Teaching Aids

Teaching Aids

Teaching aids aim to promote learning in students. Apart from the traditional textual structure, different types of aids such as video, audio, and hands-on tools etc. are used to help students in increasing their learning experience.

Different tools such as computers, maps, and other tools are required for different types of interaction with students and these tools show the highest level of effectiveness.

The main objectives of these tools to involve the students, promote interaction, and promote faster learning and better comprehension. Aids are the much better method for learning because they relate textual matter with visual, audio and videos, thus enhance the learning in a meaningful way.

How and what tool a teacher can choose to use learning aids in a classroom can vary dramatically. It is necessary for a teacher to be skillful and the ability to decide proper aid to support his teaching.

Need of Teaching Aids

• Teaching aids help in retaining concepts more permanently for those students who have the tendency to forget frequently.
• Teaching aids can motivate the student for learning and encourage them to develop deep insights of the matter.
• Students can easily learn and grasp the topic and the concept with the help of teaching aids.
• Teaching aids increase the understanding level of students by creating the proper image in the mind of students
• Teaching aids are helpful for students in increasing their conceptual thinking.
• The teaching aids develop the environment of interest and a craving for learning inside them.
•  Teaching aids help to increase the learning faster and accurate.
•  It has been seen that visual effects create learning of permanent nature rather than audio effects.
• Teaching aids help the students learning through direct experience.

Teaching aids can be further classified as-

• Traditional Aids: Teaching/Learning using Books, Periodicals, Blackboard/Chalkboard.
• Visual Aids: Adding knowledge through Figure, chart, posters, model, graph or any other type of graphics such as diagrams, cartoon, info-graphs, cut-outs, bulletin board, flannel board, globe, objects, picture, map etc.
• Mechanical Aids:
  • Audio: teaching machine, Radio, tape recorder.
  • Visual: motion picture, Projector, epidiascope, filmstrips, etc.
  • Audio-Visual: Video, Cassettes, Films, television, etc. Visual Material Aids: There are many types of charts that are also included in visual material aids such as outline charts, tabular charts, flow charts and organization charts. Flip charts and flow charts are also being used.

Types of Teaching Aids

Aids can be classified into the different types these days. We may classify these aids as follows-

• Visual Aids: Any of various materials depending on the sense of sight, as films, slides, photographs, etc., used as aids in teaching. For example- flash cards, flannel board, bulletin board, chalkboard, overhead projector, slides, actual objects, models, pictures, charts, maps, etc.
• Audio Aids: Audio aids mean students able to hearing the study material without seeing messages. For example- Radio, tape recorder, gramophone etc.
•  Audio-Visual Aids: Audio-Visual aids helpful to hear the message and see the messages are called Audio-Visual Aids. For example- film strips, television, film projector etc.

Importance of teaching aids

Teaching aids produce a mental image for certain concept and develop an interactive experience for learning inside them. It is helpful for students to become more involved, they can easily grasp the topic being taught.

Teaching aids support the teaching-learning process. The importance of teaching aids is explained as follows: –

• Clarification: Teaching aids are more beneficial for the teacher to clarify the subject matter more easily. Students can easily understand and generate a clear picture of the concept. For instance- Learning about the ocean, waves or tides can be enhanced up to a high level if taught along with suitable pictures, videos etc.
•  Classroom Live and active: Teaching aids play an important role to make the classroom live and active. It avoids the students to get monotonous and help them in persistently learning the article.
•  Learning from Direct Experience: Students take the direct experience of teaching aids. They do not need to presume the things incorrectly, they can just learn by seeing the things.
• Discouragement of Cramming: Teaching aids an effective tool for those students who find cramming the material difficult without understanding. A strong understanding makes the task of retention as a smooth journey and the concept can be easily recalled when it is needed.
•  Increase the Vocabulary: Teaching aids helps to increase the vocabulary of the students more effectively and efficiently. It helps them learning and knowing the use of different new words. These words certainly improve their command over language and increase their intellectual capacity.
• Generate Motivation: Teaching aids motivate the students to understand the study material. For instance- A concept-based movie/film will attract more audience than a speech on the similar topic.
• Saves Time and Money: Teaching aids are helpful to save time, money and energy of the tutors as well as students. For instance- learn while playing exactly work for the kinder. So many play schools run on this concept. Similarly, for the student’s many visits are conducted, tours are organized, documentaries are shown to give them a deeper insight and open up the new window of ideas to their brain.