IOSR Journal of Research & Method in Education (IOSR-JRME) e-ISSN: 2320–7388,p-ISSN: 2320–737X Volume 3, Issue 5 (Nov. –Dec. 2013), PP 92-95 www.iosrjournals.org www.iosrjournals.org 92 | Page Harnessing the Potential of Community Resources as an Antidote to Poor Academic Performance in Physics Aina, Jacob Kola, Philip Yamma Joseph Physics Department College of Education (T) Lafiagi Kwara State, Nigeria Abstract: The paper reviewed students’ academic performance in physics caused by failure of classroom to meet up with teaching and learning process due to students and teachers attitude; professional and pedagogical factors. The paper discussed the full potentials available in our communities that can be used to teach physics for students’ better understanding. Some problems like school location, class size and others were seen as problems to the use of community resources. Some recommendations were suggested at the end of the review one of such recommendations was that government should develop rural communities to assist youth education. Keywords: classroom, community, resources, teaching and learning. I. Introduction There is no doubt that students’ academic performance in physics in Nigerian schools and some other countries of the world is poor. The reasons for this are many based on research studies. Some said physics is abstract (Adeyemo, 2010); some believed it is mathematical (Aina,2013); some blamed teachers for this poor performances; Aiyelabegan (2003) argued that lack of facilities like laboratories causes students’ poor performance in physics, some believed students’ attitudes and low interest to learning equally contributed to poor performance in physics (Aina, 2013). Scholars have carried out many researches in attempt to find solution to students’ poor performance in physics; yet there seem to be no improvement. It is on this background that the paper is reviewing the potential of community resources as a possible solution to this problem. Physics learnt in classrooms that cannot be applied outside the classroom is useless; the beauty of any science is being able to apply its knowledge in real life situation outside the school. Lee (2012) advocated for authentic science learning that would be relevant outside classroom and to individuals. Students will not be able to perform well if what they learnt in classrooms cannot be connected to experiences outside the classroom; this is an indication that conventional classroom experience is failing. Studies have shown that the outdoor setting of an educational programme can have a valuable formative influence on the students (Drissner, Haase, Rinderknecht and Hille, 2013) The conventional classroom situation has failed to achieve its purpose due to many reasons that this paper will fully discussed. The failure of classroom experience to produce desired results makes it imperative to look for an alternative using community resources. Before the advent of western education, community education has been in operation in Africa. In another language community education is called informal education; it has been a powerful tool to educate people because it gives people knowledge and skill (Orimogunje and Olatunji, 2010). II. Conventional classroom situation The conventional classroom experience has failed to achieve its full purpose in the lives of learners today because of the under mentioned reasons. Attitude Both student and teacher are not showing good attitude towards teaching and learning again. Students are not showing positive attitude towards learning anymore perhaps due to high rate of unemployment among young school leavers in the country. It could also be due to lack of motivation to learning from either parents or government in providing learning materials for these students. Motivation is very important to students’ learning; according to Christiana (2009), motivation has high positive correlation in the academic performance of students. The best motivation any student can have towards learning comes from parents; where student lack this parental motivation it always reflect in their academic performance. Parent has a great influence on students’ education that is why Wentzel (1998) said, perceived support from parents was related to interest in school by way of negative relations with emotional distress. Teachers on the other hand are not well motivated through their take home allowances and other incentives; the income of many teachers could not feed him and his family. In view of this he needs to take to other business inimical to his primary assignment of teaching. Many physics teachers have lost interest in teaching ; they don’t