes care of the process of fully engaging young learners to realize the activities presented, and link them to the realities of their lives, so the educator who uses this approach must be able to make the link between what he teaches and everything related to the child's surroundings in order for his mind to realize the initial knowledge.

Contextualized learning objectives:

- Obtaining new information through understanding and application, not just memorization.

- Activate previous information.

- Utilize the information that the child has obtained from his/her contact with the environment and school.

- Building knowledge through collaboration between children and educators.

- Contextual learning aims to develop curiosity and learn new things.

- Focusing on building knowledge rather than producing it.

The role of preschool educators in applying contextualized learning:

Contextual learning is a strategy used by the educator to help children build knowledge and meaning for new information, in other words, the focus is on applying information and skills in the context of real life experiences. Through this learning, the educator makes the child required to search for his information to learn by himself through what the child experiences and is familiar with rather than what he memorizes. It is known that a child's ability to learn is influenced by the development of his/her experiences in his/her daily life.

- Encourage children to learn in groups.

- Make the child the center of the teaching-learning process.

- Make the child active in searching for knowledge and acquiring new skills.

- Provide a learning environment that emphasizes the difference between previous experiences and the new experiences they acquire.

The educator must consider knowledge as a set of tools to be used in concrete situations.

Contextualized learning can be used during the development of living rules using real situations that occurred in the classroom.

Conclusion:

Contextualized learning involves placing knowledge in a specific context to facilitate learning and understanding by providing concrete examples to show how knowledge can be applied in real situations, as this type of learning focuses on applying information and skills in the context of real-life experiences