Teaching Aids: Meaning, Types, Examples and Low-Cost Ideas

What are teaching aids?

A teaching aid supports your teaching. It does not replace it. You still explain, ask questions and guide the class, and the aid makes the idea easier to understand.

B.Ed notes also call them TLM, which stands for teaching-learning material. Other names are audio-visual aids and instructional aids.

The idea is old. Educators such as John Amos Comenius, who lived from 1592 to 1670, pushed for pictures in teaching. In India, the Kothari Commission (1964 to 1966) stressed the need to supply teaching aids to every school.

A teaching aid is not the same as a teaching method. The method is how you teach, such as a demonstration or group work. The aid is the thing you use. Our guide to teaching methods covers the methods.

Why teaching aids are important

• They make ideas concrete. A globe and a torch show day and night better than words alone.
• They catch and hold attention, especially in long periods.
• They help learners remember, because learners use more than one sense.
• They save time. A diagram can show in one minute what takes ten minutes to describe.
• They show what learners cannot see in real life, such as the inside of the heart or a faraway desert.
• They help you go from known to unknown and from concrete to abstract.
• They make the class active when learners handle or make the aid.
• They help learners who find words alone hard to follow.

Types of teaching aids

Books group teaching aids in two main ways. One way is by the sense they use: seeing, hearing or both. The other way is by whether they need a projector.

1. Visual aids

Learners see these aids. Examples are the blackboard, whiteboard, charts, maps, globes, flash cards, pictures, posters, models and specimens. Example: a Class 8 teacher uses a wall map of India to show where the main rivers flow.

2. Audio aids

Learners hear these aids. Examples are the radio, recorded audio, a language lab and a phone connected to a speaker. Example: a spoken English trainer plays a one-minute recorded conversation, and learners repeat each line.

3. Audio-visual aids

Learners see and hear these aids together. Examples are television, films, videos and animations with sound. Example: a Class 10 science teacher shows a three-minute video of how the heart pumps blood.

4. Activity aids and real objects

With these aids, learners learn by doing. Activity aids include experiments, demonstrations, field trips and role plays. Real objects, such as coins, leaves or a real thermometer, also belong here. Example: Class 6 learners collect leaves from the school garden and sort them by shape.

Projected and non-projected aids

Projected aids are shown on a screen or wall with a projector. Non-projected aids need no projector, so you can use them in any classroom.

Edgar Dale's Cone of Experience, in simple words

Edgar Dale was an American professor of education. In his 1946 book, Audio-Visual Methods in Teaching, he drew a cone of learning experiences. The bottom of the cone shows the most concrete experiences. The top shows the most abstract ones, which use only words.

The version in many B.Ed notes has eleven bands. From the bottom to the top, they are:

1. Direct, purposeful experiences: learning by doing with real things, such as growing seeds.
2. Contrived experiences: models and mock-ups, such as a model of the heart.
3. Dramatized experiences: role play, such as a mock parliament.
4. Demonstrations: the teacher shows how, such as how to read a measuring cylinder.
5. Study trips, also called field trips: visits to places such as a post office, a farm or a museum.
6. Exhibits: displays, such as a school science fair.
7. Educational television.
8. Motion pictures, or films.
9. Recordings, radio and still pictures.
10. Visual symbols: maps, charts and diagrams.
11. Verbal symbols: written and spoken words.

Dale did not mean these as strict steps. He placed the bands by how concrete or abstract they are, not by how hard they are. Learners move between them all the time.

A warning about the percentages

Many notes and posters add numbers to the cone, such as 10 percent of what we read and 90 percent of what we do. These numbers are not Dale's. His cone had no percentages, and no research supports them.

In a 2009 paper, James Stice of the University of Texas traced the numbers to a 1967 magazine article by D.G. Treichler. That article gave no research behind them. If your notes include these figures, know that they did not come from Dale.

The useful lesson of the cone is simple. Mix concrete experiences with words, especially for young learners and new topics.

Low-cost and no-cost teaching aids by subject

You do not need a big budget. Many useful aids come from waste material and things you already have. Ask learners to help make them, because making an aid also teaches.

Learning with toys and local games is also part of national policy. A handbook on toy-based pedagogy, launched by the Ministry of Education in 2022, links toys and games to learning outcomes for every school stage.

For the foundational stage, the Ministry of Education launched NCERT's Jadui Pitara kit in February 2023. It has playbooks, toys, puzzles, posters, flash cards, story books and worksheets for children aged 3 to 8.

Digital teaching aids

Digital aids are useful when you have power, a device and a little practice. Use them to show what the blackboard cannot.

• Projector: shows photos, diagrams and slides to the whole class. Keep a printed copy ready in case the power goes.
• Smart board or interactive panel: you can write, drag, zoom and save the board for the next class.
• Slides: one idea per slide, few words, large pictures and text big enough for the last bench.
• Short videos: two to five minutes is enough. Watch the video before class, tell learners what to look for and pause to ask questions.
• Phone and speaker: useful for audio in language classes and for recordings of poems.
• QR codes in NCERT textbooks: they open free videos and activities on DIKSHA, the national school education platform run by NCERT.
• Online quizzes: a quick check of learning at the end of a class.

Test every device before class. Digital aids should support your teaching, not fill the whole period.

How to choose and use teaching aids: a checklist

Before you use any aid, go through this list.

• The aid matches your lesson aim.
• It suits the learners' age and level.
• It is big and clear enough for the last bench to see or hear.
• It is correct: right labels, spellings and scale.
• It shows one main idea, not ten.
• You have practised using it once before class.
• It is ready and placed where you can reach it.
• You tell learners what to look for before you show it.
• You show it at the right moment, then put it away.
• Learners get to touch, use or make it where possible.
• You ask questions while you use it.
• You store it safely so you can use it again.

Write the aids you need in your lesson plan, usually in the TLM row. Our lesson plan format has a place for them. Moving between talking and showing an aid is also a classroom skill; see our guide to teaching skills.

Mistakes to avoid

• Using an aid only for show, with no link to the lesson aim.
• Using too many aids in one lesson.
• Charts with small writing or too much text.
• Showing the aid from the start of the period, so it distracts learners.
• Talking to the board or screen instead of the class.
• Playing a long video without stopping to ask questions.
• Not checking the projector, speaker or video before class.
• Using torn charts or broken models, which make learners lose interest.
• Letting the aid do the teaching. You still need to explain and ask.

Share your teaching on Sikhami

A useful aid can help more learners than one class. Sikhami gives every teacher a free teacher profile with your photo, a short intro, an About section, your subjects and links. Learners can follow it, write reviews and ask questions. Institutes can invite a published teacher to teach on their courses.

On your own account, you can post clips (short videos) and notes. A short clip of a low-cost model in use can help learners and other teachers. You can also earn from paid notes, paid clubs, meetups, study rooms with an entry fee, memberships and Super Chat. Joining and posting are free.