Character of Classroom Media as a Catalyst for Effective Teaching

Abstract

Empirical evidence points to the fact that students who perform well interact more with educational media in their environments. Provision of both conventional and traditional media facilitates balanced learning and therefore better school achievement. Over emphasis on one form of media and general neglect to other forms of media in the classroom leads to top sided learning media in the classroom forms an integral part of the learning process. Multisensory approach in teaching and learning therefore ensures that individual differences that exist in the learning in the learning environment are considered and catered for. It’s against this background that this paper set out to provide an analysis of the salient features of classroom media. Character of classroom media play a pivot role in the overall success of instruction. The paper interrogates the type of classroom media with specific experiences drawn from the Kenya education system. It therefore examines the legal foundation that buttress the selection, the distribution and use of media in schools. The paper identifies cost effectiveness, accessibility, relevance as the main characteristics that defines suitable media for use in the classroom. The paper equally examines the major experienced impediments for the selected media to acquire the character as envisaged by the classroom teacher. Such obstacles include but not limited to mismatch in knowledge and skill, infrastructural inadequacies, frequent policy shifts in media production, distribution and use in schools. The paper therefore concludes that no one media is special in all learning environments. Reflection is key in selection and use of media to take care of diverse environmental conditions for effective learning. More importantly, media selected ought to reflect the fast changing technological for learners to acquire right knowledge skills to remain relevant and have a competitive niche locally and on global labour market.