LABORATORY METHOD

LABORATORY METHOD

This method in commonly thought of as a hands on and minds on approach to teach science where in students have the opportunity to gain some experience with phenomena associated with their course of study. In this method either student participate alone or in small groups. They produce or manipulate various variables that are under exploration. The degree to which student has control over exploration can vary over a wide range. Here the students learn by actual doing rather than my observing the experiments. As young children do it by themselves, the experience is impressed more firmly in their minds. Thus this method in psychologically sound as it satisfies the natural urge for activity. This method broadens interest of the students. They learn many virtues through laboratory activity. The experience in a laboratory is very rich in personal satisfaction as they gain it firsthand. The sense of excitement and challenge help them to achieve some tangible him.

PRINCIPLES OF LABORATORY METHOD:-

1. It follows the principle of learning by doing.

2. It follows psychological principle, where students age, lord and interest is taken into consideration.

3. The work should be Pre-organized and Pre-selected.

4. Teacher must see that, students are allowed to work independently without much interference.

5. The teacher must ensure that apparatus and equipments should be checked pair hand.

6. Teacher must see that students are able to follow in struction and record their observation properly.

ROLE OF TEACHER:-

1. Teacher must be a facilitator of the process of doing experiments by students.

2. Teacher must check the apparatus previously, so that it goes on smoothly.

3. The practical work must be Pre-organized and Pre-selected.

4. The skills of handling apparatus, drawing, diagrams, careful observations taking necessary precautions, must be developed among students.

5. The teacher must be that, the student is doing experiment properly by following proper procedure.

MERITS OF LABORATORY METHOD:-

The Merits are listed below:-

1. This method follows child-centered approach.

2. It makes students active and alert.

3. It gives scope for learning by doing and students do a lot of thinking themselves.

4. Different skills are developed.

5. It paves way for exploration experimentation and verification of scientific facts and principles.

6. It inculcates good virtues like, honesty, truthfulness, dignity of labour etc.

7. It helps in developing sprit of enquiring.

8. It helps in developing higher order this king capacities like reasoning, analyzing, synthesizing etc.

LIMITATIONS OF LABORATORY METHOD:-

The limitations of this method are as follows:-

1. It is expensive and uneconomical.

2. It is time consuming as it takes much time in some experiments to come to conclusion.

3. It expects a lot from students and teacher.

4. It does not guarantee that, students would be equally efficient in solving problems outside laboratory.

5. All students cannot be expected to be skilled workers.

6. Most of the students are either not ready or lack to ability to undertake original work.

SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE:-

1. This method should not be considered independently but should form a part of the total science programme.

2. The practical work must be pre-planned.

3. It is imperative that same individual laboratory work must be done by every student.

4. Instead of performing the experiments started in the book should be little modified for better result.

5. Before experiment in performed the purpose must be clarified to the students.