Using Posters & Charts as Teaching Materials

According to research papers our eyes register about 36,000 visual images per hour, while the retina alone supplies 40% of all nerve fibers that are connected to the brain; 90% of the brain’s sensory input is from visual sources.” Researchers report that the visual sense is responsible for 90% of brain stimulation and that vision and visual memory take up to two-thirds of the brain. Since the absorption of knowledge is the key to success in any educational system, it follows that education libraries should have collections rich in visual materials.

While many of the newer text books are heavily illustrated, the text book cannot take the place of a learning poster. Most obviously, a student must first open the text book to view the illustration within whereas a poster is immediately in their view on the classroom wall. Additionally, unconscious learning can take place through exposure to the information on the poster. Finally, posters create a more stimulating and interesting environment for learning.

A poster that promotes learning will have some or all of the following characteristics. 

The learning poster will:

Ø Motivate and inspire students to learn

Ø Stimulates interest in the topic

Ø Decorates the classroom walls

Ø Helps in revision

Ø Saves time

Ø Saves resources since the same chart can be used for upcoming students

With the introduction of internet & ICT the millions of resources for charts/posters are easily available online. It is just a matter of downloading it from internet with the click of mouse button. The usage of online materials for teaching has really eased the burden of Teachers.

Teaching PP using Flash Cards

 Flash cards are a simple, versatile, yet often under exploited resource. I would like to offer some reasons for using flash cards and a selection of activities for use in the Young Learner classroom, although some of the activities could also be used with fun-loving, lower level adult classes. For children at reading age, flash cards can be used in conjunction with word cards. These are simply cards that display the written word. Word cards should be introduced well after the pictorial cards so as not to interfere with correct pronunciation. words for the flash card has been downloaded from the internet and printed from computer.

Flash cards are a really handy resource to have and can be useful at every stage of the class. They are a great way to present, practice and recycle vocabulary and when students become familiar with the activities used in class, they can be given out to early-finishers to use in small groups.

Activities for using flash cards

Memory Activities

·         Memory Tester

o    Place a selection of flash cards on the floor in a circle.

o    Students have one minute to memorize the cards.

o    In groups, they have two minutes to write as many of the names as they can remember.

This activity highlights the impact of visual aids. It really proves that the images 'stick' in students' minds.

Identification Activities 

·         Reveal the word

o    Cover the flash card or word card with a piece of card and slowly reveal it.

o    Students guess which one it is.

o    Once the card is shown, chorally drill the word with the group using different intonation and silly voices to keep it fun. Vary the volume too, whisper and shout the words. Children will automatically copy your voice.

o    Alternatively, flip the card over very quickly so the children just get a quick glimpse.

o    Repeat until they have guessed the word.

Hand Washing Day October 15th

Celebrated annually on October 15, Global Handwashing Day was founded by the Golbal Public –Private Partnership for Hand washing, and is an opportunity to design, test, and replicate creative ways to encourage people to wash their hands with soap at critical times.

Global Handwashing Day is designed to:

Ø Foster and support a global and local culture of handwashing with soap

Ø Shine a spotlight on the state of handwashing around the world

Ø Raise awareness about the benefits of handwashing with soap

The first Global Handwashing Day was held in 2008, when over 120 million children around the world washed their hands with soap in more than 70 countries. Since 2008, community and national leaders have used Global Handwashing Day to spread the word about handwashing, build sinks and tippy taps, and demonstrate the simplicity and value of clean hands.  Each year, over 200 million people are involved in celebrations in over 100 countries around the world. Global Handwashing Day is endorsed by a wide array of governments, international institutions, civil society organizations, NGOs, private companies, and individuals.

The 2016 Global Handwashing Day theme is “Make Handwashing a Habit!” For handwashing to be effective it must be practiced consistently at key times, such as after using the toilet or before contact with food. While habits must be developed over time, this theme emphasizes the importance of handwashing as a ritual behavior for long-term sustainability. Habit formation is currently a hot topic in behavior change and the water, sanitation, and hygiene sector. This theme taps into that interest and is also a gateway to discussing what the sector knows about how habits are formed. Similarly Hand Washing Day was also celebrated in Gaupel Lower Secondary School with the theme “Make Hand Washing a Habit”. The steps and instruction for hand washing were browsed from the internet and shown to students practically.

Story Telling in Class using laptop

We all enjoy a good story, whether it's a novel, a movie, or simply something one of our friends is explaining to us. But why do we feel so much more engaged when we hear a narrative about events? It's in fact quite simple. If we listen to a powerpoint presentation with boring bullet points, a certain part in the brain gets activated. There’s something about stories that stick with us. Something about an organized narrative teaching strategy that serves as a unique kind of glue, lingering with us long after the facts and formulas fade away. It’s exactly this kind of adhesive that I want to leverage for my own students, weaving the skills and information they need together with the magic of story telling.  But despite how magnetic these teaching strategy narratives may be, it can be difficult to pry time away from our busy day-to-day lesson plan. However, I downloaded animation “Momo and the Banana” and presented to my class using my laptop. The students were very happy and enjoyed the session. The story telling provided break from the monotonous sojourn of class room teaching.

In its simplest form, storytelling remains a powerful element of communication, with the narrative being equally as compelling as essays and textbooks. They humanize learning. It offers us the opportunity to connect to like-minded characters, or see the world literally from within someone else’s skin. Stories touch our emotions and make us laugh, cry, fear, and get angry—a sharp contrast to a plain old presentation.

Using Internet for Teaching

There is already a recognized fact that the need for educational experience is rapidly growing, the development of technology is rapidly changing the phase of education to which teaching and learning are taking new dimensions. The Internet plays a significant role in the lives of young people today. Many research points to advantages as well as disadvantages of the use of the Internet in a formal educational context. It was found that the teachers think that the Internet is a valuable source of information and an important additional teaching tool. The Internet can e.g. motivate the students, make teaching more fun, and allows variation in teaching.

Similarly with the resource and information available in World Wide Web (www), I browsed and downloaded pictures of different fruits from the internet to be used as teaching material for my classroom.

Since the pictures downloaded from the internet looked real, attractive and beautifully painted it was easy to gain children’s attention since the kids were easily attracted by the picture. The picture of fruits downloaded from the internet added colours to the classroom when displayed on the classroom wall. The pictures when displayed on the walls not only helped students to remember the names of the fruit but also can be used for revising the lesson during later part of the academic session. The displayed pictures can also be preserved and used for the new batches of Class 1 children during the 2017 academic year. Therefore using internet not only saved me time but also made my teaching effective, inclusive and interactive to the students.

Dzongs of Bhutan

Dzongs of Bhutan

The subject that I taught was social studies in class 4. It was in 4^th period. The students were divided into seven groups with four students in each group.

The topic for the lesson was some Dzongs of Bhutan.

To introduce the different dzongs built by Zhabdrung, I showed the pictures of dzongs one by one along with the background history narrated for each.

The children were asked to watch the clips and listen carefully.

As a follow up activity, I asked children in each team to choose a dzong and write short description about it.

Adantages:

ü  Children were meaningfully engaged.

ü  Inclusive teaching method

ü  Efficient time management.

ü  Effective class management.

ü  Lesson objective were fulfilled.

ü  It reduced the work load of the teacher.

ü  Children enjoyed the lesson.

Disadantages:

ü  Students had tough time in understanding some part of the descriptive narration.

Teaching using mobile phone

Teaching using mobile phone

My lesson on teaching the names of vegetables to my class one students is presented through a variety of strategies. One of the strategies that I used was “A mix-pair-share” in closure part of my lesson. Music was played from my mobile phone and children were asked to move around the classroom shaking their body as per the tune of the music. As I stopped the music each child looked for a partner by giving “Hi Five” to his or her partner. A question was thrown to the floor-“Name a vegetable that has many small seeds inside it.” The partner who had longer hair was asked to share the answer first and then they switched the role. The music was played again for the next few questions following the same steps.

Dancing and singing were two very effective way to teach as well as to learn. All were geared up to move ahead and chip in, which reminded me of a quote "Children are great imitators. So give them something great to imitate." Anonymous.” This was one way to teach and learn through fun. I can use this in my daily teaching a lot. This kind of strategy can not only be applied in teaching name of vegetables, but in other topics as well as other subjects that have multiple answers.

TEACHING RHYMES USING LAPTOP

TEACHING RHYMES USING LAPTOP

With the introduction of ICT, it is already making dynamic changes in the society and is influencing every aspects of life. The influence of ICT is more felt in the field of teaching and learning because ICT provides both students and teachers with more avenues in adapting learning and teaching to individual needs.

Gone are those mundane days when mode of teaching was just using blackboards and chalks and shouting on top of the voice to a class packed with students. This sort of teaching method was not only difficult to teachers but to students as well as different student had different level of understanding of the subject.

On 1^st September, 2016 I taught rhyme to my class I toddlers using laptop computer. The title of the rhyme is “Dad is taking us to the zoo tomorrow”.  Students loved it and what was even more interesting is that even the shy and introvert students were enjoying and singing the rhymes on top of their voice.

Thank you!

PowerPoint is a wonderful tool for learning in both a student and teacher-directed situation. It can add a new dimension to learning allowing teachers to explain abstract concepts, while accommodating all learning styles. Used properly, PowerPoint can be one of the most powerful tools for disseminating information ever known.

Slide presentation software such as PowerPoint has become an ingrained part of many instructional settings, particularly in large classes and in courses more geared toward information exchange than skill development. PowerPoint can be a highly effective tool to aid learning.

As a part of my commitment to use ICT in my classroom teaching, I tried to teach the names of basic flower to my class I toddlers through PowerPoint presentation slide. I downloaded the PowerPoint presentation slide from the internet and presented in my class on 12^th September, 2016.

The result was awesome…students were able to identify flowers and some even pointed out that they have never heard nor seen flowers such as jasmines and iris.

Over the last six sessions on ICT in teaching and learning, we were taken through a number of different topics that would help us develop knowledge on the usage of ICT in our daily life.ICT in education means teaching and learning with ICT.

“Blog” though this word sounded familiar to us, many of us did not have idea what it really is. The session on this topic gave us an opportunity to create our own blog. A blog is a type of website which has posts, just like a dairy or journal. It is necessary for us to set up our own blogs so that we can share our strategies, lessons and resources with one another. Reading other teachers’ blogs would allow us to see what other teachers are doing in their classrooms, how they have applied various strategies and ideas to their teaching, and then we can try out these same ideas in our classrooms.

Animation is another important topic that we learnt in our ICT class. It is a way of making movie by using a series of drawings, computer graphics or photographs of objects that are slightly different from one another and that when viewed quickly one after another create the appearance of movement. Using this tool in our lesson gives the power to gain attention of the learners. It also helps learners come to understand complex ideas more easily. Teachers can use animated video clips to explain concepts. This not only makes the concepts clear but also helps the students memorize them for longer time.

If the educators can choose the right ICT solution for their lesson, it can lead to improved students learning and better teaching methods. It can create interactive classes and make the lesson more enjoyable which could improve students’ attendance and concentration.  Therefore, having understood the importance and usefulness of ICT in education I would like to make best use of ICT in my daily teaching.