Lesson 2
A study guide is an educational and methodological publication that collects and structures material describing the tasks and methods of teaching and the content of a course, subject, section or dedicated to teaching and educational work. Often the authors of such scientific publications include additional material in the form of plans, outlines, and a variety of didactic material.
What is characteristic of manuals?
Any textbook for a teacher or university lecturer should be clear and accessible, and be based on the textbooks used for teaching. Typically, the author and year of publication of the textbook are indicated in the textbooks. If we talk about what is characteristic for such manuals, we can note the following:
- A clear practical orientation.
- An accessible form of presentation.
Methodological handbooks and their types:
There are different types of teaching aids, which, if used together, allow teachers to present the material to students in a broader, more comprehensive and informative way and to provide them with important information in a most interesting and accessible way. To that end, teachers use the following types of teaching aids:
- Information and awareness products, which include leaflets, booklets, information and methodological reference materials, etc.
- Materials and publications of organizational and methodological orientation. This includes methodical memos, developments, recommendations.
- Applied products in the form of cards, tests, technical schemes, illustrations, etc.
- In general, using a methodological textbook, a teacher can clearly, competently, consistently present educational material for quality assimilation by students.
How to write a training manual
In spite of its concise appearance and clearly structured information, the work of creating a manual is long and arduous.
To begin with, the author decides on the topic he or she wants to cover in the publication. As a rule, the information is presented from the easy to the more complex.
When presenting information, the author does not use data from the Internet, but from respected scientific sources and printed editions, primary sources and reputable authors. In this way there is practically no risk of stumbling on an unreliable source. This is why compiling a textbook is, for the most part, many hours of work in the library.
The task of a teacher is not only to provide the student with theory, but also to make sure that it sticks in the student’s head. And that requires practice. That is why every manual contains practical exercises for repeating and reinforcing the information.
Any work begins with careful planning. A plan is short sentences in the form of succinct talking points that cover the whole topic in a coherent manner.
The syllabus is almost always a cheat sheet for examinations. Therefore it should contain all questions on the topic without exception.
As this material is intended to help the student, the information presented in it should be accessible and easy to understand. Otherwise, the student will lose all interest.
Once the textbook has been written, its content should be certified for compliance with the design rules and other norms. And if everything is in order, the author can proceed to the final writing of the manual.
The final step is to submit the work for review, and then to publication.
A good methodology book is a work in which:
- Full relevance to the discipline and topic, relevant and useful information.
- Clear and logical structure, short phrases, small paragraphs, bulleted and numbered lists, graphic material (figures, graphs, tables), abstracts.
- A detailed and succinct reference list.
- No or clear explanation of complex terminology.
Practical part.
Step 1: Pupils should think about and make a list of the whole class, on the chosen topics. Pupils should choose a topic on a particular subject, and start searching for information. It is allowed to use internet resources (indicating the sources) but not to copy the whole thing from them.
Step 2. It is important to remember that the toolkit the students make is for the EТМ
Step 3. It is important to fill the toolkit with important formulas, tasks, if any, and pictures