Useful ways teachers can use instructional materials effectively in teaching students in the classroom to promote a thorough understanding of the lesson.
instructional materials can be defined as any material which can be seen or heard and which helps to improve the learning process. Instructional materials on their own cannot do much to improve or promote learning without the efforts of the teacher. Their benefit lies in the professional skills of the teacher in using them. To ensure this, there are a few fundamental steps, which the teacher must take. They include the following.
Prepare yourself: You need to ensure that you are conversant with the materials beforehand. Study tool or material; determine how you would use it including the questions you would ask and the activities you would perform. Do not wait to decide these things in the classroom, because if you do that your lesson would not be smooth. You may ask ambiguous questions for instance. Besides this, if you prepare how you are going to use the aid, you would be able to tell which aspect of the illustration you may need to emphasize.
Prepare the materials: if there are several materials to be used as flashcards, you have to arrange them in the order in which you would use them.
Prepare the environment: You would have to check the environment of the classroom, for instance, to determine where you would place the classroom, for instance, to determine where you would place the materials so the pupils can benefit best from its use. Other aids may require different preparation.
Prepare the pupils: For the pupils to benefit fully from the instructional material you use, they should have sufficient background information to be able to understand the information you have presented on the aid.
Use of the materials: All instructional materials you use should be properly introduced to pupils. They should be aware of important issues by the necessary explanations. To illustrate the point further, use more cardboard drawings, as a common aid not forgetting are steps teachers must take in using prepared drawings on cardboard to ensure that they help to improve pupil learning.
