Teaching on any level is a challenging task, it has many requirements. Most people think that teachers just need to teach the required lessons to their students, but the teacher's job does not end there.
Teachers need to check whether their students are understanding their lessons or not, and one foremost important task for a teacher in every Educational Administration and Management is to curate the curriculum in such a way after assessing every student in the classroom so that everyone can understand the lessons better.
There are different methods for curating curriculum such as the Concentric Approach, and Topical Approach. Each approach has its own merits and demerits.
However, it has to be found that the Concentric approach which is also called the Spiral approach is a far better approach than the Topical approach. Because the Concentric approach breaks, down the heavy topics and is divided into different sub-topics to be learned in different classes, starting from basics to complex topics. Whereas, in the Topical approach the teaching approach is linear where a teacher needs to pick a topic and finish it on the same standard, making it more challenging for students to grasp the topic.
Let’s get to know everything about the Concentric Method in Teaching which is used in every Educational Administration and Management.
What is Concentric Method in Teaching?
The concentric approach is a method through which teachers can construct a curriculum by keeping in mind the level of development of every child psychologically.
In the concentric approach, the idea is to divide a topic into different sub-topics from basic level knowledge to extreme in-depth knowledge of a topic over a few years.
The lessons will be inter-connected and students will understand and remember the topic pretty easily, as they are revisiting the same topic but with increasing difficulties in chronological order.
For example, the teacher divided the topic of Maths or any other subject into different classes for better understanding and easy to digest when the topic starts from fundamental to complex levels.
How Concentric Method in Teaching discovered?
There was a man named James Bruner an American Psychologist who believed that humans can learn better if the curriculum is designed according to the Concentric Approach.
He believes that to process any kind of information and for better understanding, there are 3 phases:
- Enactive Phase:
In this phase, an individual comes in contact for the first time with the concept, objects, or lessons and tries to gather basic knowledge about them.
- Iconic Phase:
In this phase, an individual will try to manipulate the lessons, processes, and objects images according to a certain way that they can understand better.
- Symbolic phase: In this last phase, an individual becomes capable of utilizing abstract representations of any objects or concepts.
3 Key Principals of Concentric or Spiral Curriculum:
1. Cyclical approach:
Learners will revisit the basics of any lessons from time to time until that topic ends.
2. In-Depth Knowledge:
As they progress in different classes, they will get to learn the same topic at a deeper level with increased complexity.
3. Utilization of Prior learning:
As the learner progress at the class level, they must use their prior knowledge to learn that topic on a deeper level.
Advantages of the Concentric Approach of learning:
- Suitable learning and teaching Method:
In the Concentric Method in Teaching, learners don’t need to rush to understand a topic, because it’s been divided into different sub-topics over a few years.
If the learners got proper time to understand the topic then they will perform better in their academics.
- Students will have prior knowledge:
This method enables students to begin their journey of learning any topic with its fundamentals. As they are progressing academically, their prior knowledge will help to understand the same topic at a deeper level with more complexities.
- Repetition for better understanding:
As the topic is interconnected as a teacher you can make them revisit to basics for the brush-up, as they do it frequently they will remember it better and it will hard to forget for them as well.
- Curriculum designed for students progression:
In every school's Educational Administration and Management if the teacher is usingthe Concentric Method in Teaching then they have to consider every time before curating the curriculum what prior knowledge is necessary to learn that topic.
This will helps students to understand the topic well and they will progress positively in their academics.
- Develops Problem-solving approach:
As the topic is co-related to each other but with increasing complexities, so give your student to give freedom to solve a problem with a different approach.
Final Thoughts:
Teachers’ job is not just limited to teaching students only, they need to take care of curating the curriculum in such a way that students understand the lessons and perform academically well.
There’s one approach to designing a curriculum that is quite in use in every Educational Administration and Management system, which is the Concentric Approach, and it benefits both students and teachers.
Using this approach, student’s foundational knowledge will get developed properly by revisiting it from time to time which makes it hard to forget that topic. In addition, they will perform academically well also.
Written By : Abhishek
