Lesson 10

Demonstration

    Like role-playing and pantomime of the dramatized experience, demonstration is also something very handy. It requires no elaborate preparation and yet as effective as the other instructional materials when done properly.

(According to Webster’s International Dictionary)

     It is define as, “A public showing emphasizing the salient merits, utility, efficiency, etc, of an article or product…”

    In teaching it is showing how thing is done and emphasizing of the salient merits, utility and efficiency of a concept, a method or a process or an attitude.

Guiding Principles (Edgar Dale 1969)

1. Establish rapport.

•     Greet your audience.

•     Make them feel at ease by your warmth and sincerity.

•    Stimulate their interest by making your demonstration and       yourself interesting.

•     Sustain their attention.

2. Avoid COIK fallacy (Clear Only If Known).

• What is this fallacy? It is the assumption that what is clear to the expert demonstrator is also clearly known to the person for whom the message is intended.

• To avoid the fallacy, it is best for the expert demonstrator to assume that his audience knows nothing or a little about what he is intending to demonstrate for him to be very thorough, clear detailed in his demonstration even to a point of facing the risk of being repetitive.

Planning and Preparing For Demonstration

Brown (1969)

2. 1.  What are our objectives?

2.  How does your class stand with respect to these objectives. This is to determine entry knowledge and skills of your students.

3.  Is there a better way to achieve your ends? If there is a more effective way to attain your purpose, then replace the demonstration method with the more effective one.

4. Do you have access to all the necessary materials and equipment to make the demonstration? Have a checklist of necessary equipment and material. This may include written materials.

5. Are you familiar with the sequence and content of the    purposed demonstration? Outline the steps and rehearse your  demonstration.

6.  Are the time limits realistic?

Point to Observe in the Demonstration

Dale (1969)

  1. Set the tone for good communication. Get and keep your audience’s interest.

  2. Keep your demonstration simple.

  3. Do not wander from main ideas.

 4. Check to see that your demonstration is being understood. Watch your audience for signs of bewilderment, boredom, or disagreement.

5. Do not hurry your demonstration. Asking questions to check understanding can serve as a “brake”.

  6. Do not drag out demonstration. Interesting things are never dragged out. They create their own tempo.

  7. Summarize as you go along and provide a concluding summary. Use chalkboard, the overhead projector, charts diagrams, PowerPoint and whatever other materials are appropriate to synthesize your demonstration.

  8. Hand out written materials at the conclusion.

Questions to Evaluate Classroom Demonstration

Dale (1969)

• Was your demonstration adequately and skillfully prepared? Did you select demonstrable skills or ideas? Were the desired behavioral outcomes clear? 

• Did you follow the step-by-step plan? Did you make use of additional material appropriate to your purposes- chalkboard, felt board, pictures, charts, diagrams, models, overhead transparencies, or slides?

• Was the demonstration itself correct? Was your explanation simple enough so that most of the students understood it easily?

• Did you keep checking to see that all your students were concentrating on what you were doing?

• Could every person see and hear? If a skill was demonstrated for imitation, was it presented from the physical point of view of the learner?

• Did you held students do their own generalizing?

• Did you take enough time to demonstrate the key points?

• Did you review and summarize the key points?

• Did your students participate in what you were doing by asking thoughtful questions at the appropriate time?

• Did your evaluation of student learning indicate that your demonstration achieved its purpose?

Summary:

        Good Demonstration is an audio-visual presentation. It is not enough that the teacher talks. To be effective, his/her demonstration must be accompanied by some visuals.

Actual Conduct of Demonstration

1.     Get and sustain the interest of the audience.

2.     Keep the demonstration simple, focused and clear.

3.     Do not hurry nor drag out the demonstration.

4.     Check for understanding in the process of demonstration.

5.     Conclude with a summary.

6.     Hand out written material at the end of the demonstration.

Lesson 9

Teaching with Dramatized Experiences

Dramatic - is something that is stirring, affecting or moving.

Dramatic Entrance - is something that catches and holds attention, and has emotional impacts.

Dramatized Experiences can range from:

Formal Plays

Pageants

Tableau

Pantomime

Puppets

Role-playing

Plays - depict life, character, culture, or a combination of the three. They offer excellent opportunities to portray vividly important ideas about life.

Pageants - are usually community dramas that are based on local history. An example is a historical pageant that traces the growth of a school. 

Pantomime - is an “art of conveying a story through bodily movements.” The effects of pantomime to the audience depends on the movements of the actors.

Tableau - is a picture-like scene composed of people against a background.

Role-Playing - is an unrehearsed, unprepared and spontaneous dramatization of a situation where assigned participants are absorbed by their own roles.

Puppets - a puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. Puppets can present ideas with extreme simplicity.

Types of Puppets

Shadow puppets - flat, black silhouette made from lightweight cardboard shown behind a screen.

Rod puppets - flat, cut-out figures tacked to a stick with one or more movable parts, and are operated below the stage through wires or rods.

Glove-and-finger puppets - make use of gloves which small costumed figures are attached.

Marionettes - flexible, jointed puppets operated by strings or wires attached to a cross bar and maneuvered from directly above the stage.

Lesson 8

Contrived Experiences

- These are the edited copies of reality and our used as substitutes for real things when it is not practical or possible to bring or do the real thing in the classroom.

- Designed to stimulate real life situations.

MODEL

A reproduction of a real thing in a small scale or a large scale or exact size but made of synthetic materials. It is a substitute for a real thing which may or may not operational.

MOCK UP

An arrangement of a real device or associated devices, displayed in such ways that representation of reality is created. A special model where the parts of model are singled out, heightened and magnified in order to focus on that part or process under study.

Example : Planetarium

SPECIMEN

Any individual or item considered typically of a group, class or a whole.

OBJECT

May also include artifacts displayed in a museum or objective displayed in exhibits or preserved insect specimens in science.

SIMULATION

A representation of a manageable real event in which the learner is an active participant engage in learning a behavior or in applying previously acquired skills or knowledge.

GAME

Games are used in any of these purposes:

1.  To practice and / or to refine knowledge / skills already acquired.

2.   To identify gaps and weaknesses in knowledge or skills.

3.   To serve as a summation or review.

4. To develop new relationships among concepts and principles.

Why do we make use of contrived experiences?

1.   Overcome limitations of space and time.

2.  To edit reality for us to be able to focus on parts or process of a system that we intend to study.

3.  To overcome difficulties of size.

4.  To understand the inaccessible.

5.   Help the learners understand abstraction.

Ten general purposes of simulations and games

1.  To develop changes in attitudes.

2.  To change specific behaviors.

3.  To prepare participants for assuming new roles in the future.

4.  To help individuals understand their current roles.

5.  To increase the students’ ability to apply principles.

6. To reduce complex problems or situations to manageable elements.

7. To illustrate roles that may affect one’s life but that one may never assume.

8. To motivate learners.

9. To develop analytical processes.

10. To sensitive individuals to another person’s life role.

Lesson 7

Direct - Purposeful Experiences and Beyond

• These are our concrete and first hand experiences that make up the foundation of our learning.

• These are the rich experiences that are senses bring from which we construct the ideas, the concepts, the generalizations that give meaning and order to our lives.

• They are the sensory experiences.

Example of Direct Purposeful Activities

• Preparing meals or snacks.

 

• Making a piece of furniture.

• Performing a laboratory experiment.

• Delivering a speech.

• Taking a trip.

       In contrast, Indirect Experiences are experience of other people that we observe, read or hear about. They are not our experiences but still experiences in the sense that we see, read, and hear about them. They are not firsthand but rather vicarious.

Why are these Direct Experiences described to be purposeful

• They are experiences that are internalized in the sense that these experiences involve the asking of questions that have significant in the life of the person undergoing the direct experience.

• These experiences are undergone in relation to a purpose, i.e. learning.

• It is done in relation to a certain learning objective.

What does Direct, Purposeful Experience imply to the Teaching and Learning Process?

• Let us give our students opportunities to learn by doing. Let us immerse our students in the world of experience. 

• Let us make use of real things as instructional materials for as long as we can.

• Let us help our students develop the five senses to the full to heighten their sensitivity to the world.

• Let us guide our students so that they can draw meaning from their firsthand experiences and elevate their level of thinking.