Importance and Role of the AV Aids and Library

Discuss the importance and role of the AV aids and library.                                   

 

Course: Educational Leadership and Management

Course Code  8605

Level: B.Ed Solved Assignment

ANSWER 

Audio-Visual Aids

An outstanding development in modern education is the increased use of supplementary devices by which the teacher through the use of more than one sensory channel helps to clarify, establish, and correlate accuracy, concepts, interpretations, and appreciation; increases knowledge; rouses, interest and even evokes worthy emotions and enriches the imagination of children.

Learning takes place at three levels-direct experiencing, vicarious experiencing, and symbolic experiencing. Thus, audio-visual materials are quite helpful in instruction. They supply a concrete basis for conceptual thinking; they give rise to meaningful concepts to words enriched by meaningful associations. Researchers have also recommended that in education we should appeal to the mind chiefly through the visual and auditory sense organs since 85 % of our learning may be absorbed through these,

i)  The Value of Audio-Visual Aids to Learning

Audio-visual aids are potent starters and motivators:

 When the child finds learning made easy, interesting, and joyful with the help of sensory he feels motivated. He 'cannot but attend to an interesting procedure going on before him. Direct, concrete, contrived,  dramatized experiences add zest, interest, and vitality to any training situation. As a  result, they enable students to learn faster,  remember longer, gain more accurate information, and receive and understand delicate concepts and meanings. Thus, learning becomes meaningful, enjoyable and effective.

ii)  Audio-visual aids give variety to classroom techniques:

They generally represent a rest from the traditional 'activities of the school. While using them, the child feels like experiencing something different. Variety is always attractive to the child as well as to the adult. Audio-visual aids provide a change in the atmosphere of the classroom. They allow some freedom from the formal instruction of the traditional type. While using sensory aids, the pupils may move about, talk, laugh, question, and comment upon, and in other ways act naturally as they used to do outside the classroom.

The attitude of the teacher should also be very friendly and cooperative. In this way, schoolwork is motivated when;  pupils work because they want to do it and not because the teacher wants them to do it.

iii)  Many of these aids provide the child with opportunities to handle and manipulate: 

opportunity to touch, feel, handle, or operate a model, specimen, picture, or map; pressing a button or turning a crank gives an added appeal because it satisfies, temporarily at least, the natural desire for mastery and ownership.

iv)  Audio-visual aids supply the context for sound and skillful generalizing:

Books lack the specificity, the warmth,  indeed some of the unutterable poignancy of concrete experiences. Through direct, purposeful, first-hand experiences and semi-concrete audio-visual experiences, we can supply the context for sound and skillful generalizing.

v)  Audio-visual aids educate children for life in this modern complex world:

There was a time when life was very simple-children learned through direct experiences the rudiments of knowledge. But ours is a complex world. We live in a pushbutton age when comfort has a terrific appeal, but there is no easy road to learning. There is no magic osmosis; effective learning is still the old-fashioned formula of nine-tenth perspiration and one-tenth inspiration. Naturally,  therefore,  more must be done to determine how teaching is accomplished easily and speedily. More is needed today than before.

vi)  Audio-visual aids can play a major role in promoting understanding: 

These aids can bring about mutual understanding and appreciation of cultural values and ways of living among the different nations of the world. Enlightened and sympathetic attitudes can be developed among school children through this media. Films and radio programs can be exchanged among different  countries. Colored slides on works of different countries lead to mutual appreciation of Eastern and Western cultural values.

To conclude in the words of Mckow and Roberts, “Audio-visual aids, wisely selected and intelligently used, amuse and develop intense and beneficial interest and so motivate to the pupil' learning. This properly motivated learning means improved attitudes, permanency of impressions, and rich experience and ultimately more wholesome living”

 

The Library

The importance of a library in a school is being realized now. The work of the school is to give the student knowledge of necessary things and to bring about such an all-round development of the student that he can lead a successful life. The Span of a man's life is not so big that he can learn everything through practical experiences. We can learn from the various experiences gained and accumulated by our ancestors. These 'experiences have been recorded in various books so that they may not perish. Man saves a lot of his own time with the help of the vast store of wisdom and experience accumulated by his forefathers and handed over to him as a legacy.  Knowledge of these experiences facilitates his work of acquiring new knowledge. Hence a library is a necessity (or a school and sufficient attention should be directed towards its proper organization, utilization, and development.

i.  Utility of the Library

Students cannot acquire knowledge only through textbooks or classroom lectures. They should refer to other books also, for then only will their knowledge widen. The best thing would be that a teacher should create an interest in each student in his subject and give the names of important hooks for reference. In this way, the students will learn to acquire knowledge themselves. The teacher should try to inculcate in the students varied interests that cannot be fulfilled only through class lectures or textbooks.

The library is of great help in the fulfillment of their wishes, ambitions, and inclinations, for it provides ample opportunities for acquiring knowledge. The knowledge gained through the class lectures of teachers may be easily forgotten after some time but that which the student acquires himself through self-study will be remembered by him even after leaving the school.

 

Students have different tests at different stages of life and when he can read he likes to read books according to his need and taste. The entire environment of the school contributes towards education and the library is of great help in creating a suitable environment for education. The library may help develop different tastes in the students. After reading one book the desire for another is created, thus a reading habit is formed.

The library does the work of a teacher for the students, It would not be wrong to say that the defects of classroom teaching can be rectified to a great extent through the library because the teacher cannot teach from the point of view of the interests of every student not can he develop his various interests fully. This is only possible through the library. The teacher should encourage students to read books according to their interests.

ii.  Organization of the Library

The aims of a library may be fulfilled only when it is well organized and the selection of books is made properly. The following things should be considered while organizing the library:

1.  The aim of the library is to enlarge and consolidate the knowledge acquired in the classroom.

2.  In a library there should be books according to the age, ability, and interests of the students.

3.  A library should help build up a suitable environment in the school. For this, there should be a reading room in the library where the students may sit and read.

4.  A library should help develop the knowledge and intelligence of students.

5.  The library should help enlarge the knowledge and help the work of both the students and the teachers.

The utility of a library depends upon its proper organization, which includes the distribution of books, their arrangement the situation of the library, etc. A library may be properly utilized only when all this is done. It should not be situated, in such a place, where the atmosphere is not peaceful. For this, it should be remembered that it is not situated near the lower classes. In schools, having doubles storied buildings; the library should be on the second floor.

Sufficient sitting places for the students should be provided. The room should be large enough to accommodate at least 15 percent of the students of the school. The yearly and monthly publications should be so arranged that the students might take them out to read as they wish and then replace them. The librarian should be able to give information about the books asked for by the students.

At present a library is not properly utilized in most of the schools. The library exists only in name and the students cannot easily get books from there. Books from these libraries are purchased without any reference to the interests abilities and standards of students. The principal does not even know what type of books is there in the school. Besides, in most of the school, the librarian is appointed from amongst the teachers and he has to teach also. If he is busy in teaching, how can lie take sufficient interest in the library'? He does not pay any attention to the proper management of the library and tries to limit the number of books taken by the students as far as possible. Such a library is quite useless. No taste for self-study can be developed in the students through such a library. Hence it is necessary to introduce reforms in school libraries.

It will be better if an experienced or trained person is appointed as a Librarian. If this is not possible, an interested teacher should be entrusted with this work. The teacher who is given this responsibility should get some consideration concerning the teaching load. Besides, it teacher-librarian should be given some extra payment in proportion to the work to be done.  This teacher should have all the necessary information concerning the various subjects and books. The books should be arranged in such a manner that the student himself may know what books he should read on a particular subject. This will be possible if the books are arranged according to classes and subjects, but this can be done easily only if the teachers of particular subjects also realize their responsibility. The teacher in a particular subject should assist in the arrangement of books. Apart from this the method of issuing books should be easier. If the assistance of some students in the class is taken, probably this job will be facilitated and the students will also get an opportunity to learn the ways of management and gain information about books.

Students of higher class can derive great benefit if the books are arranged according to subjects. The teachers of these subjects should inform the students about the books on the subject and encourage the students to read them. The distribution and issue of books should be done properly. There should be a rule of keeping a hook for a fixed period, for then only will the students get equal opportunities.

iii.  Class Library

There should be a central library in the school, but besides this, if there are class libraries, it will be easier for the students to get books from them. The class teacher is familiar with all the students in the class and he can guide the students about the books suitable for them. In the class-library books should be selected according to the abilities and interests of the students in the class.  Class libraries enable the students to get books easily and to avoid a waste of time.  Besides, the teacher by telling about different books helps to develop the student's varied interests. Class libraries will prove very useful for lower classes because at this stage the students are not of the age to have a complete knowledge of different subjects nor do they have any interest in this. Besides, in lower classes onIN1 the class-teachers can tell the students which books on different subjects are suitable for them. In the class library, the students should be given the facility of choosing the books for themselves.

Some students get books issued from the library but they often return them unread. Hence the teacher should find out whether the student has read the book or not. It will be good if a record is maintained showing the number of books a student reads during the year. All the hooks, that a student reads, should be listed on a page: which should also indicate the date of issue and return. Thus the teacher will be able to create a taste for reading in that student who does not have such a taste. The teacher should also see that the home task assigned by them should be as may require the student to read books from the library.

The student should have such notebooks in which they may note down the titles of the books they read summary of the book as also their own ideas about the same. The student should be provided with an opportunity to discuss in the class the books they have read. A student who properly reads the largest number of books in the year should be rewarded. The students must make a summary of the books read because if the important facts are not noted down they will soon be forgotten. It is necessary for the teacher;] to have knowledge of those books, that the students read, then only he will be able to understand the viewpoint of the students and participate in the discussion with them.

iv)  Classification and Arrangement of Books

The books in the library should be properly arranged and classified as they have as great an importance as the library itself. The importance does not consist in storing a large number of books as in having suitable hooks in a proper order. In this connection, attention should be directed towards the utility of books. For this, the teachers must consider the contest of the hooks. These books should be according to the capacity and ability of the student can understand a hook he feels encouraged to read other books as well.

The significance of a library does not lie in possessing such books of great authors, that the student cannot understand, but in the collection of such books, which the students of different levels can fully utilize. There should be more than one copy of the books, which are useful from the point of view of the students. It is found in some schools that the teachers who are preparing for some examination get those books for the library, which they need and which is neither up to the student nor of any use of them.  In the school library, there should not be a book for the teachers also but these should not be purchased from the funds for the books for students.

The following things should be considered in the collection of books.

1.  The books in a  library should be according to the interests, ages, and abilities of the students.

2.  At the time of collecting books it should be remembered that they should develop the knowledge of the students.

3.  The books should be such that they may be easily understood by the student and may develop in them the power of thinking and reasoning.

4.  The books should be useful to both the teachers and the students. After collecting the books these should be classified according to the subject, ability, interest, age, and class of the students in such a way that they may be utilized. The librarian should, with the help of other teachers in different subjects and classes, write down separately in a register the names of books on the different subjects and for different classes.  In this way, the students will easily know the names of necessary books and get them without difficulty. Thus they will also be able to make* full use of the hooks. At present our students cannot make full use of the school library. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, the library is not well organized and the books are not classified and arranged properly. Secondly, the students do not have any taste for reading books nor do they adopt the proper method of reading. It is necessary in the interest of the students to remove all these defects.

The principal should purchase the necessary hooks for the library because the library will prove useful only when its stock of hooks increases. It will be better if the schools earmark an amount for the library and do not decrease it in any way. The next question is how to decide how the arc of the hook is to be ordered. For this, the principal should form a committee of teachers, the librarian, and a few students. In this way, full attention can be directed towards enriching the library.

v)  Reading Room

Along with the library a reading room is also deemed necessary. There should be sufficient place for the students to sit and read in this room. There should be proper arrangements of Light and air in a library. In the reading room, there should the newspapers, magazines, etc. so that the students may read them and be updated. In the reading room a copy of the school magazine consisting of articles, stories, riddles, and jokes written by the students, others also get inspiration to write these. Only such magazines should be ordered for the reading room, which may cater to the interests of the students and help in the formation of their character.

If along with a library, there is a museum also, it will be an ideal thing.   These museums should belong to the school and articles of historical value beautiful paintings and sculptures should be stored