Interactive Approach In Teaching And Learning History Education Essay

There is a need for such learning and teaching tool for students to effectively learn history because according to Malaysian Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, History will be made a must-pass subject in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia or the Malaysian Certificate of Education (SPM) in the beginning of year 2013 and also planned to make History as a core subject in primary schools too in year 2014 (The Star Newspaper, 2010). This shows that History has a huge role to play in students results in achieving better scores and understanding the purpose of it as well. In the process of identifying the prolonging problems in History is that students are not being able to absorb the subject easily to their memory due to vast number of names, chronologies, events and places to be remembered.

Besides that, history text-books are written in descriptive language mostly in text format which makes the students hard to pin point the important keywords. Besides that, in History, a poor description of an event or wrong date can mean a failed course. History demands accuracy but unfortunately, the amount of information is overwhelming.

In the book Mind: Introduction to cognitive science justifies that ‘Educators need to know the nature of students thinking in order to devise better ways of teaching them’ (Thargard, 2005) which means suitable teaching techniques need to be put into practice that is prone for student learning. (Robson, 2006) articulated everyone has preferred ways of learning and particularly, approaches such as VAK (Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic) have gained popularity in early childhood and chances of memory lost will be happening if their opportunities to learn do not take account of their preferred learning style (Bayley, 2002). As cited by (Dowling, 2002), statistics shows VAK learning style approach is very effective that suggests 29 per cent of our learning is through visual means, 34 per cent through listening or auditory means and 37 per cent through movement or kinaesthetic means.

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To support this view, (Jie Fu, 2009) says, students learn more when information is presented in variety of modes rather when single mode is used. Through a research study carried out several decades ago by Felder and Henriques (1995:28) claim that students retain 10 per cent of what they read, 26 per cent of what they hear, 30 per cent of what they see, 50 per cent of what they see and hear, 70 per cent of what they say and 90 per cent of what they say as they do something. Thus, balance instructional methods need to be achieved so that all learning styles are simultaneously accommodated to facilitate learning environments.

Therefore in the proposed system, third party wants to implement multisensory teaching and learning techniques for effective and interactive study approach. Third party found out that multisensory instructions (combination of perception and memory) in acquiring knowledge is effective because simultaneous usage of visuals (sights, pictures, diagrams, symbols), auditory (sounds, words) and kinaesthetic (touch, movements) helps faster learning and boosts performance of the students themselves (Jie Fu, 2009).

Since, History is a subject purely on narrative and descriptive text, it is important to put in thought to retrieve what the students have learnt the end of the lesson. According to the Education Minister (The Star Newspaper, 2010), History is more than memorising names and places, History is about becoming aware of positive and negative deeds that was done in the past which should be applied in every human being on how to shape the future from their own current deeds. It is more on role-modelling on how everything came about before or after we are born and to rationalise our thoughts for the future. This is the reason why history learning is equally important as other subjects and its learning needs assistance.

Committing in the multisensory teaching approach itself would be the main challenge that will be encountered by third party because the ability to create simultaneous sensory learning for easier absorption of information is quite difficult because it involves third party to study more on multimedia topics. The implementation of Augmented Reality is another consideration of third party as one of the teaching and learning techniques because studies have shown preferably positive results collaborating education in this field. Augmented Reality (AR) is the latest innovation technology which superimposes graphics, audio and other sense enhancements from computer screens into real time environments (TopBits, 2010).

Brief description of project objectives.(i.e. scope of proposal and deliverables)

The main feature of the system introduced has functionality to give multisensory learning approach for the students known as VAK learning approach as mentioned in Section B. However the main feature would be focussed on the teaching style which suits the VAK learning. The ability of understanding the brain science of a multiple user will be an added advantage of implementing the teaching and learning techniques. Third party gets broader understanding of human science of how facts could be taught effectively.

The system will be integrated with built-in memory element which will save user’s progress if they wish to leave the system. This built-in memory feature will be used during a quiz after having exposed to a proper learning and teaching technique. The element will be utilised when the user logs out and logs in later and if they wish to continue the quiz from their previous session. In applying this feature, third party will learn how the system stores memory and how it resumes when the user logs in again and continue from their previous session.

Another extra feature which makes the system interactive would be the Augmented Reality element which would give a complete VAK learning to the user. In here third party needs to give special attention to make the user more vulnerable to learning because this feature is very important as it is the heart of learning History. Hence, third party needs to put in more effort in learning new technology on how to be able to use other related technology feature to make the user to effectively learn the subject.

There will not be any time limit given for the user to complete quiz to test their ability to recall. This is because if the user plans to quit the system and resume back later, there will be no point any point of time because this will an unnecessary effort.

Brief description of the resources needed by the proposal. (i.e. hardware, software, access to information / expertise, user involvement etc.)

In order to best identify the hardware and software needed for the system, third party needs to identify the information system requirement in order to determine the suitable information technology to be used. Therefore third party will be accessing data from history teachers from selected schools and might be observing the students themselves to acquire data. Apart of that, third party will be also using the online survey application tools to assist in data gathering by surveying students online. The possible information third party might be looking for will be teacher-student approach about this system, how they would found it effective than classroom teaching and how this system will be adjusted in line with the latest History syllabus.

As the special feature of the system, Augmented Reality, third party might consider using ARToolkit, FLARToolkit and 3D PaperVision for developing the AR aspects and programming the back-end of the system proposed. Third party might be consider to use Macromedia Flash for animation purposes, however more research still required for integrating it with Augmented Reality. As for programming the system, third party is still researching on the best language to start working with, though C# language might be the main consideration of the third party.

Besides that, hardware required for the development of the system would be webcam integrated laptop or computer attached with a webcam as the base for programming and viewing the AR technology, and speakers for hearing the content demonstrated in AR. Printer is required to print papers necessary for the demonstration of AR elements. Mouse or touchpad and keyboard might be equally necessary to test the interactivity of the system.

Academic research being carried out and other information, techniques being learnt. (i.e. what are the names of books you are going to read / data sets you are going to use)

Research Papers

MONTGOMERY, S. and GROAT, L., 1998, Student Learning Styles and Their Implications for Teaching [online], The Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, CRLT Occasional Papers No.10, The University of Michigan, Available from http://edit.www.uaa.alaska.edu/cafe/newfacu lty/upload/CRLT_no10.pdf [Accessed on 24th February 2011]

Journals

ZAGORANSKI, S. and DIVJAK, S., 2003, Use of Augmented Reality in Education [online], In: EUROCON 2003. Computer as a Tool. IEEE Region 8, 2(), 22-24 Sept. 2003, pp 339-342

Books

THARGARD, P, 2005, Mind: Introduction to Cognitive Science, 2nd Edition, London, The MIT Press

PERFETTI, C., et al, 1995, Text-Based Learning and Reasoning: Studies in History, New Jersey, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.

MARKOPOULUS, P., et al, 2004, Ambient intelligence: second European symposium, EUSAI 2004, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, November 2004 Proceedings, Germany, Springer-Verlag

NASH, Y., 2010, Accelerated C# 2010, United States of America, Springer-Verlag

Brief description of the development plan for the proposed project. (i.e. which software methodology and why, the major areas of functions to be developed and the order in which developed)

Hybrid methodologies – combination of two or more software methodologies will be used for developing plan. Each methodology is unique by its own therefore the combination will make effective plan for the software development. Below is the development plan might be utilised by third party:

Investigation (Identifying problem statement)

Analysis

Literature Review (Collection user requirements)

Design

Implementation

Testing

Brief description of the evaluation and test plan for the proposed project. (i.e. what is the success criteria and how will be evaluated & implementation will be tested, indicate the estimated size of the demonstration/test database)

The system is considered successful if the main objectives reached third party’s and user’s expectation.

Testing

Heuristics testing

User Acceptance Testing

Interactive testing