Academic Performance: Instructional Delivery Method And The Level Of Cognition Among Students
Student’s academic performance and graduation rates have been the area of interest for higher education institutions especially in regards to their project topics and other research work. The term instructional is described as an adjective derived from the concept of instruction and it connotes when someone teaches people something. Instructional delivery models on the other hand are methods, strategies, approaches or even techniques that a teacher employ to deliver his/her subject matter of a lesson to the learners. It can as well be regarded as a representation of a pattern in which a lesson is to be presented.
Education is one of the imperative aspects that not only inculcates the essential skills, abilities and knowledge among the individuals, but also leads to overall growth and progress of the individuals, community, and nation as a whole. An educated person is not only able to accomplish his desired goals and objectives, but is also able to render an efficient contribution towards the well-being of the community. The inculcation of academic knowledge, skills, abilities, and proficiency among the individuals is enhanced through learning and academic performance. The primary purpose of teaching at any level of education is to bring a fundamental change in the learner. To facilitate the process of knowledge transmission, teachers should apply appropriate teaching methods that best suit specific objectives and level exit outcomes.
Quite remarkably, regular poor academic performance by the majority students is fundamentally linked to application of ineffective teaching methods by teachers to impact knowledge to learner. Substantial research on the effectiveness of teaching methods indicates that the quality of teaching is often reflected by the achievements of learners. Teaching is a process that involves bringing about desirable changes in learners so as to achieve specific outcomes. In order for the method used for teaching to be effective, teachers need to be conversant with numerous teaching strategies that take recognition of the magnitude of complexity of the concepts to be covered.
INSTRUCTIONAL DELIVERY METHOD
The process of instructional delivery must be based on stated objectives of the lesson, it is based on this that when the process of instructional delivery is over, then the opportunity to determine if the aim of the lesson has been achieved or not comes, which is the evaluation act that will tell if the lesson met stated objectives. Instructional delivery has been seen as the process showing every activity the teacher and the learner does in a classroom setting. So every effort that the teacher makes in order to have a fruitful time with the students by exposing the contents, employing methods, strategies, the pupils interaction with the environment, resources available and even the evaluation process sums up to mean instructional delivery. When a teacher consciously utilizes his training, knowledge, skills and value and relays it in order to change the behavioral position of the learner, he is carrying out instructional delivery. Instructional delivery is the knowledge of teaching techniques and their application for learning to take place in such a flexible manner that would not distort the original intent of the teacher for being in the classroom.
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
Performance is defined as the observable or measurable behaviour of a person an animal in a particular situation usually experimental situation. This means that performance measures the aspect of behaviour that can be observed at a specific period. To determine performance, a performance test is conducted. Academic performance test is a type of mental test in which the subject is asked to do something rather than to say something. Performance test is the type of test which throws light on the ability to deal with things rather than symbols.
STUDENTS COGNITIVE ABILITY
Cognitive skills, also called cognitive functions, cognitive abilities, or cognitive capacities, are brain-based skills which are needed in acquisition of knowledge, manipulation of information, and reasoning.
INSTRUCTIONAL DELIVERY AND STUDENT LEVEL OF COGNITION
From the foregoing, it is clear to us that one model of instruction will not be able to bring about an effective instructional delivery that can produce the kind of result desired from the learners.
The nature of this subject will demand for the teacher to employ numerous models, methods, strategies, approaches or techniques to ensure that the learners learn indeed after every instruction. So because we have earlier established that instructional delivery is a deliberate interface between the learner and the learning activities, therefore, it is from this interaction process that learning actually takes place. This interface is the implementation stage of the curriculum. Here, the teacher, the learner, and the learning activities are on stage. The teacher who is the leader on this stage is free at this point to modify the plan of action based on the reaction of the learners to the learning activities in order to promote learning. The modification act would now make him to employ any of the instructional delivery models which are presented under three categories of: cognitive development models, affective development models and the psychomotor development models. These models for the cognitive may include Discussion, Questioning, Team teaching, Talk and Chalk, Field trips etc.
CONCLUSION
In light of the fact that learning is a process that involves investigating, formulating, reasoning and using appropriate strategies to solve problems, teachers should realize that it becomes more effective if the students are tasked to perform rather than just asked to remember some information. A typical learning environment with a presentation from the course teacher accompanied by a lecture neither promotes learners’ participation nor build the required level of reasoning among students. Students build a better understanding of the main concepts more effectively when they are engaged to solve problems during class activities.