Resource 3: Planning for effective classroom demonstrations

1 Effective demonstrations work as intended

It is important to try out any new demonstration before you use it with a class.

This is obviously the case for safety issues, but it is also important to make sure you have the right equipment and know-how to make something work in front of your class without having to make lots of adjustments. Your class may lose interest if you have to spend a lot of time on ‘setting up’ a practical demonstration.

• How much can you set up in advance so that they don’t lose interest, or become distracted by unnecessary details?
• If there is more than one demonstration that you want students to see in a single lesson, would it be more effective to have each of the demonstrations set up in different parts of the laboratory ready for you to show students?
• If the setting up is an important part of the practical, then having separate trays of equipment for each demonstration will make it easier to pick up only the things that you need instead of searching around for them.

Before you try out a new demonstration, check for any possible hazards and ask a more experienced colleague to show you how to carry out the demonstration safely.

2 Effective demonstrations make everyone aware of the points you want them to notice

If your students don’t see the important features of the demonstration, then it will not help their learning.

• What are the things that your students need to observe in the demonstration (the image produced by an object at a particular distance from a lens, or how you measure the angle of incidence, for example)?

There are two aspects to ensuring that your students see what you want them to see. The first is ensuring that it is physically possible for students to see what you want them to see. The second is ensuring that they are ready to see what you want them to see.

2.1 Ensuring that it is physically possible for students to see what you want them to see

As you rehearse a demonstration, think about how it will look to your students.

• Where will you carry out the demonstration?
• Where will students stand or sit as you do this?
• How will you ensure that everyone is able to see what you want them to see? Will students need to move to somewhere they can view the feature? Will you need to pass equipment round for students to try things out as you talk?

2.2 Ensuring that your students are ready to see what you want them to see

This means students need to look in the right place to see something as it happens. It also means that they are ready to make sense of what is happening.

• What concepts or prior experiences do you need to remind students of so that they will understand what they are looking for? Do you need to have any images or other resources as reminders to help your students recognise relevant details and ignore irrelevant ones?
• How will you make sure that everyone is looking in the right place at the right time? Of course, it is important to tell them where to look and when, but you can also help by pausing to get everyone’s attention or repeating the key part of the demonstration as necessary.

3 Effective demonstrations ensure that students are active learners rather than passive observers

You can make your demonstrations more effective by involving your students and making them more active learners during the demonstration:

• Ask questions about the demonstration rather than telling students whenever possible. (‘Where should I measure the angle of reflection from?’ rather than ‘I’m measuring the angle of reflection from here’, for example, if this is not the first time you have used the term.)
• Ask your students to make predictions about what will happen and give reasons for their predictions. (‘Where would you expect the image to be this time? Why?’)
• Ask questions that refer back to previous learning.
• Use students to help with parts of a demonstration that are not hazardous.

4 Effective demonstrations are part of a whole lesson

Demonstrations contribute to learning as part of a complete lesson. To do this effectively, you need to ‘set the stage’ in a starter section, make sure your demonstration delivers all the learning points you want it to, then consolidate the learning in a plenary section.

Use the starter to:

• identify a maximum of four learning outcomes for the lesson
• direct attention to key questions that your students should ask themselves or things they should look out for during the demonstration
• help your students relate what they are about to do to what they have already learned about.

During the plenary:

• ask individual students to summarise what they found out from the demonstration (Was it what they expected? Did they find anything odd or surprising?).