The Importance Of Instructional Materials To Students Understanding Of A Topic
Instructional materials are essential since they help the teacher and learners avoid overemphasis on recitation and rote learning that can easily dominate a lesson. Resource materials allow learners to have practical experiences which help them to develop skills and concepts and to work in a variety of ways. Instructional materials support learning content by providing facts, engaging learners through multimedia, and allowing students to apply concepts.
See Samples Of Undergraduate Topics & Research Project Materials For Students In Colleges
They facilitate understanding and evaluate knowledge through questions and student work. Instructional materials may include any textbooks and workbooks used in the classroom. For example, language arts classrooms almost always have literature textbooks, writing textbooks, and even vocabulary and spelling workbooks. More innovative materials may include charts, maps, videos, images, diagrams and flashcards.
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 PERFORMANCE
Students’ academic gain and learning performance is affected by numerous factor including gender, age, teaching faculty, students schooling, father/guardian social economic status, residential area of students, medium of instructions in schools, tuition trend, daily study hour and accommodation as hostelries or day scholar. Many researchers conducted detailed studies about the factors contributing student performance at different study levels. The measurement of students previous educational outcomes are the most important indicators of students future achievement, this refers that as the higher previous appearance, better the student’s academic performance in future endeavours. Lot of studies have been conducted in the area of students achievement and these studies identify and analyze the number of factors that affect the academic performance of the student at school, college and even at university level. Their finding identify students’ effort, previous schooling, parent’s educational background, family income, self-motivation of students, age of student, learning preferences and entry qualification of students as important factors that have effect on student’s academic performance in different setting. The utility of these studies lies in the need to undertake corrective measures that improve the academic performance of graduate students.
IMPORTANCE OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS TO STUDENTS UNDERSTANDING OF A TOPIC
One important dimension in teacher education that is getting a lot of attention is related to the use of instructional materials. Instructional materials are those materials used by a teacher to simplify their teaching. They include both visual and audio-visual aids and could either be concrete or non-concrete. These instructional materials bring life to learning by stimulating students to learn. The use of instructional materials in the classroom has the potential to help the teacher explain new concepts clearly, resulting in better student understanding of the concepts being taught. However, they are not ends in themselves but they are means to an end. It is held that good teaching resources can never replace the teacher but the teacher uses them to achieve their teaching and learning objectives. Some of the instructional materials necessary for effective teaching and learning of Social Studies include the chalkboard, models, graphs, charts, maps, pictures, diagrams, cartoons, slides, filmstrips, radio, and television. The importance of the use of these materials cannot be underscored. Instructional materials are essential since they help the teacher and learners avoid overemphasis on recitation and rote learning that can easily dominate a lesson. Resource materials allow learners to have practical experiences which help them to develop skills and concepts and to work in a variety of ways. The implication here is that for more knowledge to be internalized, more of the learner’s senses have to be stimulated other than hearing alone. In learning and teaching, the various senses can be stimulated through the use of audiovisual materials. In teaching Conflict and Conflict Resolution, the Non-Violence Education Programme asserts that the flip chart teaching tool is a stand-alone material that can be used in any classroom without the expense of additional resource. Instructional materials have to meet the learning objectives, be validated and their impact be evaluated.
