UNIT 7: MAKING AND USING EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS
Key unit competence: Demonstrate creativity and commitment when making and using teaching and learning resources.
7.1. Definition and types of Teaching and Learning Resources
7.1.1. Definition
Before planning and delivering a lesson, resources and materials should be identified at school or in the surrounding environment according to the lesson.
Teaching and learning materials: This term refers to the broad range a variety of educational materials that teachers and learners use to achieve specific learning objectives and competences. Examples: student’s book, teacher guides, syllabus, lattes, maps, flash card, microscope, lab equipment, chemicals, blackboard, wall charts, ECD Kit,…).
Teaching and learning resources: This term is broader than teaching and learning materials because it includes not only materials but also human resources. Example: for a lesson on HIV/AIDS, the teacher can invite a medical doctor.
7.1.2. Types of learning and teaching materials (LTMs)
Teaching and learning resources can be classified in different categories depending on the criterion considered. In this textbook they have been classified according to their ways of accessibility, their nature, their cost and senses involved.
a. Types of LTMs according to the way of accessibility
– Gathered/collected teaching and learning materials: These are materials that can be collected from environment such as sticks, stones, sand, water…
– Visited/observed in their natural or working environment: due to their nature or depending on lesson objectives, a field study is conducted to allow students to observe things or people in their authentic environment/contexts. \
– Manufactured or man-made materials: These are materials that are made by human being. They can be manufactured in industries/ factories: Boxes, plastic materials, papers, cupboard, mat, books pens, rulers. This category includes the teacher-made materials.
b. Types of teaching and learning materials according to their nature/ originality
• Concrete /real teaching and learning materials
In this category fall actual or real objects found in environment. To be used in learning and teaching process they can be collected or visited/ observed in their natural environment depending on their nature or the lesson objectives. Examples: trees in the forest, water in river, people in different working environment, different plants, animals, tools such as clothing, food packaging, plastic bottles, domestic items, toilet items, etc.
Concrete materials are the most important learning and teaching materials because they allow the maximum concretization as learners are in front of reality and use multiple senses.
• Semi-concrete teaching and learning materials: These include representations of the real/concrete objects. These are used in the absence of concrete teaching learning materials. Examples: as film, pictures, charts, maps, photographs, drawings
c. Types of teaching and learning materials according to their cost
• None cost materials
These are materials which are obtained without spending money. These are for example: soil, stones, sticks, bottle tops, ropes, plants, feathers, mats, sorghum steams, flowers, sand, water, seeds, used up clothes, banana fibres, grass, trees…
• Low cost materials These are cheap materials such as rice sacks, plastic bottles, papers, pens, fruits, vegetables, animal waste, domestic objects, sugarcane, tea, nails, glue, pair of scissors, eggs, food stuff, salt, torch, lamp, candles, envelops, textbooks, resource person, picture books, flashcards, posters, maps, charts, calendar, cut-outs, picture cuttings, magazines, calendars, etc.…Most of teacher-made materials are in this category.
• High cost materials These are expensive materials like computers, projectors, digital, television, software, laboratory equipment, radios, smart board, smart phones, mobile phones, CD-ROMs, flash discs, digital camera, Audio files, videos, animations, internet/websites, PowerPoint presentations, Microsoft Office documents, professionals (doctors, lawyers, engineers).
d. Teaching and learning materials according to the sense involved
• Visual materials
These types of TLMs involve the sense of vision. They stimulate the visual impulses. Examples: illustrations, photos, textbooks, story books, pictures books, wall charts.
• Audio materials
These LTMs stimulate the hearing sense of learner. Example: telephonic conversation, audio discs/tapes, radio broadcast.
• Audio-visuals materials
These types of LTMs are the projected aids, which use both auditory and visual senses to enhance learning. Examples: Computer, Television, Video discs/cassettes, etc.
Teaching and learning materials are important for the following reasons:
– Motivation: Students can learn better when they are motivated properly through diverse teaching and learning resources. They also contribute to create a conducive learning environment. They stimulate and sustain interest in learning.
– Concretization or Clarification: Through Teaching and Learning Resources, the teacher clarifies the lesson content more easily. They provide concrete examples for conceptual thinking. They make easy to teach some concepts that cannot be easily understood like scientific concepts. Learners are able to visualize and concretize their experiences.
– Experiential learning: Teaching Learning Resources provide direct experience to the learners thus, enhance their skills and attitudes.
– Retention/memorization: Proper use of Teaching and Learning Resources help to retain more concepts permanently which makes learning more effective.
– Classroom participation/interaction: Teaching and Learning Resources make the classroom lively and active. They encourage active participation by learners.
– Teaching and learning resources promote the development generic competences: critical thinking, cooperation, creativity, innovation and problem solving.
– They make explanations easier during the teaching and learning process, hence, making it easier for learners to understand various concepts.
– Teaching and learning materials enhance multi-sensorial learning for learners. They help to overcome the limitations of the classroom and make what may be inaccessible in classroom available.
– They provide first-hand experience with reality of the physical and social environment.
From the available resources, a teacher has to select suitable materials for the particular learning activity. The following criteria proposed by Mwangi (2010) will help the teacher to select suitable teaching and learning resources:
– Availability: Materials that are locally available are highly recommended as are opposed to those which are bought. This is due to their simplicity in repair or replacement as the need may arise. Locally available resources give meaning to learning as learners are familiar with them.
– Readability/visibility: The teacher should select/develop that all learners are able to see or read (Braille or big print), which are big enough for visibility.
– Relevance: Materials for the children should be relevant and age appropriate. They should also be related to the lesson objective. This is because learning experiences given to children must work towards the realization of the stated objectives. Irrelevant materials to the content may lead to the failure of lesson (objective not achieved)
– Affordability/cost effectiveness: The cost of learning materials should be minimal as possible. Local materials should be emphasized, as they are cheap and easily accessible, and children will tend to identify more with them.
– Accessibility: Resources/materials that easily and always available/ accessible in the local community.
– User friendliness: Materials should be within the ability of the learners to use. They should not complicate f the learners. They should be suitable for the learner’s level of development and easy to manipulate, Materials that learners are able to interact and play with. Materials that learners with special educational needs can access.
– Durability: This refers to the period of time that a given teaching and learning material/resource can be used before wearing out or requiring replacement. Durable materials cut down the cost of procurement, replacement and maintenance. It creates the opportunity to develop more to ensure they are always enough for all children.
– Multi-purpose/functionalism: Is the use of single materials in different (across) learning activities/subjects and classes to develop a variety of skills. This promotes cost savings.
– Lesson to be taught and activities: The resources should apply to the lesson and activities.
– Multi-sensory: A good teaching and learning materials should develop more than one sense.
– Storages: Materials require good storage facilities. If they are not well stored they may not last long and may easily get lost. The quantity of learning materials selected/developed for storage determines the space desired.
– Safety: Outdoor and indoor materials should be well taken care of to avoid accidents or injuries. Materials should not provoke the dangers to children, materials should be well cared for so that children cannot break them.
– Age appropriateness: Different age groups have different needs and interests for which the teacher should aim at developing when selecting materials.
Teachers and caregivers should put into consideration the specific learning skills and opportunities that should be developed and the objectives to be achieved. To do this successfully, teacher should develop age appropriate materials and consider the children’s developmental age and abilities.
– Variety: Teachers should come up with more materials that can develop the same skills. Provision of a variety of materials is the best way to keep learners working as they require exploring, discovering and manipulating more. A variety of materials helps learners to develop concentration and improves their attention.
7.4. Where and how to get teaching and learning resources?
Development of teaching and learning materials for use in the instruction should be a collective responsibility of the teachers, learners and the community at large. Teaching and learning materials can be obtained through the following ways:
Government: the government through responsible institutions (REB) spends money to produce, purchase teaching learning resources that are then distributed in public and government-aided schools. These are for examples: textbooks, maps, dictionaries, laboratory equipment, chemicals, Science Kits, laptops, chalk, etc. Some materials are purchased by the schools.
Improvisation/teacher-made: teachers can use locally available (process of utilizing already existing) materials to teach or use them to make/develop the teaching aids. These include the use of seeds, flowers, plants, woods, papers, strings, nails...which can be used to make colours or directly use empty containers to carry out an experiment.
For Kahiga (2015), improvisation serves the following roles:
– It helps in promoting the concept of creativity/innovation among learners and teachers.
– It enables many teachers to use available resources without having to rely on the few commercial ones.
– It helps to ensure that the reality of implementing the concept of maximum use of equipment and facilities is achieved.
– Due to high cost of teaching materials and inability of some schools in acquiring them, improvisation can be used to make the provision of these resources a reality.
– It assists in overcoming issues related to lack and inadequacy of resources.
Collection of LTMs: available materials can be collected from school compound or the home environment by learners and teachers.
Parental involvement: parents can be invited for material making days. Such days are organised by the Head Teacher and facilitated by teachers for material provision. The teacher gives professional advice on how to develop the appropriate materials which meet all the required characteristics. Teachers and learners can also make the teaching learning materials in their respective classes.
Inviting resource person: this is more knowledgeable person in making a particular material. The school may invite him/her to show teachers how to make that particular material.
Donations: local and international organizations, parents and other volunteers can offer some materials to the school of their environment.
Borrowing the materials: one school can borrow teaching and learning available another school. Schools or teachers can share teaching and learning resources/materials. Note that the teaching and learning resources/materials may be distributed from:
7.5. Making teaching and learning materials
Depending on abilities (creativity, imagination and innovation) and the will of the teacher to make teaching and learning materials for his/her class, teacher with the students can make varied teaching materials needed in teaching and learning process.
The school compound and home environments are rich with the objects that can be used for this purpose. It has been proved that learners enjoy seeing classroom walls covered by the materials they made by themselves.
A good teacher involves his/her learners in materials making activity. These materials in turn enable teacher to teach effectively. Material production can be done not only at school, but also at home as homework or a project. Some examples of the materials that learners can make for themselves from objects gathered from environment are the following: models, pictures, charts, car, television from cartons, balls using banana fibres...
Here below are examples of the steps of making a chart from rice sack
– Draft your chart on paper: Before a learner makes/draws a chart on proper paper or rice sack, he/she should draft it on the paper so as to avoid being mistaken at the beginning.
– Find a clean rice sack or manila: when a learner needs to make a chart, they should be provided with clean sack or manilla paper in which the chart he/she wants will fit. Rice sacks and manila papers are found at the market. They need to be clean write and have writing on them.
– Cut the rice sack or manila to the size you need. This requires the learner to have a pair of scissors, laze blade, knife…
– Burn the edges of the sack with a candle as they are made of plastic. This to avoid the extremities of the rice sack to be damaged.
– Draw your picture on to the sack or manila with pen, permanent marker or pencil. Seriously, the learner puts the picture he/she wants on the sack or manila paper.
– Add color to your picture, using permanent markers and crayons if you have them. After drawing his/her picture, the can use/add varied colors in order to make it attractive.
– Cover a mistake with paper, scotch or Blanco: Any mistakes made when drawing should be covered.
– Display your rice sack in the classroom, this will create an attractive learning environment for the students and help them to remember things from their lessons.
– Take care of your rice sack and store it in a good place. Try to organize a way of storing your teaching resources so that they are not damaged, you can access them easily, and you can share them with other teachers, you can use them again and again for many years.
Make enough Teaching and learning materials using collected and low cost materials using the pre-primary or primary syllabus.
7.6. Management of teaching and learning resources
Chantal is a teacher in one of primary schools in Gisagara district. She is a creative and innovative teacher in terms of material production. She involves her learners in developing teaching and learning materials of her class and beyond. However, all the materials teacher and learners make are immediately kept in the cupboards. You cannot see Chantal in classroom using even one the materials already made. When the Head Teacher entered the class for lesson observation, the walls were empty. What are the strengths and weaknesses of teacher Chantal? Provide pieces of advice to teacher Chantal for improvement.
For effective management of the LTMs acquired through different ways, it is important they are used, well displayed, stored and maintained.
7.6.1. How to display the TLMs?
A good display of the LTMs in classroom is part of the learning environment. The way materials are displayed can positively or negatively affect students’ learning. Materials are displayed on the walls, tables, mats, etc. They should therefore be displayed following some guidelines and using relevant techniques.
• Some techniques for displaying LTMs
– Wall displays: Teaching and learning materials are hung on walls. They are properly fixed on the walls using the nails. This avoids the classroom to be empty.
– Hanging: This involves attaching the tops of material to a wire or thread hangs from the classroom (materials are suspended in the classroom).
– Soft board: These are fixed to the walls of the classes. The teachers can use glue and thumb pins to attach charts of family members, colours, shapes, number cuttings, children’s works, photographs and flash cards.
– Shelves: They are open places to keep materials for display and also storing. This technique can be used to display three dimensional materials like models, dolls, toys, blocks, bottle tops. Some of these materials can also be placed in cupboards.
– Learning centres: They also called centres of interests or learning corners. They can be established in corners of the school or the classroom depending on the purpose. Display of concrete materials is done better in learning corners. The teachers should help in setting up these centres so that the activities are learner-centred rather than teacher-centred.
• Some tips for displaying
– Avoid to cover every possible space: leave some wall space to avoid an overstimulating classroom.
– Put two dimensional pieces (pictures) at learners’ eye level: hanging things above their heads can sometimes be distracting and annoying
– Choose the right space: consider the nature, the frequency in use, the amount of space needed, the learners ’age.
– Keep displays current: After displays have been up for a couple of months, pupils generally stop looking at them. Be vigilant and leave them out when they are no longer relevant.
7.6.2. Storing and maintenance of teaching and learning materials
• Maintenance of LTMs
– Teaching and learning materials should be checked for the signs of weakness and damage and repaired immediately or removed from user place.
– Materials should be cleaned regularly to remove dust and dirt so as to keep them in good conditions.
– Learners should be taught how to use materials correctly and involved in their maintenance. This will prevent deterioration and loss of materials.
– The teacher should strive to ensure that teaching and learning materials last for long since frequent replacement of learning and teaching materials is expensive.
• Some tips for storing LTMs
– The store should be accessible to the learners to enable them pick up materials whenever they want to use them
– After teaching and learning process, material should be stored properly. Teach students how to tidy up after using materials and assist them when storing them. – Store small materials in folders, large envelops or boxes.
– Store charts and similar-sized materials in cup boards, socks and cartons after arranging them.
– Use simple reference models such as labelling envelops, boxes, shelve parts and other containers.
– Store LTMs in a secure room. Use shelves and cupboard.
– Keep the material in the right place: some equipment need separate rooms for security, safety and pedagogical purposes.
1. Referring to the qualities of good teaching and learning materials, individually make three teaching and learning materials of your choice.
2. Do you find teaching and learning materials useful? Give arguments to support your views.
3. Discuss the maintenance of teaching and learning materials.
4. You have been invited to train the community on the ways of developing teaching and learning resources. What are the key qualities of those resources to focus on?
5. Due to shortage of teaching and learning materials in most of schools, teachers are called for improvisation. Discuss this statement with some reasons.