Abstract:

Teaching aids still play a key role in the teaching process. Their purpose is, firstly, to mediate, facilitate and simplify the presentation of real-life facts and objects, and secondly, the teaching aids also have a great motivating potential in every teaching and learning process. For this reason, they also make the teachers´ work easier and more joyful as they contain teaching (pedagogical) information. Teaching aids as well as didactic technology are classified as teaching media, or, more precisely, material technical teaching media. These can take various forms, such as natural items in their original state, or man-made products and creations, models, sound recordings, experimental sets for frontal or individual pedagogical methods, equipment and machinery for demonstrating experiments, visual aids such as photographs or maps, etc. Teaching aids also have certain functions in the teaching process. They help students to structure the acquired knowledge and skills or to create clear notions of the substance of certain objects. They also carry information, facilitate the connection between theoretical teaching and everyday life. They also speed up and facilitate student learning. A number of teaching aids also contribute to the development of student mental operations or manual skills.

Most teaching aids are man-made. Natural items, such as rocks, minerals, plants or living animals are an exception. All other teaching aids are created by man. In their teaching career, many teachers discover various imperfections of their teaching aids or find out that certain teaching aids are not available at all. This usually becomes the motivating factor for teachers to create a new teaching aid by themselves, or place a production order with a company.

This article presents, firstly, the potential areas for using additive technologies in tailor-made teaching aids, especially 3D printing, and, secondly, it presents the results from thematically related questionnaire research carried out at elementary and secondary schools in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. The aim of the anonymous questionnaire research was to find out whether additive technologies are available to the teachers in Czech schools, and whether these are used in the instruction or in the process of creating teachers´ own tailor-made teaching aids for their students. In the conclusion of this article, the results of the questionnaire research are evaluated and the potential areas for employing additive technologies in teaching are presented.

Keywords:

3D printing, 3D printers, teachers, teaching aids, additive technologies.