Teaching Learning Materials (TLMs) are those instructional materials used by teachers to make the teaching-learning experiences the best and attention grasping for students and make them understand the concepts fully and whole-heartedly.
The teaching-learning materials can be living or non-living, animated or in animated resources. Moreover, they can be easily made or bought by the teachers.
The teaching-learning materials can be divided into three types-
- Audio Aids: These aids stimulate the auditory senses and make students learn. It focuses on pronunciation and helps learn a new language or improve the same. Children find it interactive, and it catches their attention when music or songs are incorporated. In teaching-learning materials, audio aids fasten the memorising process easier; for example, radio, cassettes, tape players and tape-recorder.
- Visual Aids: These aids stimulate the visual organs and make students learn. Examples of visual aids are pamphlets, Lines, multi-coloured imagery, bright colours, patterns etc. They stimulate learning because of their eye-catching features in the literal sense. Examples of visual aids are globes, flashcards, blackboards, maps, models, charts, etc.
- Audio-Visual Aids: These aids are a combination of audio and visual aids. They stimulate hearing and visual organs to make students understand everything effectively. Therefore, these aids are highly attractive, Eg: LCD projectors, computers, television, virtual classroom, etc.
Importance of Teaching Learning Material
Teaching learning material is important because:
- Learning new ideas turn out to be simpler if the student is given relatable materials that can be linked with the subject matter.
- Typically little children get carried away by objects of various tones, sizes and measures and display their interest in controlling these objects in various manners, which, when given cautiously, helps with enhancing a propensity for playing with an assortment of objects. Again, this helps in upgrading their creativity.
- TLMs are necessary for fostering self-learning. With proper materials, one can learn by themselves with absolute control over their learning speed.
- Teachers become amicable by using teaching learning materials in the classrooms; a friendly environment is constructed, which further helps them to learn.
Characteristics of Good TLM
Good teaching-learning materials must consist of the following:
- The TLMs should be attractive to the kids. Size, shading (colourful or engaging shading sketching or blend), development (as in moving toys), and, in certain cases, the smell or looks or taste or sound are a portion of the characteristics of the materials that fancy students.
- Acquaintance with TLMs will help with presenting new creative ideas. In addition, the kids can easily control these materials for important learning of new thoughts.
- The novelty of the teaching learning material also draws in the kids. Surprising objects or new use of natural materials are the attractive highlights of good TLMs.
- The material must have utilitarian worth. It is the perfect usage that makes the material affirmative or negative.
- Materials of various utilities such as dice, pebbles, sticks, gravels, marbles, 3D shapes, blaze cards and flashcards can have several utilisations in practically all aspects of knowledge of primary classes’ educational plans and hence are more popular as TLMs in the schools.
- The simplicity of looking after the materials, which includes toughness, appeal, lightweight and well-being (innocuous for utilisation by students), is an important trademark due to which these objects are liked in the measurement of educating learning.
As per the guidelines of the NIPUN Bharat Mission, the teaching-learning process must include all the high-quality teaching-learning materials to get the maximum output of the teaching/learning process. Following are the guidelines of the NIPUN Bharat Mission to be adhered to:
- All the existing teaching-learning materials must be reviewed.
- New Teaching- learning materials must be judged.
- Teaching-learning materials must be timely made available at schools.
- ‘Vidya Pravesh programme’s guidelines must be followed in all schools.
Final Thoughts
All the instructional materials, be it audio aids, video aids or audio-visual aids, are used in the teaching-learning process to enhance students’ engagement in the lesson. In addition, instructional materials help students understand the concepts in a way that their application in real-life situations becomes easier, leading to their holistic development.
These teaching-learning materials are important to foster self-learning and, under the guidelines of the NIPUN Bharat Mission, must be included, updated, and reviewed timely at schools. Teaching-learning materials must be made mandatory so that students take utmost importance in their lessons, never forget them, and can apply them in actual scenarios.