Teaching-Learning Materials: Meaning, Types, and Objectives

Meaningful education takes place when students can engage with their lessons. To make that happen teachers use different tools to contextualise the topic and bring it to life, often time employing varied means that can help students comprehend and retain the information. These tools and means are together classified as Teaching Learning Materials.

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Meaning of Teaching Learning Materials (TLMs):

Any resource or material used by teachers to facilitate the learning experience of their students is known as Teaching Learning Material or TLM. TLMs aid teachers in delivering engaging, comprehensive, and systematic learning while providing additional sensory inputs that help students get a holistic picture of the concept.

TLMs include a variety of traditional and non-traditional resources such as textbooks, workbooks, charts, maps, handouts, videos, multimedia presentations, visual aids, manipulatives, etc., that support the instructional process and help students internalise new information.

Types of Teaching Aids:

Visual Aids: Any aid that assists the teaching process through visual representation of information falls into the category of visual aids. Visual aids are especially helpful for students who are visual learners and include even the traditional teaching methods of using books, blackboards, and charts. Other important visual aid tools include presentations, pictures, maps, infographics, posters, etc.
Audio Aids: Audio aids work via the auditory sense of the human body. Especially useful for learning in performing arts, audio aids also work to enhance student imagination. Listening to learning content and recordings helps auditory learners and those with a visual disadvantage.
Audio-visual Aids: A growing stream of TLM, audio-visual aids include multimedia presentations, virtual classrooms, digital apps, and edtech platforms. Other audio-visual aids such as documentaries and films are also great tools for children to learn without the pressure of classrooms.
Interactive Aids: Including both tactile and emerging edtech, interactive aids create an immersive learning environment for the students. Whether students learn through blocks, clay modeling, other sensorial play-based activities, or through emerging new learning technologies such as games, AR and VR tools, etc., interactive aids can make learning easy and fun for students.

Also read: Interactive Learning: Powering The Future Of Education
Tech-Assisted Learning: No longer a separate head, leveraging technology for learning cuts across all TLMs. Presentations, Animated videos, Podcasts, Learning Videos, or Educational Games are all technology-enabled learning aids that are becoming increasingly popular. The ease and engagement offered by tech-assisted learning platforms like Extramarks enable students to understand and retain new information faster.

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Objective and Importance of TLM

Differentiated Learning: TLMs allow teachers to offer differentiated instructions based on the student’s individual learning styles. Educators can help students based on their interests with diverse resources available to them.
Enhanced Learning Experience: Using suitable TLM aids, teachers can bring a new concept to life for their students. This helps students understand and retain concepts and information with ease. It also turns abstract ideas learnt in the classroom into real-life experiences cementing students’ grasp of the topic
Engaging Students: TLMs assist in increasing student engagement in the learning activity. With active participation in their own learning, students are able to retain the information longer, making learning an enjoyable experience.
Supporting Diverse Learning Styles: Due to the multiple learning options available, TLMs help teachers support students of different learning styles, making learning a meaningful and relatable activity for students of all capabilities and learning preferences.
Improved Application: With their immersive and high sensorial attribute TLMs not only ensure students understand and remember concepts with ease, but they also build an ecosystem that encourages students to explore, experiment, and apply their knowledge in practical real-life situations.
Fostering Higher Order Skills: With options to pursue information and learning across different formats, TLMs offer students the opportunity to analyse and synthesise information from all perspectives, thus helping teachers foster higher-order skills such as problem-solving and analytical thinking in their students.

Teaching-learning materials are not new to teaching and as an educator, you might be familiar with many. However, the new generation of TLMs has the potential to create an easy relationship between students and learning. They can help educators enhance the efficacy of the teaching process by ensuring higher student engagement. Not only does choosing an appropriate TLM make teaching a concept easier, but it also improves the effectiveness of the learning experience. Start with small changes to your instruction design, incorporating some new tools before you finalise what suits your teaching style and the curriculum requirements.

Last Updated on July 12, 2024