Maxims of teaching

 Maxims of Teaching

The word 'maxim' means a statement giving general truth or rule of conduct.

A maxim which acts as a guiding principle to the teacher in the task of imparting instruction.

By practising the direction suggested by the maxims instruction becomes effective. 

Significance of maxims of teaching

1. The maxims of teaching are very helpful in obtaining active involvement and participation of the learner in the teaching-learning process.

2. By applying the maxims during instruction, the teacher can develop interest among the children and motivate them to learn.

3. Practising the maxims makes learning easy, effective and meaningful. 

Some maxims of teaching in social science are

1. Proceed from known to unknown

The new knowledge to be imparted should be linked with the experience already learned by the pupils.

If the teacher links the new and unfamiliar knowledge with the already learned knowledge, learning becomes easy and meaningful. Here the brain can easily assimilate the new knowledge with already existing schema.

2. Proceed from simple to complexity 

This means that what is simple and easy must be presented first then after provide  the difficult and complex learning materials.

Here the subject matter should be divided into different aspects and all these aspects should be arranged according to the difficulty level of the content to be transacted.

In the teaching process the simple ideas should be given in the beginning and they should be followed by the complex ones from the point of view of the learner.

3. Proceed from actual to representative

Real, actual and natural objects appeal more to children than the representative objects. 

4. Proceed from particular to general

This maxim is based upon the inductive approach. Through this maxims a number of particular examples should be given at first, and then the pupils should be enabled to arrive at some generalisations by closely observing these particular cases.

The familiarity with the concrete, particular instances, will make the generalisation meaningful.

5. Proceed from empirical to rational

Empirical knowledge is based on the knowledge gained through observation and direct experience. Rational knowledge is based on the logical analysis of the experience.