Blog 2- Teaching of National Symbols of the country through Simulation

In this blog, I will be writing on the teaching of the topic ‘National Symbols’ from the textbook of Social Studies, grade five. For me basically, it is important for all the citizens of Bhutan to know very well about the National Symbols of the country. Particularly I opted for this topic under Chapter six of the Social Studies textbook of grade five because I felt the importance of national symbols for the identity and sovereignty of our country. Therefore I made up my mind to integrate one of the ICT tools in this topic and convey the content to my dear students.

There are many ICT tools which I can use in order to teach the topic to the students. Lately in my ICT class I learnt about creating simulation in Microsoft power point presentation. Though it was challenging, it triggered me to create a simulation and use it in one of my blogs. This is the sole reason I will be using simulation to teach about the national symbols to my students. Simulations are instructional scenarios where the learner is placed in a "world" defined by the teacher. They represent a reality within which students interact. I believed that the simulation on National Symbols will promote the use of critical and evaluative thinking. Because they are ambiguous, they encourage students to contemplate the implications of a scenario. The situation feels real and thus leads to more engaging interaction by learners. Simulations promote concept of attainment through experiential practice. 

The above is the attached file of the simulation on National Symbol of the Country.

Creation of the teaching material

I have created the simulation in Microsoft power point presentation on the topic “National Symbols” for grade five by making the best use of all the features and tools available in it.  To transpire with my concluded simulation, firstly I chose a topic and grade level for my power point presentation. Next, I gathered all the prerequisite materials like image, GIF, background scene from google and saved it in a folder. Following I started preplanning on how to create a simulation with the help of all the required materials gathered. I made sure to plan on creating simulation step by step and wrote it in my notebook so that I can stay in track while creating the simulation.

Unlike other power point presentation, simulation has to be created over one slide only by adding one slide over another. Before creating the simulation, I started working on a blank slide first where I inserted a rectangle shape. The rectangle shape was my background scene at the initial of my simulation. To add the rectangle shape, I clicked the Insert tab first, clicked Shapes, selected the rectangle shape, and then clicked and dragged to draw the rectangle shape on my blank slide. To ensure a good color combination between the text and background of the shape I changed the background color for the shape. I selected the shape where the Drawing Tools appeared in the ribbon, with the Format tab active. Then I used the Shape fill available on the Format tab under Drawing Tools. Following, I added animation effect to it from Animations. I first selected the shape that I wanted to animate, selected Animations and chose an animation of my choice. Then I selected Effect Options and chose an effect of my choice. I followed the same procedures for animation on other images, graphics and texts that I wanted to put in my presentation.

There are different ways to start animations in the presentation such as On Click; With Previous; After Previous; Duration and Delay. Since I wanted to create a simulation where my presentation had to feature like real, I mostly made use of the timing With Previous in order to make adjustment in timing of effect for the images, shapes, clip arts, graphics and texts in my presentation. At times I needed to put more than one animation on the same image or text. In this case I selected an object or text with an animation. Then I selected Add Animation and chose one animation. In this presentation I also added animation to grouped objects or text. In order to do so I first pressed Ctrl and selected the objects that I wanted. I selected Format > Group > Group to group the objects together. Then I selected Animations and selected an animation of my choice on it. Since I had to feature national dress, national animal, national flower national bird and national flag of our country in the simulation, I downloaded the related images from the google and used those images. I did not create the image using shapes and all. I used the borrowed images.

After having created and put all the animations, background colours and all on the blank slide, I started compiling it over one slide to make simulation. It was not easy to create a simulation but since I already had preset of plans on how to arrange and make orders, I was able to complete the simulation. To copy and paste the objects having animation from one slide to another slide, I had to do it with the help of Format Painter. Without using the format painter to copy and paste the object from one slide to another, it could not copy the object along with the animation. Again I had to add animation on it. Therefore in order to save my time and energy, I copied and pasted the objects with animation using the Format painter from one slide to another. If I wanted to make any changes on the animations of the objects on the slide, I went to the Animations and selected Custom Animation. From custom animation, I could make the changes on the effects of animations I wanted to. So these are all about how I created a simple simulation on the ‘National Symbols’. My simulation comprises about the nine national symbols of our country with little description on each national symbol and also an activity for the students in order to check their understanding of the content.  

Instructions for the use of content-based material

With change of time, the way of teaching and learning must be transformed. Using simulation as a teaching material will help in enhancing students’ learning processes. Instead of sticking to the traditional monotonous learning method, we the teachers can teach using simulation which helps the child in long term memory retention. It can also be used as a reference and learning material in future for the students. I developed the material with a set of objectives in my mind. Through the simulation, I want to ensure the students of grade five to:

·         identify the national symbols of our country

·         explain the importance of each national symbol

I will use the material during lesson development. After having introduced the topic to the students, I will use the simulation for conveying the content during lesson development. Instead of me lecturing on the national symbols of the country, I will make best of the simulation created as an instructional tool in my classroom. Simulation will give the list of names of national symbols of our country. For each national symbol, they would be given some description of about few lines. Students will also perform an activity after the content has been conveyed to them. The activity will be instructed to the students through the simulation only after the explanation on the national symbols. The students need to carefully watch the simulation with full attention. The designed activity will help the children to further enhance their understating on national symbols of the country.

To present the simulation to the students, teacher must be ready with projector and a laptop in a classroom. So through the projector, teacher can show the simulation to the students and students can learn from it.

Thank You