Delivering Content & Assessing Student Learning: Demonstrations

Demonstrations are great if everyone wants to learn and is paying attention. In years past this has always been an effective method of delivering content because the students were engaged. This semester I have a particularly distracted bunch of students. I  show them a demonstration and then have them go make what I demonstrated. Over and over again I have to repeat instructions and explain things that I already demonstrated and explained thoroughly. I was perplexed for a while at how to solve this problem. I finally approached it by making them accountable for what they saw in the demonstrations through a combination of note taking, competitions and grades based on their ability to apply their notes from the demonstration they just watched to produce the desired results.

3. Give a Demonstration

Pros Cons
o  Appeals to visual & auditory learners

o  Teacher has ability to emphasize different points

o  Students can ask questions throughout

o  Ability to pace demonstration to class’s learning

o   Short attention spans

o   Inability to focus and/or daydreaming

o   Lacking rigor

Ex. Demonstrate how to diaper and swaddle a baby.

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