Innovative Teaching Strategies: Counseling and Project Method

Innovative Teaching Strategies:
Counseling and Project
Rabindra Adhikary
24 February 2021 ravinems@iom.edu.np

Counseling
Method
• Verb:
– give advice to (a person) on social or personal problems, especially
professionally.”
• Noun
– the process of assisting and guiding clients, especially by a trained
person on a professional basis, to resolve especially personal, social, or
psychological problems and difficulties
Concise Oxford Dictionary (9th Ed)
Rabindra Adhikary - Master of Optometry-
Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology

“A talking therapy that involves a trained
therapist listening to you and helping you find
ways to deal with emotional issues.”
UK’s NHS Website

Counseling is:
• The process that occurs when a student and teacher set aside time
to explore difficulties which may include the stressful or emotional
feelings of the student.
• The act of helping the student to see things more clearly, possibly
from a different view-point. This can enable the student to focus on
feelings, experiences or behavior, with a goal of facilitating positive
change.
• A relationship of trust. Confidentiality is paramount to successful
counseling.
– Professional counselors will usually explain their policy on
confidentiality. They may, however, be required by law to disclose
information if they believe that there is a risk to life.

Counseling is not:
• Giving advice.
• Being judgmental.
• Attempting to sort out the problems of the client.
• Expecting or encouraging a client to behave as the
counselor would behave if confronted with a similar
problem in their own life.
• Getting emotionally involved with the client.
• Looking at a client’s problems from your own perspective,
based on your own value system.

• So, counseling method of teaching
involves applying the standard
principles of counseling in delivering
content to the students or solving
their problems
• It is individualistic in nature (teacher
counsels a student individually)

• counseling is rooted in the principle that individuals can
help themselves, provided that they receive the right kind
of support.
• A counselor is not there to tell their clients what to do, or
how to do it, but to help them work out for themselves
what they are going to do, and the best approach to take.
• It is, therefore, very individual and person-centered, and
those who provide counseling need to remember that
above all.

• There are hundreds of counseling
approaches to choose from.
• The most recent edition of The SAGE
Encyclopedia of Theory in Counseling and
Psychotherapy lists over 300 different
approaches to counseling practice
• However, no one counseling approach is
better than the rest
– Choose what’s best on Individual basis

• Historically, individuals who have naturally and
consistently assumed the counseling role have
been the teachers.
• In classical antiquity,
– Socrates was Plato’s teacher and counselor;
– Aristotle was the student and counselee of Plato;
– Alexander the Great was the student and counselee of
Aristotle

• The relationship between teacher and student is central to an individual’s
educational experience and growth process.
• Many of us can recall a teacher whom we were very close to, a teacher who
helped us build our self-confidence, focus and define our goals, and follow our
dreams, and who counseled us successfully in a difficult moment.
• For some of us, a teacher may have very well been what Socrates had been for
Plato
• The counseling and teaching professions present similar characteristics
associated with becoming an effective helper in the school setting.
• Important factors in the helping/teaching relationship are showing
unconditional positive regard, genuineness, the promotion of a climate of
safety, the ability to be empathic and a good listener as well as to understand
not only the students’ verbal behavior but also their nonverbal messages,
facial expressions, and body language (Cormier & Hackney, 1999)

• Almost all of the many individual theoretical models of counseling
fall into one or more of six major theoretical categories
– Humanistic
– Cognitive
– Behavioral
– Psychoanalytic
– constructionist and
– Systemic
Holistic or Integrative –involves integrating various elements of different
theories to the practice.

Humanistic:
• Humanistic counseling theories hold that people have within
themselves all the resources they need to live healthy and
functional lives, and that problems occur as a result of restricted or
unavailable problem-solving resources.
• Humanistic teachers see their role not as one of directing students
in how to address their problems but, rather, as one of helping
students to discover and access within themselves the restricted
resources they need to solve problems on their own.
• Some currently preferred humanistic counseling therapies include
person-centered, existential, emotion-focused, Gestalt and positive
psychology. Rabindra Adhikary - Master of Optometry-

Cognitive:
• Cognitive counseling theories hold that people experience
psychological and emotional difficulties when their thinking is out
of sync with reality.
• When this distorted or "faulty" thinking is applied to problem-
solving, the result understandably leads to faulty solutions.
• Cognitive counselors work to challenge their students' faulty
thinking patterns so students are able to derive solutions that
accurately address the problems they are experiencing.
• Currently preferred cognitive-theory-based therapies include
cognitive behavior therapy, reality therapy, motivational
interviewing, and acceptance and commitment therapy.

Behavioral (Affective):
• this approach focuses on behavior
– changing unwanted behaviors through rewards, reinforcements, and
desensitization
• Behavioral counseling theories hold that people engage in problematic
thinking and behavior when their environment supports it.
• When an environment reinforces or encourages these problems, they will
continue to occur.
• Behavioral counselors work to help students identify the reinforcements
that are supporting problematic patterns of thinking and acting and
replace them with alternative reinforcements for more desirable patterns.
• Currently preferred therapies based in behavior theory include behavior
therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, multimodal therapy and conjoint sex
therapy.

Psychoanalytic:
• based upon the theories of Sigmund Freud
– one of the forefathers of psychology and the founder of psychoanalysis.
• Psychoanalytic counseling theories hold that psychological problems result from
the present-day influence of unconscious psychological drives or motivations
stemming from past relationships and experiences.
• Dysfunctional thought and behavior patterns from the past have become
unconscious "working models" that guide students toward continued
dysfunctional thought and behavior in their present lives.
• Psychoanalytic counselors strive to help the students become aware of these
unconscious working models so that their negative influence can be understood
and addressed.
• Some currently preferred therapies grounded in psychoanalytic theory include
psychoanalysis, attachment therapy, object relations therapy and Adlerian
therapy.

Constructionist:
• Constructionist counseling theories hold that knowledge is merely an
invented or "constructed" understanding of actual events in the world.
• While actual events in the world can trigger people's meaning-making
processes, it is those meaning-making processes, rather than the events
themselves, that determine how people think, feel and behave.
• Constructionist teachers work collaboratively with students to examine
and revise problematic student constructions of self, relationships and the
world.
• Some currently preferred constructionist-theory-based therapy models
include solution focused brief therapy, narrative therapy, feminist therapy,
Eriksonian therapy and identity renegotiation counseling.

Systemic:
• Systemic counseling theories hold that thinking, feeling and behavior are
largely shaped by pressures exerted on people by the social systems
within which they live.
• Accordingly, individual thinking, feeling and behavior are best understood
when examined in relationship to the role they play within a person's
family or other important social networks.
• Systemically focused counselors work to revise social network dynamics
that influence a student’s undesirable thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
• Some currently preferred therapies drawing from systemic theory include
structural family therapy, strategic family therapy, human validation
process family therapy and Gottman method couples therapy.

Phases of Counseling
• Phase 1 is the defining of the problem. The student decides what it is that he is
motivated to learn, and is helped to a greater or lesser extent by his teacher. The
problem may have implications wider or deeper than are at first apparent.
• Phase 2 is the generation of solutions to the problem defined. The teacher explores
the student’s views on how he may achieve the goal he has set himself.
• Phase 3 is concerned with examining the solutions in a practical way, and the
implications of each to the student’s development.
• Phase 4 sees the student selecting one of the solutions, committing himself to a
course of action and to a method of evaluating it.
• Phase 5 is the action itself.
• Phase 6 consists of reviewing the student’s progress towards his own objective.

The skills of counseling
(1) The use of the reflected question.
– The technique is to respond to a question by
asking another, so that the questioner explores his
own -resources rather than become dependent
upon the teacher’s advice.
– Q. ‘What could I do in the circumstances?’
– A. ‘What choices did you have?’

(2) The use of the reflected statement.
• The technique is to summarize the implications of what the counselee has
been saying, to show that the counselor understands and that it is
therefore possible to move on.
• Thus, after hearing several incidents described, the counselor may say: ‘It
seems as though you’ve had some confusing experiences lately’, or ‘I get
the impression you want me to understand how angry you were’.
• If the counselor avoids such jumps progress will be safer, though possibly
slower; his interpretations are used to decide what he will focus upon
rather than for sparing the counselee from doing his own work.

(3) The use of silence.
• Much hard work may be done when neither counselor nor
counselee is speaking.
• Silence may follow the words of either party, and the counselor
must be sufficiently sensitive to the other’s cues to know when not
to labor a point or introduce new material.
• Silences are usually broken by the one with the greater anxiety, and
the counselor may be anxious to make a point regardless of the
counselee’s needs.
• The effect may be similar to that of reflecting a question, but
unspoken words may go more surely to the heart of the problem
when the counselee reflects for himself.

• The counselor may appear to be very passive.
• He offers no answers; he says little, does not
agree or disagree, and accepts silence; he is
relaxed.
• The appearance is deceptive, for he is in truth
working hard. He is taking in an ever-growing
quantity of information, and looking for patterns
which mean something.
• He is considering what he will focus upon, how he
will time and phrase his interventions, and what
he must store for future use.
• He is judging how and when the interview should
end.
• In his early days, much of his energy will be
directed solely to keeping his mouth shut.

(4) Using discrepancies between two of the client’s
communications.
• The discrepancy may be between two statements, or
between a statement and the nonverbal cues which
accompany it.
• Thus: ‘I think you said earlier that it didn’t bother you when
someone behaved like that. What you’ve just told me
doesn’t seem to fit in, and I don’t quite understand. Can
you explain it for me?
• or, ‘You’ve told me a few times that you don’t give a damn
about him, but I get the impression that you sound a bit
tense when you talk about him. Am I right?’

• Implicit in this skill is the concentration of all the counselor’s
faculties of observation, attentiveness and memory upon what has
been going on.
• The counselor’s words can lead to useful progress, and the message
of the attentiveness is not lost upon the counselee.
• Such concentration is a rigorous discipline.
• To take the meaning of what is said, what is not said, and what is
conveyed without words, and to use this understanding
constructively at the right time, call for great qualities in the
counselor.

5) The use of ‘process-observation’
• Two or more people engaged in achieving a task
inevitably affect each other’s behavior.
• How they affect each other influences the speed or
thoroughness with which the task is carried out, and is
termed the ‘process’ of the interaction.
• In asking course-members to observe ‘process’ we use
the phrase ‘Listen to the music, not the words’.
• Examples of process-observation from everyday life are
given:

• ‘Whenever those two get together they start a row’, and ‘John gets
very nervous when he talks to Mary, and she takes advantage of it’.
• The speaker in each case regards the ‘process’ as more significant
than the content of the dialogue.
• Examples from the report of a process- observer in a counseling
interview might be: ‘I thought that the two of them went round in
circles, and got nowhere because they both avoided the main issue.
• Such process-observation has an important use: the counselor
realizes why things are going wrong, and is more quickly able to
select a strategy that facilitates the achievement of the task.

What project is
• “WH Kilpatrick”
– A Project is a whole-hearted, purposeful activity
proceeding in social environment
No purpose? Then it just remains a TASK
William Heard Kilpatrick is the father of project method who
expanded it into philosophy of education in early 20th century.

According to Ballard, “A project is a bit of real life that has been
imparted into school.”
• According to Thomas & Long, “It is a voluntary undertaking
which involves constructive effort or thought and eventuates
into objective results”.
• A/c to Stevenson : “A project is a problematic act carried to
completion in its natural setting”.
• Parker : “A project is a unit of activity in which pupils are
made responsible for planning and purposing”.

• Sir John Dewey
– What is to be taught should have a direct
relationship with the actual happening in life
• This central idea forms the core basis of project method
(Sir John Dewey is the founder of pragmatism on which
project method is based)

Project Method of Teaching
• The project method is a teacher-facilitated collaborative approach
in which students acquire and apply knowledge and skills to define
and solve realistic problems using a process of extended inquiry.
• Projects are student-centered, following standards, parameters,
and milestones clearly identified by the teacher.
• Students have control over the planning, refining, presenting, and
reflecting of the project.
• Through projects, students are engaged in innovation and creativity
( Project Lead the Way, 2003 ).

Philosophies behind Project Method
• Project Method of teaching is based on :
– Pragmatism – focus on practical issues rather than
ideological
– Learning by doing – student learns by doing
– Learning by living, because life is actually full of
projects and we try to carry out these projects every
day
– Idea that children learn better through association,
co-operation and activity

• In this educational enterprise, pupil solve a
practical problem over a period of several days or
weeks
• It may involve
– building a rocket
– Constructing a contact lens lab
– Opening a mobile eye clinic
– Making an optical sales software

• It is one of the modern methods of teaching in which,
the students point of view is given importance in
designing the curricula and content of studies.
• In this strategy pupils perform constructive activities in
natural condition.
• A project is a list of real life that has been imparted into
the study content. It demands work from the pupils.

• Teachers have been using projects as a means of
teaching technical skills, tool usage, and problem
solving since the very beginning of the profession.
• The project method also provides an excellent
means for increasing student learning
(Howell & Mordini, 2003 ).

• The project maybe suggested by teacher but they are
planned and executed by the students as far as possible
• Schultz (1999) noted that the project method of teaching
increases students' thinking and problem-solving abilities.
• Students working on projects also develop reflective
thought processes and a sequence of order while working
on a project.
• This reflective thought process requires students to
determine the appropriate outcome. Each outcome, in
turn, refers to its predecessors ( Farra, 1998 ).

• Howell and Mordini (2003) also
noted that students' best interests
are served by utilizing problem
solving to encourage critical
thinking, plus progressing through
the steps of investigating, planning,
testing, evaluating, and improving
during their project fabrication.

• Klein (2002) reported, "It is important to
combine technology with real problems and a
twist of imagination“
– Today, as in the past, projects should be designed to
be relevant to industry and technology.
– The skills that society requires today may have
changed, but teaching students the ways of today's
world still depends largely upon the project method.

Characteristics of Project Method
1. It is student-centered approach
2. It is related to real life situations
3. It is directed towards results or solution
4. It is action based approach
5. It is collective Implementation
6. It is interdisciplinary in nature
7. It evokes a social Change
8. It is holistic integrated learning process
– Cognitive, affective and psychomotor

Steps of Project Method
1. Creating Situation – teacher suggests situation
2. Selection of a problem – Student selects problem
as per interest or capacity
3. Planning – student plans, teacher guides
4. Executing the Project—students divide works,
teacher oversees
5. Evaluation – by student themselves
6. Recording and reporting to teacher

Advantages of Project Method
• learning is long-lasting as it follows psychological laws of
learning
– Law of readiness
– Law of exercise
– Law of effect
• It connects learning at school to reality
• No place for rote memorization
• Students are free to express ideas and show their creativity
and imagination
• It provokes self-motivation as the students themselves
select, plan and execute the project
• Students develop social skills and values

Disadvantages of Project Method
• Ready-made formula is not available
– No textbooks and instructional materials
• Teaching is disorganized
– Goes with the flow of each project
• Consumes a longer time
• Parents are not supportive
– Involves expenses and going out
• Risk in execution – accident?
• Not applicable for all subjects
• Exhaustive on part of teacher

Role of Teacher
• Knowledgeable: knowledge should be
thorough and specific
• Should be a keen observer and true
supporter
• To avoid problem of supervision, s/he
might appoint a group leader
• Should fix time limit for each project
• Help students identify their interest so as
to choose and execute the project

Let’s Summarize…!
Project Method Counseling Method
Student centric – team work Student centric – individualistic
Pragmatic Ideological
Expects social change Expects individual change
Multidisciplinary Not multidisciplinary
Involves broader environment Involves classroom or limited space
Expensive Less expensive
Planned by students Planned by teacher
Time demanding Less time consuming
Evaluation process -easy Evaluation process -difficult

Innovative Teaching Strategies: Counseling and Project Method

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