Instructional materials

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3D model used for teaching geometry

Instructional material, also known as teaching/learning materials (TLM), [1] are any collection of materials including animate and inanimate objects and human and non-human resources that a teacher may use in teaching and learning situations to help achieve desired learning objectives. Instructional materials may aid a student in concretizing a learning experience so as to make learning more exciting, interesting and interactive. They are tools used in instructional activities, which include active learning and assessment. [2] The term encompasses all the materials and physical means an instructor might use to implement instruction and facilitate students achievement of instructional objectives.

Contents

Background

The value of instructional materials as a pedagogical aid can be seen in Vachel Lindsay's poem "Euclid":

Old Euclid drew a circle
On a sand-beach, long ago.
He bounded and enclosed it
With angles thus and so.

His set of solemn greybeards
Nodded and argued much
Of arc and of circumference
Diameter and such.

A silent child stood by them
From morning until noon,
Because they drew such charming
Round pictures of the moon. [3]

Types of instructional materials

Instructional materials can be classified by type, including print, visual, and audiovisual, among others:

PrintTextbooks, pamphlets, handouts, study guides, manuals, blackboard and whiteboard
AudioCassettes, microphones, podcasts, CDs
VisualCharts, real objects, photographs, transparencies
AudiovisualSlides, tapes, films, filmstrips, television, video, multimedia, DVDs
Electronic InteractiveComputers, graphing calculators, tablets

Evaluation of instructional materials

Peer-Reviewed Instructional Materials Online (PRIMO) Committee

The Peer-Reviewed Instructional Materials Online (PRIMO) Committee "'promotes and shares peer-reviewed instructional materials created by librarians to teach people about discovering, accessing and evaluating information in networked environments.' In doing so, it reviews librarian-created online tutorials dealing with information literacy and critical thinking skills, and highlights the highest-caliber projects through its "Site of the Month" posts on the ACRL Instruction Section blog (http://acrl.ala.org/IS/category/committees/primo)." [4] PRIMO's goal is to provide librarians quality tutorials for instructional use on a variety of topics in order to save time, effort and cost. PRIMO accepts non-promotional online instructional material intended for undergraduate or graduate-level audiences emphasizing quality over comprehensiveness.

Instructional Materials Evaluation Tool

"Student Achievement Partners is a nonprofit organization that assembles educators and researchers to design actions based on evidence that will substantially improve student achievement." [5] The tool provided by the organization is the Textbook Alignment and Adaptations Instructional Materials Evaluation Tool. The goal of this tool is to assist in evaluation textbooks or series of textbooks for alignment to the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

See also

Related Research Articles

An instructional theory is "a theory that offers explicit guidance on how to better help people learn and develop." It provides insights about what is likely to happen and why with respect to different kinds of teaching and learning activities while helping indicate approaches for their evaluation. Instructional designers focus on how to best structure material and instructional behavior to facilitate learning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tutorial</span> Type of educational intervention

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open educational resources</span> Open learning resource

Open educational resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials intentionally created and licensed to be free for the end user to own, share, and in most cases, modify. The term "OER" describes publicly accessible materials and resources for any user to use, re-mix, improve, and redistribute under some licenses. These are designed to reduce accessibility barriers by implementing best practices in teaching and to be adapted for local unique contexts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Project-based learning</span> Learner centric pedagogy

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A learning management system (LMS) or virtual learning environment (VLE) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, materials or learning and development programs. The learning management system concept emerged directly from e-Learning. Learning management systems make up the largest segment of the learning system market. The first introduction of the LMS was in the late 1990s. LMSs have been adopted by almost all higher education institutions in the English-speaking world. Learning management systems have faced a massive growth in usage due to the emphasis on remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">OER Commons</span> Freely accessible online library

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Daniel Zingaro is an associate professor at the University of Toronto Mississauga. His main areas of research are in evaluating Computer science education and online learning. He has co-authored over 80 articles in peer-reviewed journals and conferences; and also authored a textbook, "Invariants: a Generative Approach to Programming.

References

  1. Lewis, Beth (2018-05-10). "TLM or Teaching Learning Materials Definition". ThoughtCo. Archived from the original on 2018-04-14. Retrieved 2019-01-09.
  2. "What is Instructional Materials". global dictionary. Retrieved 2019-01-09.
  3. Lindsay, Vachel (April–September 1913). "Euclid". In Monroe, Harriet (ed.). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. Vol. II. p. 123.
  4. Kaspar, Wendy; Borgerding, Jodie (2017). "PRIMO: Peer-Reviewed Instructional Materials Online". College & Research Libraries. 78: 2–7. doi: 10.5860/crl.78.1.2 .
  5. Student Achievement Partners (August 21, 2013). "Instructional Materials Evaluation Tool". Achieve the Core. Retrieved July 1, 2018.