summary of Teaching/ learning Aids

It is important for teacher to know about teaching/learning  aids (instructional aids). Because it has a profound impact on the students’ academic performance, instructional aids should be carefully selected. Dale’s cone of experience, which classify the instructional aids according to the experience , help teacher in selecting  instructional resources and activities that are most appropriate for the subject matter or the topic. The cone is consisted of 3 main categories, learning by doing, learning by observing and learning through abstraction. As the teacher move up the cone, he/she involves few senses of the students of the learner. On the other hand, the aids selected from the button of the cone involve more sensory channels. Direct-purposeful experience is the closest instructional aids to the real life as it allow students to use all senses. However, text/verbal symbol experience is the furthest removed from reality. For learning to be more effective learning, teacher should appeal more senses of the learners ,so students can see, hear, touch and taste if possible.