The Learning Resource

Center
"Teaching materials" is a generic term used to describe the resources
teachers use to deliver instruction. Teaching materials can support
student learning and increase student success. Ideally, the teaching
materials will be tailored to the content in which they're being used, to
the students in whose class they are being used, and the teacher.
Teaching materials come in many shapes and sizes, but they all have
in common the ability to support student learning.
Examples
Teaching materials can refer to a number of teacher resources; however, the term usually refers to
concrete examples, such as worksheets or manipulatives (learning tools or games that students can
handle to help them gain and practice facility with new knowledge -- e.g. counting blocks). Teaching
materials are different from teaching "resources," the latter including more theoretical and intangible
elements, such as essays or support from other educators, or places to find teaching materials.
Student Learning Support
Learning materials are important because they can significantly increase student achievement by
supporting student learning. For example, a worksheet may provide a student with important opportunities
to practice a new skill gained in class. This process aids in the learning process by allowing the student to
explore the knowledge independently as well as providing repetition. Learning materials, regardless of
what kind, all have some function in student learning.
Lesson Structure
Learning materials can also add important structure to lesson planning and the delivery of instruction.
Particularly in lower grades, learning materials act as a guide for both the teacher and student. They can
provide a valuable routine. For instance, if you are a language arts teacher and you teach new vocabulary
words every Tuesday, knowing that you have a vocabulary game to provide the students with practice
regarding the new words will both take pressure off of you and provide important practice (and fun) for
your students.
Differentiation of Instruction
In addition to supporting learning more generally, learning materials can assist teachers in an important
professional duty: the differentiation of instruction. Differentiation of instruction is the tailoring of lessons
and instruction to the different learning styles and capacities within your classroom. Learning materials
such as worksheets, group activity instructions, games, or homework assignments all allow you to modify
assignments to best activate each individual student's learning style.
Acquiring Teaching Materials
Getting your hands on valuable teaching materials is not nearly as difficult as it can seem at first. The
Internet has many resources for teachers, most of them free, that can significantly increase the contents
of your teaching toolbox. You can also make your own materials. Every learning material you develop will
be an asset to you when you next teach a similar unit. An investment of time or money in good teaching
materials is an investment in good teaching.
Source:http://www.ehow.com/
Interactive Bulletin Board Displays with Students
In addition to adding color to a classroom, defining classroom goals and policies, and
showcasing student work, bulletin boards can be interactive teaching tools. Bulletin boards can
be “another teacher” in your classroom. Bulletin boards that change periodically to reflect new
lessons help visual learners better understand new material, reinforce new words and concepts,
and challenge students to participate in new ways.

Using Bulletin Boards to

Teach
Bulletin boards can be education tools as well as colorful decorations. Teachers can use bulletin
boards to teach math, language arts, geography, and other disciplines. Bulletin boards can
introduce new topics and generate student interest. A bulletin board with dinosaur bones, for
example, can introduce a unit on dinosaurs. Students assemble the bones into the skeleton of a
dinosaur, either on their own or step-by-step, adding a bone as they complete another activity so
that the skeleton emerges piece by piece. A math bulletin board might give the answer to a
problem and challenge students to create all the problems they can think of with that answer.

Bulletin boards are also self-teaching tools for students. Teachers design learning activities using
the boards and movable parts affixed to them and students can move from board to board during
free or quiet time to complete the activity. Students can add their own literary compositions to
blank bulletin boards or respond to prompts given by the teacher. Students can also voice their
opinions on bulletin boards, voting on favorite books and recommending reading material to
others.

Bulletin boards used as word walls can be powerful vocabulary-building tools. As students are
exposed to new vocabulary, key vocabulary words are added gradually to the wall. Teachers
facilitate review activities to practice the new words. Activities that allow students to interact
with the word wall, such as those that involve moving the words to different categories or
locations on the wall, help students understand and retain the new vocabulary.

 Using Bulletin Boards: This site explains how bulletin boards can be used for different
purposes
 Rethinking the Bulletin Board: How to use bulletin boards to teach.
 Word Walls: How to create and use a word wall with your students.

Interactive Bulletin Boards

Bulletin boards that challenge students to interact with them can engage them in the learning
process more effectively than static display bulletin boards. Static bulletin boards can become
simply part of the classroom décor after a few weeks, while interactive bulletin boards that
change according to topical lesson plans can hold student interest and help different kinds of
learners assimilate the new material in their own way and at their own pace. By allowing
students to help create bulletin boards and to interact with them, students take ownership of the
classroom and of their own learning experience. Students are challenged to be active learners and
to actively seek out new information, to create new artwork, or to achieve higher grades that will
be displayed on the boards.

Students can respond to prompts issued by the teacher to help create the boards. For example,
students can bring in or draw pictures of words that begin with a certain letter, or items of a
certain color, and post them to the board. The teacher can then prompt students to rearrange the
material according to new categories. For example, items that begin with the letter “D” can then
be rearranged by categories such as “animals”, “things”, and “people”. Bulletin boards can be
self-quizzes that students help create. Students can be the “experts” on part of a topic or book
and create questions or clues that are posted on the bulletin board. After providing time for
students to research the answers, the original posters place their answers underneath the
questions. Students then move from board to board to lift the flaps and grade their quizzes.

 Interactive Concepts: Details the different levels of interaction possible with bulletin
boards.
 Making Interactive Bulletin Boards: Examples of what interactive bulletin boards are and
how students interact with them.

Creating Bulletin Boards

with Students
Students can interact with bulletin boards by helping to create them or to provide their content.
Students can create bulletin boards by working together to create small pieces of a larger project
and piecing them together to form a completed whole. Students can work together to make a map
of a region under study, filling in mountains, rivers, cities, indigenous groups, and other features
as they are discussed in class. Students can work together to create great works of art
by painting, drawing, or making a collage of a section of a famous work of art that will then be
pieced together with other student works to create the larger finished masterpiece. Building a
castle or house, a nature or farm scene, or “building” an animal lets students take the lead in
learning about a new topic and giving them a finished product to display, which helps them take
ownership of their learning experience.

Students can also provide the content of bulletin boards. Reader’s choice bulletin boards allow
students to recommend favorite books and voting bulletin boards let students voice their opinions
on books, movies, or artwork. Students write and post questions about their reading material or
the current lesson to question bulletin boards and other students can discuss and post answers.

Interacting with bulletin boards after their creation is important to reinforce learning. Simple
review activities led by the teacher, such as question and answer games, can keep student
attention focused on the board and help cement new concepts. Answer quests, in which students
must move from board to board to find the answers to questions, can also help review material.
Moving the pieces of the bulletin boards to categorize the information differently, such as
moving the animals in a farm scene into groups according to color or size, can keep the material
fresh.

 Creating Bulletin Boards: How interactive bulletin boards work and how to involve
students. Site includes examples of interactive bulletin boards with explanations of how
to implement them.
 Interactive Bulletin Boards: Interactive bulletin board examples and explanations of how
students get involved in their creation.

Interactive Bulletin Board

Ideas
 Middle School Math: Bulletin board examples for middle to early high school
mathematics, including information on how to create the board and how to use it
interactively with students.
 K-8 Mathematics: Interactive bulletin board ideas and instructions for kindergarten
through eighth grade mathematics.
 Kindergarten Bulletin Boards: Interactive bulletin board ideas on a variety of subjects for
kindergarten teachers.
 Elementary Ideas: Bulletin board ideas to get everyone involved. Suitable for early
elementary school.
 Elementary Bulletin Boards: Interactive bulletin board ideas for elementary school
classrooms. Site also includes math and language arts bulletin board ideas.
 Library Bulletin Boards: Bulletin board ideas for library science, many challenge students
to read more books.
 Reading Bulletin Boards: Interactive ideas to get students more involved in reading.
Suitable for later elementary and middle school.
 Word Walls: Word walls can be used as bulletin boards. These walls help students learn
vocabulary and spelling.
 Concept Question Board: This bulletin board challenges students to engage material
outside the classroom.
 Multiplication Table Bulletin Board: A bulletin board idea to help students learn
multiplication tables.
 Dinosaur Bulletin Board: An interactive bulletin board about dinosaurs integrated into a
multi-day lesson plan about dinosaurs. Suitable for early elementary school students.
 Bulletin Board Baseball: Uses a bulletin board decorated as a baseball diamond to help
students solve math problems.
 Butterfly Bulletin Board: How to create an interactive bulletin board on butterfly
anatomy, integrated within a larger lesson plan. Can be adapted for other animals.
 Native American Bulletin Board: An interactive bulletin board integrated into a larger
lesson on Native Americans.
USING POWERPOINT IN THE CLASSROOM
As technology enters the classroom more and more each year, there are always new innovations being
brought into the fold that can help teachers to get their points across better, and help students learn more
efficiently. One such tool that has been utilized in the classroom for some time now and continues to be
used heavily is the Microsoft PowerPoint program.

This program is one that enables teachers and students alike to prepare presentations. When used
effectively, PowerPoint can really enhance teacher presentations and the overall comprehension of
students. It is a program that allows teachers to present their lessons in a more dynamic way than simply
lecturing and writing on the blackboard.

PowerPoint has become very popular because it's easy to learn and widely available. It provides the
ability to equip your presentations with different types of media - including images, sounds, animations,
and much more. This enhances the students' abilities to retain what they're being taught, especially those
who are visual learners. Teachers can focus on the class and interacting with the students instead of
writing on a board, because the text and the entire presentation is already there in the form of a
PowerPoint file.

PowerPoint is not just for the teachers though, another way to use PowerPoint in an educational setting is
to have the students create their own presentations. This is a great way to teach them how to use visual
aids while working on their presentation and public speaking abilities.

However, it is also important to note that when used incorrectly, PowerPoint presentations can actually be
less effective than regular, old-fashioned teaching methods. Mistakes can be made not only in the way
that the presentation is made, but in the way it is presented as well. One common mistake teachers make
is that they simply reading the slides to students word-for-word, which is terribly boring to watch, and
won’t keep their attention or enhance the learning experience in any way. Not using PowerPoint
effectively can render your presentations PowerPoint-less.

Here are some great websites and online resources that can give educators great tips on how to use
PowerPoint in the classroom effectively and continue to expand the role of presentations in keeping
classroom lectures interesting.
  Investintech PowerPoint Templates - One of Investintech’s own pages where you can
download excellent and completely free PowerPoint templates.
 The Dos and Don’ts of PowerPoint – This is a fantastic guide for teachers who are looking for
expert advice on what to strive for and what to avoid when trying to teach with PowerPoint.
 PowerPoint in the Classroom – A very in-depth resource on using PowerPoint in the classroom
with tips, tricks, tutorials, free templates and much more.
 Slideshare’s “PowerPoint for Teachers” – Here is a great Slideshare presentation created to
give tips to teachers on how to use PowerPoint effectively.
 PowerPoint Lessons and Tips for Teaching and Learning – This site is another great and
very expansive resource for getting a lot of information on using PowerPoint in the classroom.
There are some great ideas featured here on presentations for teachers and for students.
 Tips for Designing and Delivering PowerPoint Presentations – If you know how you are
going to use PowerPoint in class, but want tips on how to create the best possible presentations
and present them with conviction, this is a great site to visit.
 Scoring PowerPoints – if you are assigning students work by making them create PowerPoint
presentations, this is an excellent guide to grading student presentations and encouraging quality
work.
 ProTeacher PowerPoint Ideas – You will find a great list of possible PowerPoint projects for the
classroom – written for teachers by teachers.
 Brainy Betty – Here you can freely download not only backgrounds and templates, but videos,
fonts and much more.

These are all fantastic websites that offer users thousands upon thousands of free PowerPoint templates
and backgrounds, so you can have great looking presentations without having to spend time on designing
them yourself.

 Free PowerPoint Templates and Backgrounds

 100 Percent Free PowerPoint Templates
 PowerPoint Templates Courtesy of Microsoft