STRATEGIES FOR UTILIZATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS FOR EFFECTIVE LEARNING IN SECONDARY SCHOOL

STRATEGIES FOR UTILIZATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS FOR EFFECTIVE LEARNING IN SECONDARY SCHOOL

INTRODUCTION

Background of the study Instructional strategies are all the things the teachers uses to aid the learners in their learning process; they are the means used to bring about effective teaching and learning. Obara and Okoh (2005) regard instructional strategies and materials as “all the things the teacher utilizes to interactively enhance, motivate and facilitate teaching and learning in an attempt to ensuring the achievement of a set objectives.” The effectiveness of instructional materials and strategies depends upon the manner and degree to which they meet the needs of the teacher and students. Instructional strategies and materials are selected based on the principles of provision of accurate materials that will enrich and support the curriculum, taking into consideration the interest, abilities and maturity levels of the students. Teachers should be encouraged in every way to use instructional strategies as it makes learning more concrete and meaningful (Buseri and Dorgu 2011). Teaching brings about understanding; it involves a teacher, a learner and subject matter and teaching materials.

Therefore to bring about learning, the teacher engages in certain activities such as talking, demonstration, and give instruction etc, all these are the various strategies to bring about learning (Adediran 2014). Teachers need to use different instructional strategies to ensure students centered method in the classroom for creativity, innovative and critical thinking purpose in students. Classroom teaching is likely to be more effective when it is informed by an understanding of how students learn. It is therefore important that, the major implications of instructional strategies be reflected in classroom practice. In recent times, emerging research findings seem to show that oriented instructional strategies are becoming increasingly popular in the teaching of various subjects in the secondary school level of education in Nigeria (Ogundare, 1985), (Osakwe 2009).

These instructional strategies involve resolution of problems, active practice participations of learners in the teaching process and emphasis on process rather than products of learning. Some of these strategies and approaches according to Osakwe (2009) are categorized under conventional and innovative appraises, instructional strategies which are classified under conventional are mostly those routine, well-knowing ones which teachers use predominantly. They are usually teacher-centered with little or no activities for students. These include teaching method like lecture, story-telling, recitation, etc, on the other hand, the innovative strategies include those ones that are much more recent which are predominantly learner-centered.

These include questioning, inquiry/problem solving, role-play and dramatization (Adediran 2014). The curriculum of secondary school education is so enormous that it prepare young people for full adults lives in the complex and dynamic world. This kind of preparation falls in line with, (2004), dispositive curriculum that the global requirements for education in recent times include promoting life-long education, re-emphasizing the quality of learner experiences, reorganizing subjects into key learning areas so as to develop broad knowledge base, and developing in the leaner the ability to think critically and be innovative. This kind of education, according to Enu and Esu (2010), afford the products of the system the ability to respond to social goal economic realities and future life-challenges. It is universally accepted that students needs the chance to develop faith, self-expression and confidence in them. They also need the ability and skill to learn about themselves; the societal problem and about the wider communities in which the live.

Effective teaching in secondary schools should emphasize the use of activity-oriented method and instructional strategies that will make students achieve their learning objectives (Adediran 2014). The production of a functional and productive citizenry which is a major focus of secondary school education entails that secondary school education concerns itself with inculcating creative reflective, competence relational, analytic and decision-making skills and competence in the learner (Mezieobi and Mezieobi 2008). Teaching according to Kanno (2001) should not connote sheer passing on of, or imparting of desirable knowledge to a passive learners recipient who must or demand regurgitate the rote memory acquired and stored knowledge.

Effective teaching in secondary schools should be predominantly students directed interactive learning achievement oriented activities inside and outside the formal classroom situation in which the learner actively participates and makes a conscious and deliberate effort to induce and acquire significant learning under the teacher serving as a learning collaborator, director, guide a catalyst, a helper. Hence, Kanno (2001) noted that teaching it helping other persons (the learners) to learn.

The teacher in the teaching-learning setting is not a task master or an autocrat, dishing out encyclopedia knowledge. Meaningful leading according to Akinlaye (2002) is students activity headed such that the students is given a provide democratic latitude to learns by doing it himself through his activity participation commitment and display of his intellectual integrity and capacity for independent judgment. Educational researcher and developments according to Mezieobi and Mezieobi (2008) have unveiled a number of innovative instructional strategies in secondary schools which apply with equal facility in the classroom. A number of these strategies according to Bransford, Brown and Cockry (2000) as include: learning cycle-based instructional strategy, project-based learning approach, case-based teaching strategy, just-in-time teaching instructional strategy etc. all these strategies make students work through sequences of activities that involves complementary thinking and problem-solving approaches. In most of these instructional strategies, the different activities are designed to appeal to different learning style preferences when the teacher teach based on the strategies; all students are taught partly in a manner they prefer, which leads to an increased comfort level and willingness to learn. On the whole, scholar of teaching methodology and instructional strategies (Oyetunde, 1990, Mezieobi 1994 and Mbakwem, 2001) are agreed that there is no best method of teaching an no singular method will be appropriate to all school subject, in all situations, Mabkwem (2001) was of the view that each teaching subject has its own peculiarities and emphasis procedures. In like manner, each school subject has its own declared objectives and expected outcomes which may be from other subjects.