The deductive method — A teacher wants to teach his/her pupils how to add similar fractions. S/he begins by stating the rule: To add similar fractions just add the numerators then copy the denominator. Then she will give examples. After which she will give written exercises for her pupils.
S/he begins her/his lesson with a generalization that geographical location influences peoples’ way of life. Then s/he will give proofs that this is so by showing them an economic map of the Philippines. Then study the map with them. Those who live near the sea are fishermen. Their main product is fish. Those who live in wide plains like the Central Plain of Luzon, Cagayan Valley have rice as their main product and farming as their main occupation.
Another example is to define that all animals with a backbone are classified as vertebrates. The dog, fish, and frog are vertebrates because they possess backbones.
Advantages of Deductive Method
- Coverage of a wider scope of subject matter. Because our instruction is direct by stating at once the rule or the principle at the beginning of the class, we cover more subject matter over a period of time.
- No bother on the part of the teacher to lead learners to the formulation of the generalization or rule. We ourselves give the generalization at the beginning of the lesson. We do not need to worry about what questions to ask to lead the learners to a generalization or conclusion.
Disadvantages of Deductive Method
- It is not supportive of the principle that learning is an active process. There is less involvement on the part of the learners. The learners do not take part in the generation conclusion or generalization. The learners’ involvement. will be on the drill or exercises that come after the explanation of the rule or principle.
- Lesson appears uninteresting at first. We begin our lesson with the abstract, with what the learners do not know so at the outset our lesson will look irrelevant and uninteresting.