Lesson 10

DEMONSTRATIONS IN TEACHING

“Good demonstration is good communication”

What is Demonstration?

Ø  It is a “public showing emphasizing the salient merits, utility, efficiency, etc, of an article or product”. In teaching it is showing how a thing is done and emphasizing of the salient merits, utility and efficiency of a concept, a method or a process or an attitude.

   In planning and preparing for demonstration, Brown (1969) suggests methodical procedures by the following questions:

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 proposed demonstration? Outline the steps and rehearse your demonstration.

6.    Are the time limits realistic?

     You have planned and rehearsed your demonstration, your materials and equipment are ready, you have prepared your students, then you can proceed to the demonstration itself. Dale (1969) gives several points to observe and these are:

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

2.    Keep your demonstration simple.

3.    Do not wander from the 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 the demonstration. Interesting things are never dragged out. They create their own tempo.

7.    Summarize as you go along and provide a concluding summary.

8.    Hand out written materials at the conclusion.

   What questions can you ask to evaluate your classroom demonstration? Dale (1969) enumerates:

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

Ø  Did you follow the step-by-step plan?

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

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

Ø  Could every person see and hear?

Ø  Did you help students to do their own generalizing?

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

Ø  Did you review and summarize the key points?

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

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

   A 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.

   In the actual conduct of demonstration itself we see to it that we:

1.    Get and sustain the interest of our audience.

2.    Keep our demonstration simple, focused and clear.

3.    Do not hurry nor drag out the demonstration.

4.    Check the understanding in the process of demonstration.

5.    Conclude with a summary.

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

Lesson 9

Teaching with Dramatized Experiences

Dramatized Experiences- By dramatization, we can participate in a reconstructed experience, even though the original event is far removed from us in time. We relive the outbreak of the Philippine revolution by acting out the role of characters in a drama.

Formal Dramatized Experiences:

A.   Play- is a depict life, character or culture or it is a combination of the three.

B.   Pageants- are usually community dramas that are based on local history that are presented by local actors.

Less Formal Dramatized Experiences:

a)    Pantomime- is the art of conveying a story through bodily movements only.

b)   Tableau- (French word means Picture) is a picture. Like a scene that is composed of people against a background.

c) Puppets- unlike regular stage play, it can present ideas with extreme simplicity without elaborate scenery or costume yet effective. It is an inanimate object, constructed of wood, cloth, plastic and cardboard.

Types of Puppets

1.    The Marionette- is generally fashioned from wood and resemble a human body.

2. Shadow Puppets- are similar to the marionette but less sophisticated. It is generally flat characters created from heavy paper or cardboard.

3.    Stick Puppets- as simple as the Styrofoam ball head attached to a stick or a two-dimensional picture attached to a stick.

4.    Hand Puppet- the most common type of puppet. They are relatively simple to create.

5.   Mouth Puppets- are distinguished from other puppets in that they have movable mouths, thus allowing the puppets to talk more realistically.

6.  Rod Puppet- it is a flat cut out figures tacked to a stick with one or more movable parts and operated from below the stage level wire rods or slender sticks.

7.    Glove and Finger Puppets- make uses of old gloves to which small costumed figure are attached.  

Lesson 8

Teaching with Contrived Experiences

“We teach through a re-arrangement of the raw reality: a specimen, a manageable sample of a whole… when the direct experience cannot be used properly in its natural setting.”- Edgar Dale

What is Contrived Experiences?

·         These are “edited” copies of reality and are used as substitutes for real things when it is not practical or do the real thing in the classroom. These are designed to stimulate to real-life situation.

These are included in Contrived Experiences:

1.    Model- is a reproduction of a real thing in a small scale, large scale or exact size. It is a substitute for a real thing which may or may not be operational.

2.   Mock-up – is an arrangement of real device or associated devices, displayed in such a way that representation of reality is created. The mock-up may be simplified in order to emphasize certain features. It is a special model where the parts of a model are single out, heightened and magnified in order to focus on that part or process under study.

3.    Specimen- is any individual or item considered typical of a group, class or whole.

4.  Objects- may also include artifacts displayed in a museum or objects displayed in exhibits or preserved insect’s specimen in science.

5.   Simulation- is representation of manageable real event in which the learner is active participants engage in learning a behavior in or in applying previously acquired skills or knowledge. It seems to be more easily applied to study of issues rather than to process.

6.    Games- played to win. It is use of any of these purposes:

·         To practice and to refine knowledge or skills that already acquire.

·         To identify gaps or weaknesses in knowledge or skills.

·         To serve as a summation or review.

·         To develop new relationships among concepts and principles.

Why do we make use of Contrived Experiences?

1.    To overcome limitation of space and time.

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

3.    To overcome difficulties of size.

4.    To understand the inaccessible.

5.    Help the learners understand abstractions.

Lesson 7

Direct Purposeful Experiences and Beyond

“ From the rich experiences that our senses bring, we construct the ideas, the concepts, the generalizations that give meaning and order to our lives.”-Edgar Dale

What is Direct Purposeful Experiences?

-These are the first hand experiences which serve as the foundation of our learning. We build up our reservoir of meaningful information and ideas through seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling.

- Direct experiences lead us to concept formation and abstraction.

- Direct experiences are basically what the students can learn by doing it.

- This way of teaching is the most effective way of teaching the students because experiences are the best teacher.

What is Indirect or Vicarious Experiences?

·         They are not our own self-experiences but experiences of other. In the sense that we see, read and hear about them.

·         They are not first hand experiences.

Why are these direct experiences described to be purposeful?

·         They are experiences that are internalized in the sense that these experiences involved the asking of questions that have significance 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

Lesson 6

Using and Evaluating Instructional Materials

One of the instructional materials used to attain instructional objectives is field trip. For an effective use of instructional materials such as field trip, there are guidelines that ought to be observed, first of al, in their selection and second, in their use.

Selections of Materials

The following guide questions express standards to consider in the selection of instructional materials.

·      Does the material give a true picture of ideas they present? To avoid misconceptions, it is always good to ask when the material was produced.

·         Does the material contribute meaningful content to the topic under study? Does the material help you achieve the instructional objective?

·         Is the material aligned to the curriculum standards and competencies?

·         Is the material culture- and grades- sensitive?

·         Does the material have culture bias?

·         Is the material appropriate for the age, intelligence and experience of the learners?

·         Is the physical condition of the material satisfactory? An example, is a photograph properly mounted?

·         Is there a teacher’s guide to provide a briefing for effective use? The chance that the instructional material will be used to maximum and to the optimum is increased with a teacher’s guide.

·         Can the material in question help to make students better thinkers and develop their critical faculties? With exposure to mass media, it is highly important that we maintain and strengthen our rational powers.

·         Does the use of material make learners collaborate with one another?

·         Does the material promote self-study?

·         Is the material worth the time, expense and effort involved? A field trip, for instance, requires much time, effort and money. Is it more effective than any other less expensive and less demanding instructional material that can take its place? Or is there a better substitute?

The Proper Use of Materials

You may have selected your instructional material well. This is no guarantee that the instructional material will be effectively utilized. It is one thing to select a good instructional material, it is another thing to use it well.

To ensure effective use of instructional material, Hayden Smith and Thomas Nagel, (1972) book authors on Instructional Media, advise us to abide by acronym PPPF.

1.    Prepare yourself. You know your lesson objective and what you expect from the class after the session and why you have selected such particular instructional material. You have a plan on how you will proceed, what question to ask, how you will evaluate learning and how you will tie loose ends before the bell rings.

2.    Prepare your students. Set reasonably high class expectations and learning goals. It is sound practice to give them guide questions for them to be able to answer during the discussion. Motivate them and keep them interested and engaged.

3.    Present the material. Under the best possible conditions. Many teachers are guilty of the R.O.G. Syndrome. This is means “running out of gas” which usually results from poor planning. (Smith, 1972) Using media and materials, especially if they are mechanical in nature, often requires rehearsal and a carefully planned performance. Wise are you if you try the materials ahead of your class use to avoid a fiasco.

4.    Follow up. Remember that you use instructional material to achieve an objective, not to kill time nor to give yourself a break, neither to merely entertain the class. You use the instructional for the attainment of the lesson objective. Your use of the instructional material is not the end in itself. It is a means to an end, the attainment of a learning objective. So, there is need to follow up to find out if objective was attained or not.

To ensure that instructional materials serve their purpose in instruction, we need to observe some guidelines in their selection and use. The materials that we select must:

·         Give a true picture of the ideas they present.

·         Contribute to the attainment of the learning objective.

·         Be aligned to curriculum standards and competencies.

·         Be appropriate to the age, intelligence and experience of the learners.

·         Be in good and satisfactory condition.

·         Be culture-sensitive and gender-sensitive.

·         Provide for a teacher’s guide.

·         Help develop the critical and creative thinking powers of students.

·         Promote collaborative learning?

·         Be worth the time, expense and effort involved.

For optimum use of the instructional material, it is necessary that the teacher prepares:

·         Herself’

·         Her students

·         The instructional material an does follow up

·         Promote independent study

-Any instructional material can be the best provided it helps the teacher accomplish his/her intended learning. No instructional material, no matter how superior, can take the place of an effective teacher.