Different Types Of Instructional Materials

DEFINITION: a textbook is a printed and bound artefact for each year or course of study (Encyclopedia of Education, 2008b). They contain facts and ideas around a certain subject.

IMPORTANCE:
They have been used to aid teaching, and in some cases, to be the teacher for centuries. Textbooks are not just teaching and learning objects but are political documents that hold content that reflects the vision of a specific group (Encyclopedia of Education, 2008a).

Although the presentation has changed, the main goal has remained the same; to help build the platform of knowledge for students.

Throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries, textbooks were used mainly as a static means to teach curriculum. The printed textbook has been the means with which knowledge is organized and distributed. They have served to gather a body of knowledge, a mechanism for introduction to learning and as a reference material (Bierman, 2006). For at least a thousand years, the goal pedagogically for textbooks and school was the memorization of definitions, rules or other facts (Wakefield, 1998). In fact, for quite a long period, textbooks were undifferentiated by age. This allowed for older students to help younger ones, rather than a teacher who may have to work with students from very low grades to upper grades having to attempt to reach each grade level individually. WORKBOOK

DEFINITION : a book that contains problems or exercises and that students use to practice what they are learning in a class.

IMPORTANCE:Some children adore workbooks, others abhor them. If your child doesn’t mind workbook-based learning, it can be a useful method for encouraging independent work, tracking progress, and providing skill-specific review and repetition. Workbooks are also helpful for keeping one child occupied while working with another. Workbooks that children can do on their own are valuable supplements for homeschooling families who travel or who frequently do their “school time” away from home.

TEACHER’S MANUAL

DEFINITION: This manual presents materials through which teachers/counselors in all subjects can help students define and understand the skills they will need in their careers, post-secondary education and as citizens

WORKTEXT

DEFINITION: Books containing both instruction and practice, providing both drill and review.

IMPORTANCE: This is a good approach for attaining rote memorization. Better quality worktexts include problem-solving items that encourage this kind of higher-level thinking in addition to the traditional fill-in-the-blank and define-the-term exercises.

MODULES
DEFINITION: Teaching modules are usually conceptualized as self-contained “units” of content or technique. A unit can cover just one class or more (in which latter case, the module usually specifies day 1, day 2, etc.). Modules can also teach techniques. IMPORTANCE: Basically, teaching modules are offered as “models” which have to be adapted by any given instructor who uses them to meet the circumstances of a specific course. They generally include content or activity outlines and some bibliographic resources for people who need to acquire more knowledge before they try out the module. REFERENCE BOOKS

DEFINITION: a book (as a dictionary, encyclopedia, atlas) intended primarily for consultation rather than for consecutive reading

MULTI-MEDIA
DEFINITION: Multimedia is the exciting combination of computer hardware and software that allows you to integrate video, animation, audio, graphics, and test resources to develop effective presentations on an affordable desktop computerî (Fenrich, 1997)

References

http://courses.educ.ubc.ca/etec540/May08/goslina/researchtopic/Definition%20of%20textbooks.html http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/workbook
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/workbook http://www.3cskills.org/node/30
http://www.homeschooldiner.com/guide/workbooks_worktexts.html http://amst.umd.edu/mini-center/resources/resource19.html
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reference%20book