Chemistry Education: Instructional Materials And Students Achievement
Chemistry education is becoming very popular in the education sector of Nigeria. There are series of researches on ways of improving students’ academic performance in chemistry education subject. This article will discuss the significance of the use of instructional materials to improve students’ performance in chemistry education
CHEMISTRY EDUCATION
Chemistry is a popular subject among senior secondary school students in Nigeria due to its nature. It addresses the needs of majority through its relevance and functionality in content, practice and application. What many nations like Nigeria need now is a functional chemistry education that will assist in national development. Chemistry education has been identified to be one of the major bedrock for the transformation of our national economy. Chemistry Education can be seen as the acquisition of knowledge or ideals relevant to chemistry. It is concerned with the impartment of knowledge on properties, components, transformations and interactions of matter. Chemistry Education is therefore the systematic process of acquiring the fundamental knowledge about the universe. With these indispensable knowledge richly acquired, man can shape and reshape his world for his benefit. Hence, the development of the nation is usually measured by the degree and extent of growth brought to it through the enterprise of science education and a gate way to it is chemistry education.
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Chemistry education is the vehicle through which chemical knowledge and skill reach the people who are in need of capacities and potentials for development. In addition, chemical education addresses the social objective of substance development as education is now of the primary means for empowerment, participation, cultural preservation, social mobility and equity. The impact of chemistry on technology involves the process of bringing manufacturing inventories and sculpturing, designing etc. Technology can be seen as the application of scientific knowledge, skills, work, attitudes, tools and equipment in evaluation of new processes and adoption of these processes to the production of goods and services for the benefit of mankind. Chemistry education plays important role in enhancing the quality of teaching and research as well as ensuring that students are equipped with good knowledge to produce intensive goods and services to meet human needs for food, health care products and other materials aimed at improving the quality of life. Every single material thing in the universe is a chemical and the ability to understand and manipulate these chemicals is responsible for everything from modern food and drugs to plastics and computers. Conclusively, the ideas of chemistry are not getting the attention they desire in either formal or informal education provision. It is argued that an improvement in this position requires the further development of the nature and quality of chemical education to chemical industries through intensive and extensive research. Chemistry education is needed in the professional development of chemical industries required in the establishment of modern technology and operation of chemical industries.
The process of chemical transformation involves intra-chemical reactions within the same substances examples, sublimation, radio-active decay like uranium, plutonium etc and other chemical reactions when the substances react with other things which includes the evaporation of volatile substances like fuel, Mentholated spirit and even water when exposed to air. Really, chemistry can be used to find solution to problems of everyday activates in science, industry, technology, government, educational sector and economics. Some of the industries that obviously cannot do without chemistry include; cosmetics industry, brewery industry, chemical industry, textile industry, food processing and technology industry, forestry, Agricultural industry, petroleum, pharmaceutical industry etc. Man’s success in the different realm of chemistry provides ones unquenchable source of hope for success in technology. Whatever technology is, be it monster, man is poised to face it challenges having gained courage, built in confidence in himself as he overcomes the seemingly impenetrable mysteries of chemistry. To be able to operate machinery involved in technology, good dosage of simple experimental concept like observation and recording, theory and principles and measurement to take record of events that are needed. Also market forces succumb to the supremacy of social chemistry which includes simple experiment formulation such as record and observation, profit and loss, minimum and maximum, to the more complex ones like optimization theory and also operation research such experimental expressions.
INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS
Teaching as a concept requires that teachers should not only have knowledge and skills in a subject but also the professional competence in the use of methods and materials to be able to influence the behavior of learners by using instructional materials. Defined instructional materials as ways and means of making the teaching and learning process easy more meaningful and understandable. In a similar definition, explained that instructional materials are designed to promote and encourage effective teaching and learning experiences. In view of the above definitions, instructional materials are therefore, sight tools for teachers at all levels of education process for effective instructional delivery and promote learner’s academic achievement and enable the achievement of the stated objectives of a lesson.
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Academic performance is an issue that deeply concerns students, parents, teachers and authorities not only in our country, but also in many other Latin American countries and continents. The complexity of the academic performance starts from its conceptualization. Sometimes it is known as school readiness, academic achievement and school performance, but generally the difference in concepts is only explained by semantics as they are used as synonyms. Conventionally, it has been agreed that academic performance should be used in university populations and school performance in regular and alternative basic education populations. We will point out just a few because there is a diversity of definitions. Several authors agree that academic performance is the result of learning, prompted by the teaching activity by the teacher and produced by the student. Academic performance is “the product given by the students and it is usually expressed through school grades”. Academic performance as a measure of the indicative and responsive abilities that express, in an estimated way, what a person has learned as a result of a process of education or training. Academic performance involves meeting goals, achievements and objectives set in the program or course that a student attends. These are expressed through grades which are the result of an assessment that involves passing or not certain tests, subjects or courses. Academic performance also can be seen as the level of knowledge shown in an area or subject compared to the norm, and it is generally measured using the grade point average.
INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS AND STUDENTS ACHIEVEMENT IN CHEMISTRY
Instructional materials serve as a channel between the teacher and the students in delivering instructions. They may also serve as the motivation on the teaching-learning process. It is use to get the attention of the students and eliminate boredom. Instructional materials are highly important for teaching; especially for inexperienced teachers. Teachers rely on instructional materials in every aspect of teaching. They need material for background information on the subject they are teaching. Young teachers usually have not built upon their expertise whenever they enter into the field. Teachers often use instructional materials for lesson planning. These materials are also needed by the teachers to assess the knowledge of their students. Teachers often assess students by assigning tasks, creating projects, and administering exams. Instructional materials are essential for all of these activities. Chemistry as a science subject is activity oriented and the suggested method for teaching it which is guided discovering method is resource based. This suggests that mastery of chemistry concepts cannot be fully achieved without the use of instructional materials. The teaching of chemistry without instructional materials will certainly result to poor performance in the course. Stressed that a professionally qualified science teacher no matter how well trained would be unable to put his ideas into practice if the school setting lacks the equipments and materials necessary for him or her to translate his competence into reality. Instructional materials media as system component that may be used as part of instructional process which are used to disseminate informative message and ideas or which make possible communication in the teaching-learning process. Experience over the years has shown that teachers have been depending on excessive use of words to express, convey ideas or facts in the teaching-learning process. This process is termed the ‘chalk-talk’ method. Today advances in technology have made it possible to produce materials and devices that could be used to minimize the teachers’ talking and at the same time, make the message clearer, more interesting and easier for the learner to assimilate.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion the students taught with instructional materials perform better and higher than those taught without instructional materials. There is a relationship between the academic performance of chemistry students and the use of instructional materials in Teaching and learning
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