There are many different classifications of teaching methods in pedagogy. However, now we are only interested in active teaching methods, which are based on the student’s active role in the learning process. It is the active methods that bring the best results.
Traditionally, three main groups of methods are distinguished, on which the role of students depends. Firstly, these methods are passive, while all students are considered as a kind of learning objects. Pupils, within the framework of this method, must learn the material that the teacher gives them, remember and reproduce it. At the same time, traditional survey, reading and lecture are used.
The second large group is active teaching methods. At the same time, the student becomes not an object, but the subject of training, entering into dialogue with the teacher and completing creative tasks, which, along with questions from the student to the teacher and from teacher to student, become the main tasks.
The third large group is interactive methods. They allow all students and the teacher to interact . These methods are best suited to a person-centered approach, as they involve collaborative learning. In this case, the teacher can also become the object of the learning process.
This distinguishes active teaching methods from interactive ones. The teacher in this case acts as the organizer of the learning process or the leader of the group. Like active teaching methods, interactive can be based on direct interaction with friends and on the personal experience of group members. Based on this experience, the acquisition of new knowledge can also be based.
Active teaching methods at school were practiced in Russia, as were many interactive ones. Such interesting methods were known as laboratory team or design methods, various practices, as well as labor and industrial excursions. These methods were developed in the writings of the most prominent teachers of Sukhomlinsky, Amonashvili (pedagogy of cooperation), as well as Lysenkova and Shatalova.
Americans developed these interesting methods, especially at the very end of the 20th century. In the United States, special instructions and detailed guidelines have been developed for teachers working on these methods. Russian teachers are also interested in these developments, striving to keep up with the times and using interactive teaching methods for students and schoolchildren, and in a mass school.
Numerous studies conducted in the United States show that it is active teaching methods along with interactive ones that significantly increase the percentage of mastering the material and suggest immediately applying the acquired knowledge in practice, which further facilitates the assimilation of new knowledge, making them an integral part of the student’s general knowledge and skills. .
The result of research by American educators was a special table called the Pyramid. From this table it can be seen that passive teaching methods have the lowest learning rate, and interactive - the largest. However, many Russian educators evaluate this table very critically, because the assimilation of the material, in their opinion, is very difficult to measure. Moreover, everyone knows the names of teachers whose brilliant lectures (passive method) are perfectly remembered and assimilated for almost their entire lives.
Nevertheless, despite all the criticism and imperfection of the Pyramid, this table nevertheless really reflects all the main trends and patterns and can be a good source of information for reflection.
However, one should not assume that it is necessary to completely oblivion all passive teaching methods and replace them with active and interactive ones. For successful training, all methods and types of pedagogical activity can become very important , and any development will certainly advance pedagogical science.