Effective demonstrations booklet (401 KB) - Staffordshire Learning Net

Introduction
© Crown copyright 2008
The National Strategies | Secondary
Effective demonstrations
In this guide we consider how the use of demonstration experiments can contribute to
enhancing the quality of teaching and learning in science.
Within the different sections of this guide we will explore:
● reasons for carrying out demonstration experiments;
● different types of demonstrations and the different situations in which
demonstrations are used;
● how to make demonstrations as effective as possible.
In your teaching, you will already be using ‘demonstrations’ in a whole variety of ways
on a day-to-day basis. Perhaps, for example, you have shown the pupils how to interpret
a graph using a data projector or interactive whiteboard. This and other types of
practical activity are considered in more detail in one of the other guides in this suite,
‘Interactive Practicals’
The focus here is on practical demonstrations, which have a long tradition in the
teaching and exposition of science at all levels. The use of demonstrations to illustrate
scientific theories or processes has been a tool valued by scientists for many
generations.
An effective demonstration is a stimulus for high quality discussion and dialogue.
Through these interactions, pupils' understanding can be explored, challenged and
developed with the use of appropriate questions to provide cognitive conflict and
gently move pupils out of their comfort zones.
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00094-2008DVD-EN