Thinking+about+demos

Over the course of the year I have had many discussions with teachers and students about demonstrations.

There is always tough balance to be struck between providing too much info - which can kill the pace of the lesson and too little which means that there is no hope of the pupils being able to do what you have asked.

I often see the situation where the teaching space will be shared in such a way that the whole class need to see how the task will operate for it to work. In these cases to select one group of 3 to demo and then expect the episode to go well is perhaps wishful thinking.

Think if it is possible to get the class into groups and then sit them where they will be for the episode then demo the task either there and then with the class spaced out away from you, or bring them in and demo then send them back.

Often too much talk is the problem, try the silent demo with a few classes once you are established.

//Watch this//, show now say //we are going to do this so watch again workout your role// in the task then show again and send off. When the pupils are watching that is all they are doing.

Looking through one of your PDP files I saw something about demo's and it made me think of this.

Activities/ learning tasks for pupils need IDEAS
 * Introducing - what are they doing, does it have a name.
 * Demonstrating - teacher or pupil demo model what you want the class to do.
 * Explaination - when, where, why do we need to learn this, what will we achieve.
 * Action - pupils need time to work on what they are doing.
 * Summarising - how well did they perform the task what did they learn from it?