🧑‍🏫 Teaching Methods

Teaching Methods

Cone of Experience

• Developed by Edger Dale, modified by Sheal (1989).
• As we move downwards from the pinnacle of the cone, increased involvement, and increased learning occurs because abstraction decreases.
• The Dale’s Cone of Experience depicts the degree of direct & indirect learning experience associated with each method.
• Most people retain 10-15% OF WHAT THEY READ.
• Most people retain 30-35% OF WHAT THEY SEEN.
• Up to 90% of what is taught is kept in mind by majority of people, if they participate actively, and if all the senses (read, hear and seen) are involved.

Classification of Extension Teaching Methods

• Method: Process or procedure for attaining an objective.
• According to Leagans, extension teaching methods are the devices used to create situations in which communication can take place between an instructor & the learner.
• Wilson & Gallup classified extension teaching methods according to their use & form.

According to Use

(A) Individual contacts

• Face to face or person to person.
• Facilitates in gaining first-hand knowledge of farm & home.
• Very effective and quantum of feedback is very high but slow communication.
• Mostly used to get first-hand information.
• Highest intensity of influence.
• Useful for “stay at home” type individuals.
• Sensory situation is more in inter-personal communication.
• Limitation: Time consuming, relatively expensive & low coverage of audience.

1. Farm and home visits

• It is a direct face-to-face contact by the extension agent with the farmer or homemaker at their farm or home for extension work.
• The ratio of ‘takes’ (acceptance) to ‘exposures’ (efforts) is high in this method.
• It gives first-hand information & solves specific problems about farm and home condition.

2. Farmer’s calls/ Office calls

• Farmer’s call is a call made by a farmer or homemaker at the working place of the extension agent for obtaining information & assistance.
• In this method farmer meets the extension worker at his work place to show diseased plants or insect pests etc. so that the extension worker can identify them and give necessary advice to the farmers.
• Telephone call is most effective approach for personal contact.

3. Personal letters

• Letter written to a particular farmer in connection with an extension activity.
• Personal letter consists of 4S: Short, Simple, Strength & Sincere.

4. Adaptive or mini-kit trials or observation plot

• It is method of determining the suitability or otherwise of a new practice in farmer’s situation.
• This method builds the confidence of the researcher, extension worker and the farmer also.
• Maintenance of record is absolutely necessary in this case.

5. Farm Clinics/ Agricultural Clinics

• It is the facility developed & extended to individual farmers for diagnosis & treatment of farm problems through specialist advice.

6. Flag Method

• This method is used when farmer is not there in the field while the extension worker makes a visit.
• Most common in Latin America.

7. Result demonstrations

• It is a method of motivating the people for adoption of a new practice by showing its distinctly superior result.
• Result demonstration is conducted by farmers at farmer’s field under the supervision of a extension worker. The farmer should be an average farmer, not progressive farmer.
• Best suited to show relative worth/value of new practice.
• Based on principle of seeing is believing.
• First successful result demonstration conducted in Texas, USA on the farm of Walter C. Porter in 1903 by Seaman A. Knapp in Cotton.
• So, Seaman A. Knapp is considered as Father of Demonstration in Extension.

(B) Group contacts

• Group is an aggregate of small number of people in reciprocal communication & interaction around some common interest.
  • Small group: 15-25
  • Medium group: 25-50
  • Large group: 50-100
• Face to face contact.

1. Group discussion (Group Thinking Conference)

• It is a method of democratically arriving at certain decisions by a group of people, by taking into consideration the members’ point of view.
• It acts as a safety valve in reducing tension.

a. Lecture

• The lecture method is extensively used to present authoritative or technical information to develop back-ground and appreciation & to integrate ideas.
• Its weakness is, it is one-way communication. So to overcome this a discussion or question & answer period may be held following the speech. This is generally called a forum.

b. Symposium

• Symposium is a short series of lectures, usually by 2-5 speakers.
• Each one speaks for a definite amount of time, and presents a different phase or subdivision of a general topic.

c. Panel

• It is an informal conversation put on for the benefit of the audience, by a small group of speakers, usually from 2 to 8 in number.
• They are selected on the basis of the information & experience they have.

d. Debate

• The common pattern is to have two teams, one representing the affirmative, and the other the negative side of the question.
• It is two-way communication b/w debater but one-way communication for the audience.

e. Forum

• It is a discussion period that may follow any of the above methods of presentation.
• It consists of question period in which members of the audience may ask questions make brief statements.

f. Buzz group (Phillips 60/Hurdle system)

• In large groups when there is limited time for discussion, the audience may be divided into smaller units for short period.

g. Workshop

• It is long meeting from one day to several weeks, involving all the delegates in which the problems being discussed are considered by delegates in small private groups.

h. Brain storming

• Small group interaction designed to encourage the free introduction of ideas on an unrestricted basis without any limitations to feasibility.

i. Seminar

• Members of the audience discuss the subject to which ready answers are not available. This method has advantage of pooling together the opinions of a large number of persons.

j. Syndicate Studies

• It is essentially follow the seminar method and the focus is on any particular subject or problem.

k. Conference

• Pooling of experiences & opinions among a group of people who have special qualifications in an area.

2. Method demonstrations

• Purpose is to teach a skill (motor skill) to a group. Means, how to carry out entirely new practice or an old practice in a batter way.
• Based on principle of Learning by Doing.
• If an extension worker practically explain improved practice and also shows its superiority over traditional methods; includes both method & result demonstration.
• It is conducted by extension worker or trained leader or specialist.
• It is most influence type of demonstration.

3. Meeting on Result Demonstration

Comparison in Method & Result Demonstration

4. Conducted Farm Tours

• A group of interested persons accompanied and guided by one or more extension agents move out of their neighbourhood to study and learn significant improvements in farm & home elsewhere.

5. Farmer Field Schools (FFS)

• FFS engages a group of typically 25-30 farmers in season-long learning activities, which take place in the field or centre around concrete field problem.
• The FFS participate cultivate a chosen crop & conduct various experiments together on a learning plot. During weekly sessions of an average 3-4 hours, participatory learning on a learning plot.
• FFS approach is mainly adopted for mobilizing financial resources among farmers.
• FFS was designed initially as a way to introduce IPM.

6. Field Days or Farmer’s Day

• A method of motivating the people to adopt a new practice by showing what has actually been achieved by applying the practice under field conditions.

7. Peripatetic team meetings

• A team of 3 to 5 subject-matter specialists, led by an extension worker, visits village on a pre-drawn schedule, presents ideas on some timely topic to the group of farmers present, seek & questions-answers & later provides on-the-spot advice to farmers individually, by examining their problems.
• General meeting are broadly, the meeting of heterogeneous participation.

8. Media Forums

• Media Forum: Small organized groups of individuals who meet regularly to receive a mass media programme and discuss on its contents.
• Rural radio forums, tele-clubs, discussion groups etc. are some examples of such forums.
• Originated in Canada.

9. Agricultural Games

Eg. Snakes & ladders.

(C) Mass contacts

• Size of mass: few hundred in mass meeting, few thousand in campaign & exhibition & millions in newspaper, radio, television.
• Cheapest method. So should be used under limited resource of manpower, time and money.
• It is more useful for making people aware of the new agricultural technology quickly.
• Mass communication channel most suited to inform the audience about the existence of an innovation.
• Major drawback: Lack of free feedback.
• Indirect and inferential feedback is available in mass media.
• The main problem is no local dialect.
• The term class media refers to Group Media.
• Mass communication is intended to be consumed immediately hence it is called transient.

1. Mass Meeting

• Method used in communicating interesting & useful information to a large audience at a time.

2. Campaign

• Campaign is an intensive teaching activity undertaken at an opportune time for a brief period, focussing attention in a concentrated manner on a particular problem so as to stimulate the widest possible interest in the community.
• The normal group boundaries get obliterated (wipe out).
• Most effective method of TOT in a community.
• It is used to create interest in wide range of people and to stimulate mass scale adoption.
• Campaign organize for:
  • Single day: Water for life
  • Few weeks: Rat control or Family Planning
  • Few months: Van Mahotsava (Forest Festival)
  • Few years: Grow More Food Campaign

3. Exhibits

• It is a systematic display of models, specimens, charts, photographs, pictures, posters information etc. in a sequence around a theme to create awareness & interest in the community.
• Display exhibts about 50 to 60 cm above the floor of the stall, up to a height of 2 m (2ft. – 7 ft).
• The material used in exhibit is 3 dimensional.
• The material used in display is 2 dimensional.

4. Farmer’s Fair/Kisan Mila

5. Radio

• It is an electronic audio-medium for broadcasting programmes to the audience.
• Most frequently used mass media by farmers.
• It does not disturb normal work much.
• Broadcasting through radio was started in India on July 23, 1927.
• Radio broadcasting in India started from Mumbai.
• All India Radio (AIR) was started in 1936.
• The broadcasting in India came to know as Akashawani from the year 1957.
• Radio broadcast include: Straight talks, Interviews & songs.
• The best style of presentation for radio talks with farmers is group discussion.
• The amount of message distortion in verbal communication is 30%.
• The effective rate of delivery of talks in radio is 120-140 words/minute.
• Radio is characterised by one-way without instant audience response.
• The Farm & Home Unit of Akashavai were started to support the Intensive Agricultural District Programme (IADP) & the coming of the HYV’s seed in the year 1966.
• Media Forum is a combination of mass media & inter-personal communication.
• Radio Rural Form: Started in 1956, by UNESCO India in Pune as an experiment.
• Farm school on the Air: It is a method of providing systematic education on farming to the farmers through the process of distance learning.
• Namma Dhwani is a community radio.

5. Television

• Provide pictures with synchronised sound.
• Educational TV = Broadcast media.
• A/Q to the Research & Reference Division of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the television era in India began modestly on 15th September 1959 by a UNESCO grant to study the use of TV as a medium of education, rural upliftment & community development. The service was started by the All India Radio, Delhi & programmes were telecast twice a week for duration of 1 hour each day.
• Broadcasting of First Rural Programme in TV started on Doordarshan named Krshi Darshan in 26 January 1967 (Pilot project of agricultural communication initiated by Dr.Vikram Sarabhai). It was telecasted from Mumbai. Timing: 6:30 pm to 7:00 pm. It was longest running television series in the world.
• DD-Gyandarshan, an exclusive education channel was started in India on 26th January, 2000.
• The government recognized the imperative role of TV in bringing about the desired social change & established a separate organisation named Doordarshan in April 1, 1976. The chief aim of ‘Dooradarshan’ in India is to entertain, educate and inform.
• First state to start DD was Rajasthan.
• On August 15, 1982 the National networking became a reality by the establishment of satellite links through Indian National Satellite (INSAT-1A). It was landmark in the history of television in India. This is also marked the introduction of colour TV in India.
• Then in 1990, INSAT-2 was launched.
• Millions of people around the world can see all kind of events because of the power of satellite.
• SITE (Satellite Instructional Television Experiment) programme was the first attempt in the world at using the sophisticated technology of satellite transmission for social education (in 1975-76).
• CAI: Computer - Assisted Instruction.
• Rural TV (RTV) project was launched by FAO (Sudan, 1974)
• DD Kisan was started in 26th May, 2015.

6. Newspaper

• It is a bunch of loose printed papers properly folded which contains news, views advertisements etc. & is offered for sale at regular interval, particularly daily or weekly.
• First newspaper started in India was Bengal Gazette. It was weekly published from Serampore, Calcutta. It was started by James Augustus Hicky.
• The weekly agricultural column of “The Hindu” appears on Thursday.
• The coverage of agricultural news in newspaper is 3 to 5%.

7. Leaflets

8. Bulletins

9. Posters

10. Circular letter

11. Screen Media

👉🏻 Slides, Film strips, Movies, Video Recordings

12. Puppet show

13. Agricultural Film Shows

• It is an effective medium in rural areas because rural people show keen interest in films.
• Disadvantage is film can’t be projected with low voltage power.
• So not popular in rural areas.

According to Form

(A) Written

1. Bulletins

• Printed, bound booklet with a number of pages, containing comprehensive information relating to a particular topic.
• A bulletin should contain 24-48 pages.

2. Leaflets

• Leaflet is a single printed sheet of paper folded to make a 4 page piece of printed matter.
• It is the extension system used to provide precise and reliable scientific information in simple language about a simple practice.
• It gives a specific information on a specific topic in concise manner.
• There are four hotspots in a page.

3. Folder

• It is a single printed sheet of paper of big size, folded once or twice and gives essential information relating to a particular topic.

4. News letter

• It is a miniature newspaper in good quality paper, containing information relating to the activities & achievements of the organisation.

5. Personal letter

6. Circular letters

• Letter written to farmers in connection with an extension activity.
• Mass contact method.

7. Farm Publications/Journals

• A class of publications prepared by the extension agency in printed form, containing information relating to the improvement of farm & home.

(B) Spoken

👉🏻 Oral communication is best type for largely illiterate audience.

1. General and special meetings of all kinds
2. Farm and home visits
3. Framer’s calls
4. Radio & Recordings
5. Flag method
6. Agricultural Clinics

(C) Visual or Objective

1. Result Demonstrations (Personal demonstration)
2. Exhibits
3. Posters
4. Motion pictures, charts, slides, film-strips
5. Flash card
6. Flannel graphs
7. Bulletin boards

(D) Spoken and Visual

1. Method demonstration
2. Meetings at result demonstrations
3. Movies
4. Television
5. Puppets & Drama
6. Campaign