TEACHER EDUCATION

DESCRIPTION ON HOW TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS CAN BE EFFECTIVELY DONE BASING ON LASSWELL AND BRADDOCK COMMUNICATION MODEL

Witten by Kato Anselemi, (editor in chief)

Communication is a process by which people create and share information with one another to reach a common ground of understanding. It has been argued that human beings are social animals because they live a social life and they interact one another from birth to death. Communication helps people to share with others information, experiences enjoyment/pleasures and other issues of the like.

Lasswell's Formula of Communication

Harold D. Lasswell was an American political scientist and hence his study was mainly focused on communication in political issues. He described communication in the form of questions and since it was not in graphic form, they named it as formula. Lassell's formula lists five questions:

who? says what? in which channel? to whom? with what effect?

 Lasswell and Braddock Model

In 1958, Braddock, R. proposed two more factors for consideration in analyzing communication process: "for what purpose?" and "under which circumstances?"

IMPLICATIONS OF LASSWELL AND BRADDOCK MODEL IN TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS

"Who"

The first question implies a teacher/instructor. For teaching and learning process to be effective, a teacher must be well equipped with professional skills (enough knowledge base) in teacher education. However, he/she must have a good mastery of content to be taught.

"Says what"

The second question seeks to gain insight on the nature of the content in the prepared lesson. For teaching and learning process to be effective, the message (content) to be communicated to learners must be well and systematically organized to the extent that it can be easily learned and understood. For instance the content should organized from simple to complex. 

"In which channel"

The third question seeks information about channels, media, ways or means of communicating the subject matter. It involves all methods, approaches, strategies and techniques to be involved in teaching and learning process. For teaching and learning process to be effective means of communicating the subject matter should selected wisely so as to cut across with the desired learning outcomes.

"To whom"

The fourth question seeks information about the receiver of the information, in the sense of nature, ability, culture, levels and other characteristics of the learner. For teaching and learning process to be effective, the message to be communicated and the means to be used must consider the intellectual abilities and levels of the learners. However, the message should be proved to have significance to learners.

"For what purpose"

The fifth question implies objectives (General and Specific objectives) of communicating that educational information to the students. For teaching and learning process to be effective, the instructional (behavioral) objectives should be technically constructed in respect of "ABCD" and "SMART" so as to successfully cut across with the desired learning outcomes.

"Under which circumstances"

The sixth question implies the context, situation or environment in which teaching and learning process is taking place for instance; time of the day, challenges, problems and other factors observed in the process. However, for teaching and learning process to be effective a teacher must ensure safe and well organized environment for the process to run smoothly.

"With what effect"

The last question seeks to understand the learning outcomes, results of the process as experienced after evaluation. For teaching and learning to be effective, a teacher must be aware of kind of individuals to be produced after the whole process. Individuals who will fit the needy of the society and in labor market generally.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Braddock, Richard (1958). "An Extension of the "Lasswell Formula" ". Journal of Communication. 8:88-93. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466. 1958.tb01138.x

McQuail, Denis; Windahl, Sven (1993). Communication models for the study of mass communication (2nd ed.). New York: Longman. pp. 13-15.