Education is the bedrock of development. But unfortunately, Education in Nigeria is bisected by myriads of problems. These include; poor funding and thus poor educational infrastructures, inadequate classrooms, teaching aids (projectors, Computers, Laboratories, and libraries), paucity of quality teachers, and a poor/polluted learning environment. In addition to these inadequacies, our school system is plagued with numerous social vices such as examination malpractices, cultism, hooliganism, and corruption. For meaningful development to take place in the educational sector; the government needs to re-address the issue of funding. Private educational investors, teachers! Parents/guidance and students/pupils need a reorientation towards achieving the goals of education. Also, education must be made affordable for all and sundry. The current monopolistic approach to knowledge acquisition must be changed. Technical education and innovation/ adaptation centers must be encouraged and well funded, if this nation must move out of this present technological and scientific dependence. The government and the organized private sector must as well fund research programs, inventions, and mass production of invented products.

Nigeria has the highest number of school dropouts in the world (United Nations, 2013). It brings the need to build science teachers who can raise new thinkers and scientists of the 21st century and make studying science more fun and student-friendly in Nigeria to the forefront (Odia and Omofonmwan, 2007; Florence, 2015; Wilson et al., 2016). A recent study has identified the inefficiencies in most schools’ pedagogical approach to teaching and learning science in Nigeria (Udu, 2018) which poses a significant threat to students’ enrollment in science and science advocacy success in Nigeria.

Thus, education becomes a vital and crucial tool needed for the formation of minds from childhood to adulthood in a designed environment called the school where learning and the acquisition of skills take place for the total development of each individual, the society, and the nation as a whole (Ogunkoya 1998). The poor and declining educational performance of students in the Nigerian educational system owing to examination malpractices is becoming so alarming that the achievement of the set goals of teaching students to contribute positively to the sustainable development of him and that of the nation is endangered (Odia & Omofonmwan, 2007). ……

The Federal Government of Nigeria through the Ministry of Education has agreed to implement these recommendations to improve the quality of early childhood education in the country. However, there is a distinct gap between the theory and practice of early childhood education in Nigeria, especially in terms of human and physical resources (Odia and Omofonmwan 2007). In spite of these challenges, the Nigerian government has made efforts to ensure that most public schools accommodate pre-primary classes, especially the pre-primary three class.

In order to support knowledge acquisition in the context of problem-oriented training in empirical research methods for students of pedagogy, a virtual learning environment was conceptualized. This learning environment is provided parallel to the regular lectures. It is evaluated and further developed on the basis of empirical evidence. The learning environment follows a modular design. Depending on the training section in which the learning environment is implemented, different learning methods are employed. In the first section of the training, problem-solving tasks are provided which are to be coped with on an individual basis. In addition, transfer tasks are made available which are to be worked on in dyads. In the second section, the learning blocks are based on complex hypertexts which are combined with additional instructional components like explanations and questions of comprehension, for instance. The design of the hypertexts was guided by principles of example-based learning. In both training sections, extensive concepts of tutorial support are realized, too. Besides the content-specific learning blocks, non-content-specific blocks are provided which give an introduction to the use of the learning environment and prepare the students for the regular exams. The conception of the learning environment is guided by a differentiated cognitive and motivational perspective.

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