Improvisation And Teaching Of Basic Science

Basic Science is the subject that unifies all science subjects which includes chemistry, biology, physics and geography among others. It is the foundation for all other science subjects.

A subject of study which is devised and presented in such a way that the people gain the concept of the fundamental unity of science, the commonality of approach to problem and scientific nature are helped to gain an understanding of the roles of science in everyday life and the world in which they live. This implies that Basic Science is an approach in which the principles of science are presented to express the fundamental unity of scientific thought and to avoid premature stress on the distribution between the various aspect of science.

Teaching of Basic Science emphasizes those concepts which are common to all the aspects of science. Basic Science has its “attitude process and knowledge components”. From that the attitude component in terms of scientific and favorable attitude, process in the terms of manipulation and observation, data, analysis and hypothesis, formulation of what and the like, need to be developed.

Teaching today is an invaluable asset to every society, because no profession exists without classroom teaching. Teaching therefore can be defined as an act of transforming the cultural heritage of a society which include; knowledge, skills, customs and attitude acquired over the years by teachers to his people. Teaching therefore denote the various activities undertaken by a more experienced and more knowledgeable person in order to enable less experienced and less knowledgeable people learn.

Learning is the permanent acquisition and habitual utilization of the newly acquired knowledge or experienced. Learning must bring about permanent and ephemeral changes must be in knowledge, characters, and skills or in attitude. This implies that whatever is said to have been learned is clearly perceived, retained, built over time, can be put to work, enhance and affect behavior permanently.

For any society to be dynamic in all aspects there must be school and teachers. Again, the working sectors today rely on the output from school and the quantity of these potential workers depend strongly on the quality of the teachers and teaching.

Teaching and learning cannot achieve maximum efficiency and effectiveness without teachers proper and adequate use of instructional materials, improvised instructional materials where the real ones are not available or expensive  and other facilities which promotes effective teaching and learning. The teacher is supposed to show positive attitude towards the improvisation of instructional materials.

Improvisation  is the act of making or doing something using whatever that is available, usually because what is needed is not available. Since equipment are not usually enough there is no need for improvisation.

Therefore,  teachers are to recognize that the days are gone when only textbooks and chalkboards were the only way out during teaching and learning. This implies that teachers should improvise in the absence of real materials in line with this view. improvisation is teachers centered activity. The difficulties encountered by teachers are purchasing and improving instructional materials have had significant effect on the attitude of teachers towards Basic Science.

Teachers ought to know the procedures for designing alternative materials which can help their learners, to form a material, Picture of whatever topic they want to teach. How far this can be achieved depends    on the attitudes of the teachers.

Concept of Attitude:

The term attitude has been variously defined from different perspectives’ by researchers, educationists and behavioral psychologists. However irrespective of

the different situation under which their definitions were proffered all of them commonly agree on one point namely that attitude is a subset of human affective behavior. A critical review of some of these definitions will satisfy for derivation of the above observation.

Kuppus-warmmy (2005) sees attitude as a mental and neutral state of readiness organized through experience a mental and neutral state of readiness organized through experience exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual’s response to all objects and situations to which is related.

Thurstone (2008), see attitude as the totality of man’s inclination and feelings, prejudices or bias, conviction about any specific topic. Certain concepts in definition tactility suggest directionality as a feature of attitude such words and phrases as inclinations, feelings, ideas, threats and convictions are all indicatives of one type of experience or the other which will make man to react in favor or against a particular issue.

According to Hornby (2005), attitude can be seen as dispositional readiness to respond to certain institutions, persons or object in a consistent manner which has been learned and has become one’s typical mode of respond to certain institutions, persons or object in a consistent manner which has been learned and has become one’s typical mode of response. In other words, attitude gives some level of

consistency to our thought of objects, ideas, people as well as our feelings towards them.

Component of Attitude:

Attitude is simple expressions of how much we like or dislike various things. They represent our evaluation, preference or rejections based on the information we receive. The three components of attitude are;

• Cognitive component
• Affective component
• Behavioral component

Cognitive component of attitudes refers to the beliefs, thought and attributes that we would associate with one object. It is the opinion or belief segment of an attitude. It refers that part of attitude which is related in general knowledge of a person.

Affective component of attitude is the emotional or feelings segment of attitude is the emotional or feeling segment of attitude. It is related to the statement which affects another person. It deals with feelings or emotions that are brought to the surface about something, such as fear or hate. Example, some might have the attitude that they love all babies because they are cute or that they hate smoking because it is harmful.

Behavioral component of attitude consist of a person’s tendencies to behave in a particular way towards an object. It refers to that part of attitude which reflects the intention of a person in short or long run.

Using the above example, the behavioral attitude may be. I can’t wait to kiss the baby or we better keep those smokers out of the library e.t.c. Finally the three components are based on the information or knowledge, whereas affective component is based on the feelings.

The behavioral component reflect how the attitude affect the way we act or behave. It is helpful in understanding their complexity and the potential relationship between attitudes and behavior. In an organization, attitudes are important for their goal or objective to succeed. Each one of these example is very different from the other, and they can build upon one another to form our attitude and therefore affect how we relate to the world.

Factors affecting attitude:

Attitude as seen by leading psychologists and educators is a frame of mind in readiness to respond to stimulus in such a way that certain direction is given to behavior. It could be expressed as like or dislike towards an objects or idea.

Attitude is a state of readiness tendency to act or react in a certain manner when confronted with certain stimuli. It is learned not inherited and the surrounding environment is a strong factor to how it is formed.

There are numbers of different factors that can influence how attitude forms. Some of them are;

• Social factors
• Direct instruction
• Family
• Prejudices
• Economics status and occupations

Social factors:

It relate to how people are expected to behave in a particular role or context. Every society has people who refer to lead a harmonious life. They try to avoid unnecessary friction from conflicts with people. These people are naturally inclined to develop positive attitudes towards people and issues. These attitudes facilitate and maintain their relationship with members of positively valued group.

• Direct institution:

In general, the individual being conformist or the direction of attitude of the people it deems important. It can influence attitude formation. For example, somebody gives information about the usefulness of some fruit on the basis of this information; we can develop a position or negative attitude about that fruit.

• Family:

This is the most powerful factors in the information of attitudes. The parents or influential relative provide information about various things and these help the

individual in attitudes formation. These attitudes when formed are usually very powerful and difficult to charge.

• Prejudices:

Attitudes here involve prejudices.  A situation which an issue is prejudge without giving unbiased consideration to all the evidence. It is where one develops some attitudes on other people and objects.

• Economics status and occupations:

Economic and occupational positions also contribute to attitude formation. They determines in part, attitudes towards union and management and the belief that certain laws are ‘’good’’ or ‘’bad’’. Socio-economic background influences our present and future attitudes of an individual.

Attitudes are important in the study of social psychology because they influence the amount of attention and the type of judgment and individual may give to a specific subject. Attitude and actual behavior are not always perfectly aligned. One of the problems to be faced in assessing attitude is that very attempt at assessment may cause a change in attitude. However, there have been several attempts to assess attitude of people towards a particular situations or subject studies in the classroom for example attitude of teachers towards the teaching of Science and science related career.

Attitude may be thought as an expression of a person’s values which results from the impact of the environment, past and present acting upon the personality of individual. This appear to prove that attitude of an individual are learned and are somewhat emotional pictures of his personality.

Dwyer (2001) saw attitude as perceptions that involve feelings or biases that predisposes an individual to act in a certain way.

The meaning of improvisation of instructional materials and the methods of improvisation of instructional materials:

Improvisation involves the construction of cheap and simple alternative by the teacher or his/her nominee and the selection of commonly available materials in order to facilitate the teaching/learning process. These materials provided are locally made or sourced in order to attain the stated objectives. Inherent in the improvisation process is the keen sense of creativity, resource.

Improvisation is also the act of providing something from whatever materials that is at hand and it is done in the absence of the real or exact material, improvisation is the process of devising an alternative equivalent of something, which incidentally is not available for use in other to carry out an intended activity without interruption.

Improvisation Is the sensory experience given to learners as alternatives to the ideal objects, topics and events aimed at effective teaching and learning. It could be event, object, topic or idea.

Furthermore, Improvisation is the process of making equipment and materials by teacher or engaging the services of others in the absence of real or manufactured ones.  Improvisation of instructional materials provide direct experience with reality as well as encourage active participation and acquisition of skills especially where students are allowed to manipulate the materials.

The attainment of affective and psycho-motor domains is increased by improvisation. When student are motivated by their teacher to produce or source their own instructional materials, it greatly arouses the students’ interest to learning and development of scientific attitude. Improvisation, therefore, enables students to exhibit their latent potentialities, improve their creativity and as well discover new things.

Improvisation may be achieved through collection of items from the environment based on the advice of the teachers, students could collect items from their homes or elsewhere in the locality for the purpose of improvisation.

Factors affecting the improvisation of instructional materials in teaching and learning of basic science:

The improvisation of instructional materials in teaching and learning of Basic science are faced with many problems such as:

• Negative attitudes of teachers:

The need for innovative materials in schools is as a result of great quest for education due to societal changes. Some teachers instead of understanding that teaching aids are for making teaching effective see improvisation of instructional Materials as a decoration and not a tool to be use in teaching, while some of them think that improvisation of instructional materials are meant for teaching practical students.

• Finance:

The cost of Basic science equipment and materials is very high. the inadequacy of funding in science teaching is acute.

• Inadequacy of human resources:

The inadequacy of teachers as one of the major hindrances in the effective improvisation of instructional materials in teaching and learning. The inadequate supply of teachers both in quantitative and qualitative terms has been clearly identified as a major constraint militating against the sustenance in teaching qualifications and have contributed to the livening of effective improvisation of instructional materials resources in teaching and learning of Basic science.

• Time factors:

Most teachers could only succeed in spending “part-of” on actual teaching due to some extraneous circumstances.

• Poor infrastructure and materials resources:

Some profiteering contractors do supply only inferior and fake materials resources to schools hence making teaching and learning of Basic science more difficult. For the fact that these materials are inferior and fake materials, teachers do not make use of them in teaching and learning of Basic science.

• Size of schools and problems of administration:

Since the facilities for teaching Basic science are usually expensive, tendency to build large schools so as to achieve economic of scale in the utilization of facilities. But large classes are difficult to control. How can a single teacher teach 40 to 80 students in a science laboratory, it is far better to keep schools to within manageable sizes.

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