ABSTRACT
Today’s market-places do not provide material that
teaches students in an enjoyable and effective way. This project presents the
design and implementation of a web-based Secondary School Tutorial system,
which supports students at home learning the different subject topics in
schools. The secondary school tutorial System present material in an intuitive,
interactive, and innovative manner while focusing on ways to integrate
qualitative and quantitative methods throughout the learning experience. In
this system, the lessons are guided by the actual skill set of the student
taking the course. The tutorial of a secondary school reforms is an important
part of the improvement for the credit, training and implementation of
individualized education. We concentrate on implementation of different modules
of this system such as the learning phase, the test phase and the video phase.
The system evaluates the student’s state of knowledge through questions and
depending on the specific percentage and level of questions they answer
correctly; it will guide them through a lesson plan tailored to their learning
needs. A model edition of the secondary school Tutorial system has been design
with the help of web development tool using visual basic as the front end. This
paper depicts the components and technology used to design and implement this
system with intelligent feedback for the test phase which is used to provide
the response to users so as to help them be aware of the intensity knowledge he
has acquired after each lesson.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
A web-based application is any program
that is accessed over a network connection using HTTP, rather than existing
within a device’s memory. We-based application often runs inside a web browser.
However, the application of computers in learning and teaching has evolved from
simple text to audio and visual communications. A tutor is a helper. The
dictionary defines tutoring as helping students help improve their learning
strategies in order to promote independence and empowerment. The purpose of
tutoring is to help student’s help themselves assisting them to independent
learners.
The rapid evolution of computer
technology is expanding man’s desire to obtain computer assistance in solving
increasingly complex problems. Technology is changing the way in which
information is captured, processed, stored, disseminated and used. Information
needs to be properly managed to ensure its cost effective use.
Tutorial system for secondary schools is
a tutoring that has books and audio visual capabilities which runs on a
computer is simply a situation whereby the computer software will be the
instructor or lecturer while the user is the student. A tutorial is normally a
forum for discussion and consolidation of the themes and concepts introduced in
a large number of students sitting in a large lecture hall listening to a
professor “lecturer” on the course material with power point slides, project
slides or even just chalk board. It also shapes individual for adequate
adjustment to computer and its application. The computer allows new knowledge
building in a community or society in which every person around the globe can
elaborate and learn from each other. It allows the student to take charge of
their own learning through direct exploration, expression and experience.
Secondary school tutor helps the learner understand the basics of each school
subject such as physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology and many more. A tutor
is an instructor who gives private lessons. A tutor is also an instructor who
teaches a specific educational subject or skill to an individual student. A
tutor can be a member of the course provision team whose primary aim is to
ensure that the student get the most out of the educational experience
providing additional academic interpretation and backup to the teacher,
lecturer provides material. Such one-on-one attention allows the tutor to
improve the student’s knowledge or skills for more rapidly than in classroom
sittings.
Furthermore, web
applications designed outside Nigeria is often inappropriate to local needs.
Some people even suggest that Nigeria should not introduce computer based
tutorial learning at the secondary school level because of the high cost of
application. However, web-based applications also may be client-based where a
small part of the program is downloaded to a user’s desktop, but processing is
done over the internet on an external server. The primary purpose of a tutoring
system is to provide a convenient learning environment for the students of the
school at all locations. This is usually accomplished by the use of teachers
with the right access to the system. To
enhance fruitful learning process and good result in the assessment of the
students, reliable information from the teachers who has access to the system
is needed. Information is an important resource needed to develop other
resources and it is believed that information is power.
The digital divide between the secondary
schools in Ebonyi state and the rest of the world is widening. It is more acute
in the availability of locally designed web application. Attempts to bridge
this gap are frustrated by the high cost of acquiring the technology needed to
design local content in the ICTs.
The lecture sitting is not really
conducive to in depth class discussion. Thus, such one-on-one attention like
tutoring allows the students to take charge of their own Learning through
direct exploration, expression and experience unlike the former which may be
little intimidating to ask a question in the middle of a lecture filled with
500 students. This system is like a class room at school. In many cases,
tutorials give you a chance to practically apply course content and ask
questions. The lecture setting isn’t really one conducive to in depth class
discussion but that doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to ask questions.
Tutoring teaching is a unique aspect of
the educational experience that oxford offers its students. In spite of a wide
variety of tutors approaches to tutorials, there are common elements which
contributes to this uniqueness, and these include; *student meeting
individually or in very small groups with a tutor from their discipline in
their college, typically once a week or once a fortnight, *students spending
time independently reading and preparing written work for the tutorial (i.e
self-directed learning). While student’s
study time varies widely, the commission of hours of independent study per
tutorial. *students discussing their oral communication skills and giving them
an opportunity to receive constant feedback (i.e formative assessment) from
their tutors.
Tutorials are
generally intended to:
v Help students to gain a deep understanding of the
subject matter in their discipline - discussion in tutorials helps students to
see the significance and implications of their knowledge so they can apply what
they have learned in new contexts; students should also develop a healthy
skepticism about the literature.
v Enable students to learn how to think, for instance
to synthesize disparate sources, to formulate a thesis and justify it, to
anticipate criticisms of their arguments, and to respond to questions and
challenges.
v Develop students basic academic skills (e.g.
identification and evaluation of relevant resources, effective communication
both orally and in writing, effective time-management, critical
self-assessment).
v Enable students to pursue their individual academic
interests within the context of their subject.
v Develop student’s ability to think and act like a
professional in their discipline, like a classicist, mathematician, historian,
scientist, or social scientist, rather than like a student 'covering' a
syllabus in classics, maths, history or a science.
v Foster a close relationship between student and
tutor over the course of the academic degree, thereby personalizing students
university experience and supporting students overall personal development
throughout their student career.
This project is contributing to the computer
education system in secondary school by developing indigenous ICT content in
the form of computer-based tutoring system for the secondary school programmer.
I believe that students will perform well in their
studies and examinations if they were able to study and revise their school
subjects through the computers.
1.2 STATEMENT
OF THE PROBLEM
Students bring
to class different background, experience, interests and attitude. It is
impossible to meet the optimal learning pace of all students because one
teacher cannot deliver dozens of customized lessons simultaneously. Teachers do
their best by teaching in the middle of the class, but in trying to meet the
need of all students, they meet the needs of few, slower students are left
behind while faster students are left twiddling their thumbs. The time of both
groups is wasted .The students are not neatly sorted into slow and fast
learner.
In reality each
student finds certain topics easier relative to the rest of the class. There
are three layers of student differences: general student ability, specific
topic ability and minute-to-minute variation in a student’s focus. Together,
these make it impossible for teachers to meet the optimal learning pace of all
students at all times.
Students frequently
miss class, conversely, a student cannot be absent from a video tutorial since
the media reveals their content only when a student is ready to learn. Even
students who attend class can miss critical idea when their focus fades.
Nowadays, the term also referred to a virtual learning environment, supporting
the learning relevant and effective learning resources becomes a crucial
element factor in the success of the tutorial topics.
1.3 AIM AND
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The aim of this
project is to develop an online secondary school biology tutorial with the
following objectives:
·
To analyze an
existing secondary school tutorial system with a view to identify their
weaknesses and strengths.
·
To design a user
friendly interface using web tools
·
To design an
effective database to keep track of student performance and topics
·
To use visual
basic to coordinate interaction between the user and the database
1.4 SCOPE
OF THE PROJECT WORK
This secondary school tutorial focuses on basic
biology topics and also creates an application to teach and quiz students. It
introduces the users to the basic aspect of these subjects. We concentrate on
implementation of different modules of this system such as the learn phase,
test phase, and the video phase. The system evaluates the student’s state of
knowledge through questions and depending on the specific percentage and level
of questions they answer correctly; it will guide them through a lesson plan tailored
to their learning needs .The video will be as short as possible and it’s
straight to the point.
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE
OF STUDY
This proj/ect
work helps reduce the costs and problems associated with delivering training.
Multimedia tutorial Increases the effectiveness of the learning environment, a
student can see his pace, whenever and wherever and video captures almost 100%
concentration of students.
1.6
PROJECT REPORT ORGANIZATION
This project is organized into six chapters. Chapter
one introduces the project topic and specifies the project objectives,
significant and scope of study. Chapter two covers literature review, Chapter
three describes the analysis of the existing system, and the problems of the
existing system. In chapter four the system is systematically designed with
prototypes of the system interface. It also covers the implementation and
testing of the new system. Chapter four also covers the summary and conclusion
of the project. The codes used in the implementation of the interface were
explained.
1.7 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
Most constraint experienced during
the course of writing this project is that of detailed information about their
major operations, the personnel manager was a little diplomatic in answering my
questions in order to reveal information that may indent the company’s image,
though that did not stop me from writing and researching for detailed
information.
Due to time constraint, finance and
confidentiality of information, program developed covers all aspects of employment,
customer satisfaction, services to customers, recording activities, buying and
selling of food. Whatever is left out is as a result of the stated limitations.
1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS
Tutorial:
Is a method of transferring knowledge and may be used as a part of a learning
process. More interactive and specific than a book or a lecture, a tutorial
seeks to teach by example and supply the information to complete a certain
task.
Knowledge:
Is a familiarity, awareness, or understanding of someone or something, such as facts,
information, descriptions, or skills, which is acquired through experience or education
by perceiving, discovering, or learning.
Tutor:
Is an instructor who gives private lessons. Shadow education is a name for private supplementary tutoring that
is offered outside the mainstream education system.
Hypertext
Transfer Protocol (HTTP): is an application
protocol for distributed, collaborative, and hypermedia information systems.
HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web. Hypertext
is structured text that uses logical links (hyperlinks) between nodes
containing text. HTTP is the protocol to exchange or transfer hypertext.
DOWNLOAD FULL MATERIAL