Utilization of Instructional Materials in Teaching and Learning Theatre Arts in Nigerian Tertiary Institution: Prospects and Challenges

Abstract

The term instructional material has been misunderstood by most young student-teachers and learners to be those materials which could be used to “show” or illustrate to learners’ aspects of a topic in a subject. They see it as a material which must be shown or “flashed” to learners during a learning process without which learning cannot be effective. To some extent, this assumption can be myopic in nature because it does not fully capture the essence of what instructional materials are in a learning process. Suffice it to say that, instructional materials are any item or element which a tutor uses to deliver the best teaching experience, Nze, (2008) and Agun (2009) defines instructional materials as the material helpful to the teacher and students alike, and they maximize learning in various areas of education endeavor. Uzuegbu, Mbadiwe, and Anulobi (2013) succinctly describes instructional materials as any device used to assist the instructor in the preparation of a lesson, the teaching of that lesson and also facilitate students’ learning of that subject topic and these include locally improvised materials or commercially purchased.