ASSESSMENT OF THE CONTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) ON TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS. A CASE OF SELECTED SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN MBEYA CITY COUNCIL
The rationale of this study was to significantly explore the contribution of information and communication technology (ICT) on teaching and learning process, a case of selected secondary schools in Mbeya city council. The research was conducted in Mbeya City by selecting four secondary schools to get respondents. Purposive and simple random sampling were applied to obtain a total of 100 respondents under the categories of 20 secondary school teachers and 80 students. The study used mixed research approach where by questionnaires and interview were the method of data collection and adopted a descriptive survey research design.
The key findings of the study revealed that, the integration of ICT in teaching and learning improve students’ motivation, develop critical thinking, easy access to study material, makes possible teachers and students to have enjoyable chance to keep anything they have studied. ICT minimizes the burden of maintaining hard copies, serves time of doing work where now through the application of ICT the work which would be done in a number of days is done in only few seconds. Students with special needs get access to simplified screens and instruction menus which are consistently placed, they are able to have graphics that are combined with texts and they get access to audio feedback. However, teachers and students are limited in computer usage a situation which hinders full access to ICT leading to poor access to quality materials for teaching and learning which discourage high achievements in education sector.
The study recommends that, the government should improve the school environment for establishment of ICT Infrastructures in meeting the demands of teachers and students for using ICT regularly. The government should organize training, seminars or workshops for teachers to perform their functions (teaching) effectively. The government should employ experts of ICT so as to improve teaching and learning activities for better students’ academic performance, to promote effective implementation of curriculum by integrating ICT and ensure education is well programmed. Teachers should be trained on the changes of curriculum so that they can implement the competence-based curriculum effectively and competence lesson plans during teaching and learning process.
Key words; ICT, Learning process, Teaching process, constructivism theory, integration, contribution.
