maps, wall charts, flip charts, flash cards, scientific models, kits and toysto support teaching and

learning activities at school.

Characteristics of Good Teaching Aids

A few characteristics of good teaching aids are as follows :1) Teaching aids are large enough to be seen by the students for whom they are used. 2) Teaching aids are meaningful and they always stand to serve a useful purpose. 3) Teaching aids are upto the mark and upto date in every respect. 4) Teaching aids are simple , cheap and may be improvised. 5) Teaching aids are accurate and realistic. 6) Teaching aids are according to the mental level of the learners. 7) Their purpose may be informative but it is not just entertainment. 8) Teaching aids helps in realization of stipulated learning objects. 9) Teaching aids are really very useful and can be used in many lessons and at different class levels. 10) Teaching aids are useful for supplementing the teaching process but they cannot replace the teacher.

Advantages of Teaching Aids

1) Supplement in verbal instructions. 2) Teaching aids makes learning permanent. 3) Teaching aids provide variety. 4) Teaching aids are helpful in attracting attention of the students. 5) Teaching aids saves time and energy. 6) Teaching aids encourages the healthy classroom interaction. 7) Teaching aids helps the teacher to create situations for teaching the beginners. 8) Teaching aids are helpful in creating positive environment for discipline. 9) Teaching aids are helpful in meeting individual differences. 10) Teaching aids helps in providing speech training to the pupils. 11) Teaching aids enable the children to retain language items for a longer time. 12) Teaching aids gives vividness to the learning situation. 13) Teaching aids makes the abstract ideas concrete and thus help in making learning more effective. 14) Teaching aids provide good substitutes for the real objects as they make learning equally meaningful.

15) Teaching aids help in the development of various skills such as, how to draw a diagram of the topic among the students.

How to Use Teaching Aids ?

1) Teaching aids should be simple and brief. 2) Teaching aids should be related to the objectives of teaching. 3) Teaching aids should be big door to be seen by all the students. 4) Teacher must use proper teaching aids according to the interest of the student. 5) Teaching aids should be prepared and planned in advance. 6) Teaching aids should be properly selected according to the physical and mental level of the student. 7) Teaching aids should be colorful and should have direct impact on the lesson. 8) Teaching aids should be meaningful and interesting.

Where to Use Teaching Aids ?

1) When the subject is for remove in time. 2) Where the subject is too far , distance to be actually seen. 3) Where the subject is too small to be seen by the whole class. 4) Where the subject is too big to be bought in the class. 5) Where the growth of the process is slow.

Why tcing aids importnt Reading Comprehension

As students are reading less and less on their own, teachers are finding reading comprehension skills very low among todays students. Teaching aids are helping teachers to close the gap and hone the reading comprehension skills of their students. Using magazine and newspaper articles, prints ads and even comic books are viable teaching aids that assist in helping students comprehend text.

Reinforcing a Skill or Concept

Teaching aids prove to be a formidable supplement for teachers when the reinforcement of a skill or concept is necessary. Not only do they allow students more time to practice, but they also present the information in a way which offers students a different way to engage with the material. Of course, this is important in order to reach the various learning types in the class.

Differentiating Instruction
As previously mentioned, it is important for teachers to reach all learners in a classroom. Therefore, the use of teaching aids facilitates this objective by assisting teachers in differentiating instruction. Using aids such as graphs, charts, flashcards, videos, and SmartBoards provides learners with visual stimulation and the opportunity to access the content from a different vantage point. This gives each learner the opportunity to interact with the content in a way which allows them to comprehend more easily.

Relieving Boredom
Teaching aids help to make the learning environment interesting and engaging. As we move toward a more digital society, kids are being exposed to technology and digital devices at a younger age. Video games and iPods are now whats exciting to students, so when they come to school they have little patience for lecture style teaching. Students are seeking constant excitement and simply have no tolerance for boredom. Teaching aids are improving the quality of education in todays sch ools while also providing students with the sense of excitement they desire.

Teaching Aids Are Gaining Momentum

Teaching aids are becoming the norm in the classroom. As traditional classrooms with blackboard and chalk become a thing of the past, and smart classrooms become the norm, teaching aids are growing in popularity and advancement. Blackboards are being replaced with white and smart boards. TVs are being replaced with LCD projectors and screens. And educators are becoming more focused on students growing with technology and integrating it into the curriculum. Students are making podcasts, videos and even creating webquests All of which are sound teaching aids to incorporate into the classroom.

There are a number of advantages to using institutionally derived or teacher derived materials for a course:

Relevance: Materials can be produced that are directly relevant to students and institutional needs and that reflect local content, issues, and concerns. Develop expertise: Developing materials can help develop expertise among staff, giving them a greater understanding of the characteristics of effective materials. Reputation: Institutionally prepared materials may enhance the reputation of the institution by demonstrating its commitment to providing materials specifically for its students. Flexibility: Materials produced within the institution can be revised or adapted as needed, giving them greater flexibility than a commercial course book.

However there are also potential disadvantages:

Cost: Quality materials take time to produce and adequate staff time as well as resources need to be allocated. Quality: Teacher-made materials will not normally have the same standard of design and production as commercial materials and hence may not present the same image as commercial materials. Training: To prepare teachers for materials writing projects, adequate training is necessary. Materials writing is a specialized skill and not all teachers area capable of writing good materials.

What Are the Different Types of Teaching Aids?

Students can become bored sitting in a classroom for hours. Teaching aids can provide a welcome break for students who have been sitting for awhile and listening to an instructor lecture in front of the room. Educators can use various teaching aids besides textbooks to pique students interest and demonstrate how things work. Visual aids, such as whiteboards or chalkboards, charts, maps, flash cards, and calendars are commonly used. Presentation tools. such as bulletin boards, audiovisual equipment, and overhead projectors are also utilized frequently along with multimedia displays and computers. Flash cards are an effective way to teach various subjects. These popular teaching aids are available for many fields, such as spelling, geography, and arithmetic, and the teacher or parent can also create customized flash cards geared toward a specific subject or child. Children who are visual learners will receive the most benefit from the use of flash cards, but auditory learners will also benefit if the information presented on the cards is read aloud. A pointer is a teaching aid used in many classrooms. It is used to point out items such as words written on a chalkboard or features on a map. The traditional pointer is a long, skinny wand. Laser pointers, which are used to shine a beam of light on the feature the instructor wants to highlight, are becoming more common. The lights in laser pointers are available in different colors, and some can even display various designs such as flowers, butterflies, and animals. Ad Computers have become popular teaching aids, but overhead projectors still have a place in the classroom. A transparency is placed on the glass and the information on the transparency is projected onto a screen. An instructor can write the information directly onto the transparency. The transparency can also be fed into a laser printer so that information can be transferred onto the transparency from a computer. Some teaching aids are aimed at a specific subject. For example, driving simulators have been developed for use in drivers education classes. The student sits in a module that has a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, and brake pedal and watches a movie from the perspective of a driver. He or she reacts to events taking place on the screen by pressing the accelerator or brake and turning the steering wheel. The driving simulator records all of the students actions for the teacher to review with the student afterward.

How many types of teaching aids are used in modern age of teaching?
VARSHA SEN

Teaching Aids Used in Teaching: The teaching aids used in the teaching can be classified into the following ways: (a) Traditional Aids: Blackboard/chalkboard, books, periodicals. (b) Visual Aids: Objects, picture, map, figure, chart, posters, model, bulletin board, flannel board, globe, graph or any other type of graphics such as| diagrams, cut-outs, cartoons, etc. (c) Mechanical Aids: (i) Audio: Radio, tape recorder, teaching machine. (ii)Visual: Projector, epidiascope, film strips, motion picture, etc. (iii) Audio-Visual: Films, television, video, cassettes, etc. Visual Material Aids: Use of Chart: The most commonly used types of charts include outline charts, tabular charts, flow charts and organization charts. Flip charts and flow charts are also being used. Purposes of Charts: Charts serve the following purpose: 1. For showing relationship by means of facts, figures and statistics. 2. For presenting materials symbolically. 3. For summarizing information. 4. For showing continuity in process. 5. For presenting abstract ideas in visual form. 6. For showing development of structure. 7. For creating problems and stimulating thinking. 8. For encouraging utilization of other media of communication. 9. For motivating the students. Use of Globe: Knowledge of map is unreal without the knowledge of globe - the true map. It is the true representative of earth's physical personality. A globe gives a true idea of the total environment at a glance in a classroom situation. It is through globe that a child can understand the concepts of time, space, wind's planetary relations and proportion. Hence, every school shall have globes. Four types of globes may be kept in every school: (1) Political globes (2) Physical globes (3) Washable projection globes (4) Celestial globes Use of Overhead Projector (OHP):

Overhead projector is a device that can project a chart, a diagram, a map, a table or for that matter, anything written on transparent plates, upon a screen on the white wall before students in a class. This makes teaching illuminative, illustrative and impressive. It also saves a great deal of the teacher's time used in drawing or writing. These transparencies can also be preserved by the teacher for future display while facing up the same topic. It is very simple to prepare such transparencies. All that a teacher has to do is to draw or write, as the case may be, upon transparent plates with any dark ink with a fibre tipped pen. Any material meant for display before the class while teaching can also be typed on such transparencies using a good carbon paper. In case transparencies are to be washed out for use, washable water colour can also be used for writing on the transparencies. Use of Puppets: Puppetry is one of the old and popular arts in India. The use of puppets has been very popular in China, Egypt, Greece and Japan. Puppets can serve as an effective aid to learning. They can be made to illustrate lessons in civics, geography, history and hygiene. Puppets throw a lot of light in an interesting way on the life of historical personages if they are accompanied by effective narration. There should be plenty of dancing and music in the display of puppetry. While presenting puppet programmes, the age and tastes of the pupils should be duly considered. A short puppet play is always preferable to a long play. Puppets are of three types: (i) Hand puppets which fit in the hand like a glove and are operated from below by fingers. (ii) Rod puppets which are operated from below the stage by a combination of rods and springs. (iii) Marionettes or string puppets which are figures with moving limbs. These are operated from the above by means of strings.