The selection and integration of instructional media for the teaching of history

Abstract

With the new technological advances on the eve of the end of the 19th century, a multitude of intrinsic and extrinsic instructional media became available to both teachers and pupils. For effective use of the available instructional media it became increasingly necessary to become both audio and visually literate in order to interpret and understand messages from audio-visual materials/instructional media. This, however, confronted teachers with the urge to become more acquainted with the ways of how to address media selection and integration in a proper way. History as a subject taught at school lends itself to the application of instructional media in a variety of forms. Since the selection of the appropriate or the available media for the teach• ing situation is no easy task, a literature study was undertaken with the purpose of identifying factors that become apparent from media selection models and that need to be considered when instructional media are selected for the teaching of history. Apart from the prob• lem of the lack of an instructional media selection model designed specifically for history teaching, it was possible to propose suitable guidelines based on research findings for the selection of instructional media for history teaching. As far as the empirical research contained in chapter three is concerned, a questionnaire has been developed to determine to what extent history teachers in the present school situation use instructional media, and whether the media available is used effectively. A random sample of fifty (50) schools in the northern region of the Free State was used. Teachers with three years or more experience were asked to complete the questionnaire. An evaluation of the situation was created from the results. One of the most important findings was that a limited number of teachers received training in the effective use of instructional media, or in instructional media science. It appears that the choice of instructional media is considered no easy task by them. Chapter four is devoted to the practical application of instructional media in the teaching of history at the junior secondary level. There lessons have been prepared according to the model that has been developed in this project, which contain aspects of the new outcomes based on education. During the process a selection of media has also been made, ranging from what would be applicable in a school that is fairly adequately equipped with media, to schools that are only partially equipped with media. The study is concluded with a synthesis of all the findings as set out in chapters one through four, where the applicable guidelines for the teaching of history are confirmed.