Teaching Resources

Key Elements of Teaching (8 M's of Teaching)

What is Teaching?

In school, we are dealing with the young who are immature and who lack the experiences in life which learning emanates. That is why the teacher assumes an important role in their development. The learners who are expected to undergo the learning process cannot do it on their own without adult help and supervision. That is what teaching is all about. It is the process of "helping" the learners learn economically, efficiently, and effectively. The success of a learning situation depends to a large extent on the skillful intervention of a professional person, the teacher.

There are intervention or helping points in teaching process. These points encompass the key elements or the so-called 8 M's of teaching. These are:

1. Milieu: The Learning Environment

Since learning is triggered off by stimuli in the environment, it assumes primary importance in teaching and learning. The classroom is the usual although not the exclusive environment of learning at school. Teachers need to male the learning environment as "stimulating" as possible. Every stimulus in the classroom should contribute to learning. Very much part of this environment are the human stimuli, the most important of whom is the teacher himself. Material stimuli include objects in the room as well as common routine activities. Checking of receptors of the learning stimuli, the senses, to make sure that every student is properly equipped for and disposed to receive the stimuli of learning. Provisions for proper lighting and acoustics as well as corrective measures for students who may be impaired somewhat in this regard.

2. Matter: The Content of Learning. This refers to the what is to be learned as specified in the instructional objective. Mastery of every lesson instead of its mere coverage by the class is a very important "rule-of-thumb" The teacher should make sure that the minimum standard or level of proficiency is attained by the class before moving onto the next lesson or unit. Curriculum makers are advised to be realistic in projecting subject matter and avoid giving the students "too much, too soon," and to teach only "little matter, but well mastered."

3. Method" The teaching-learning Strategy. This consist of purposeful, planned activities and tasks that are undertaken by the teacher and the students in the classroom to bring about the intended instructional objective. Methods are means to an end, never an end in itself. There is good straggly per se, it is deemed good or effective only if it brings about the desired learning outcome. Furthermore, an objective may be archived using different strategies just as a strategy may be utilized to attain different objectives.The strategy must be appropriate to the level of maturity and sophistication of the learners. It must also be adequate or sufficient for the lesson objective and the teacher must be adept or skillful in the use of the strategy. The learners must also show efficiency in handling the activity, going through it without hassle. The strategy must also be effective to yield expected result and must be economical in time, effort and expense.

4. Material: The Resources of Learning. Materials are resources available to the teacher and learners which serve as stimuli in the teaching-learning situation. This may be either a "human person" or a "physical object." The whole purpose of materials is to initiate the students to the "real world" they live in. Instructional materials represent elements found in that world are are meant to help students understand and explain reality. Portraying reality can be by direct experience, reproduction, representation or abstraction

5. Media: Communication in Teaching and Learning. This pertains to the communication system in the teaching-learning situation. This serves dual purpose: to promote common understanding in instruction and to set and maintain a healthy psychological climate in the classroom conducive to learning.

6. Motivation: Arousing and Sustaining Interest in Learning. Motivation is the cardinal principle in learning. A learner will learn only those things he wants to learn.

7. Mastery: The Be-all and End-all of Learning. This means internalization of learning resulting in automatic or habitual change behavior through meaningful repetition and application. Mastery comes through a "fixation" of what is to be learned, shifting it from short-term to long-term memory, allowing for ease in use and transfer to new situations in the future. Some call it executive control"

8. Measurement: Getting Evidence of Learning. This is the final stage in the teaching-learning sequence, involving the systematic collection of the evidence of learning. This is concerned with the "behavior" aspect of the objective.

In preparing for teaching, the teacher should take all of these elements into consideration. These constitute thew warp and woof of a unified unit and session plan or Plantilla.

Any quadrilateral would have 4 sides and 4 angles.

Some examples of quadrilaterals that fit this description are:

• Parallelograms
• Rhombi (plural of Rhombus)
• Trapezoids
• Squares
• Rectangles
• Kites

Introduction

The introduction of Social studies into the Nigerian school system was based on certain philosophical considerations. One of them is to address social issues and man’s problem of life in their interrelatedness, as they appear in real life situations instead of addressing them in an uninterlated manner as those learnt through separate disciplines like geography, religion, sociology and anthropology. Social Studies, according to Ezegbe (1994), was therefore introduced as an integrated discipline to make education real to life.

Social studies was also introduced into the Nigerian school system to achieve one of the philosophies of Nigerian education as indicated in the National Policy on Education which is “the development of the individual into a sound and effective citizen” (1998:7). The realization of this objective through Social studies is possible since the subject is an integrated programme which are taught and learnt in Social studies looks at all aspects of the life of the child in the society. It is therefore, better equipped to properly socialize the child to become a sound and effective citizen.

It is further stated in the National Policy on Education (1998:8) that education is to achieve the inculcation of national consciousness and national unity; the inculcation of the right type of values and attitudes for the survival of the individual and the Nigerian society. All these, according to Ezegbe (1994) involve the development of modern democratic values which are taught and learnt in social studies because of its broad based scope. The accomplishment of the purposes for which Social studies was introduced in schools would depend to a large extent, not only on the availability of the right caliber of professionally trained Social studies teaching personnel, but also of the material resources available in schools for its teaching. Of all the personnel involved in the development, implementation and evaluation of a curriculum, the teacher is the most important. Brown (1982) pointed out the vital role of the teacher in the curriculum process when he noted that:

the curriculum can be a great success or a dismal failure depending on teachers and the instructional materials at the disposal of the teacher are of vital importance. They are the keypersons who alone can make the curriculum design achieve whatever it was designed to achieve… (pg. 19).

No matter how strongly motivated a nation may be in desiring to provide education for its citizens irrespective of the financial resources and the good will, the effectiveness of the system ultimately depends on the quality of the teachers that operate it and availability of instructional materials and educational inputs that are of vital importance in the successful implementation of social studies curriculum. . It is the teacher who translates societal values and aspirations to practical lessons in the class. Several educators amongst who are Coombs (1970), Fafunwa (1974), Fayemi (1991) and Ukeje (1970) have written on the vital role of the teachers as implementers of the curriculum. According to them, whatever abilities are available, whatever content is presented for teaching, whichever kind of environment the school is situated and whatever kind of pupils are given to teach, the important and vital role of the teacher cannot be over-emphasized. Teachers represent a large proportion of the input of an educational system.

Instructional materials are also educational inputs and they are of vital importance in the successful implementation of any curriculum. Relevant and appropriate textbooks, visual and audio-visual materials like globes, charts, slides, maps, tapes etc are of paramount necessities in the teaching-learning process. Audio-visual materials supplement and consolidate what is read in textbooks and journals. This study was aimed at finding out if there are necessary human and material resources in the Nigerian secondary schools for the implementation of the new social studies curriculum at the senior secondary school level.

In conclusion, though, Social studies had been introduced into the educational scene in Nigeria since 1958, it went through various stages of development before it was officially entrenched in the educational curriculum of the nation at the primary, junior secondary, teachers colleges and tertiary levels of education. However, social studies was not included in the senior secondary school curriculum until 1998. The basic problem it has encountered is in the area of availability of instructional material for it teaching at the various levels of learning. More need to be done by policy executors in the educational sector in Nigeria. The inability of student to effectively comprehend the subject may be due to lack of adequate facilities, both instructional and personnel.

References

Borg, W. R. & Gall, M.D. (1979). Educational Research: An Introduction (3rd Ed.) New York: Longman.

Brown, N. (1982). Curriculum and Instructions. Lagos: Macmillan.

Coombs, P.H. (1970). The World Educational Crisis: A Systems Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press.

Adegbe, M. O. (1994). “Social Studies Curriculum and Instructions” in Amadi, H.C. and Joof, G.W. (1994) (eds). Social Studies in Schools: Teaching Methods, Techniques, Approaches and Perspectives. Onitsha. Outrite Publishers.

Federal Republic of Nigeria (1998). National Policy on Education, Lagos: Federal Ministry of Information.

Obagah, H. (1993). “The Senior Secondary School’s Social studies Syllabus. An Unfinished Business”. Paper presented at the 2nd National Conference of Social Studies Association of Nigeria.

Ukeje, D. O. (19970). “Performance Oriented Teacher Education”. Report of the 5th Annual Conference, Western Council of the Association for Teacher Education in Africa.