If you’re a teacher, it’s likely you’ve had a student that requires educational books to read more help, is more challenging, or doesn’t learn in traditional methods. In order to help that student learn, you should try using teaching aids. Also called educational aids, they can help students understand the same information in different ways.
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Visual Aids
A common use of educational aids is visual aids. Students who use visual aids learn faster than those who don’t. Examples of visual aids include anything that a student can see. This can be graphics, charts, or diagrams. Visual aids help students develop their understanding of their world from a visual perspective.
Audio Aids
Another common type of aid is audio. Audio aids help students develop their listening and communication skills. Listening to the radio, a tape recorder, or even via teleconferencing can help students learn. If you teach history, you could also use a gramophone to help explain how life changed over the years. Radio is probably the most commonly used audio aid because it is readily available. There are radio stations for almost anything. As a teacher, you can teach current or world events using radio, but you can also teach new languages. Many radio stations today are dedicated to music from other languages. Listening to songs in these languages can help students to learn new languages faster.
Audio-Visual Aids
While there are visual aids and audio aids, the most popular aid is audio-visual. These aids combine both audio and visual aspects. Examples of such aids are videos and computers. Both use visual screens and pictures as well as words to explain what is happening. Audio-visual aids are ideal for getting across complicated ideas. Science classes commonly use videos to help students understand concepts like evolution, water tables, and the water cycle.
As a teacher, it’s important to use every resource you have to help your students learn. Next time you have a student that is having difficulty picking up a concept, try a different aid and see if that helps.
