PRODUCTION AND IMPROVISATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS FOR EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Instructional materials such as charts, pictures, cardboards, posters, drawing, map, graphs and cartoons are commonly found and they can be used in teaching-learning situation. Most of modern materials such as television, projector and multimedia are not always available for one reason or the other in most Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) schools. It is in the midst of these inconsistencies and differences that instructional materials have to be sourced, produced or designed or improvised by the schools, teachers and pupils as well as community to cater for their classroom instructions effectively. The findings of this paper reveals, among others, that the public cries of mass failure of pupils in academic works in schools is an evident manifestation of unsuccessful management and non-realization of objectives of teaching and learning which can be attributed to some factors as personality of care-givers, learners’ characteristics, non-provision or non-availability of an effective use of instructional materials. Again, the unique role of care-givers in the provision of instructional materials is an integral part of teaching and learning in classroom situation which cannot be over emphasized. This implies that the method of teaching will be grossly incomplete where instructional materials are left out. In order to enhance robust teaching-learning process with consequent excellent results in ECCE, the study recommends, inter alia, that teachers should be resourceful and committed to their duty, which can help them, be creative and innovative. They should learn to have positive attitude to teaching-learning process. They can realize this by adequately preparing their lesson plan, produce or improvise the instructional materials and dispensing their lessons effectively.