No, not demonstration as in the ones going on in northern Africa and the Middle East. This is demonstration of a concept or phenomenon.
Physics World has blurb and a video on the importance of using appropriate demonstrations as part of a physics education. The article has a link to the PhysicsEducation YouTube channel that has many videos of various demonstrations, a few of which one can easily adapt for one's physics class.
Zz.
While such demonstrations might do an excellent job of engaging students, it is also important that these demos serve as effective learning tools (otherwise, it's just entertainment). Delivery of such demos is key and teachers should be aware of the PER findings on this topic.
ReplyDeleteFor example, this study (AJP, Vol. 72, No. 6, pp. 835-838, 2004) found that students who passively observe demonstrations understand the underlying concepts no better than students who do not see the demonstration at all; however, students who predict the demonstration outcome before seeing it displayed significantly greater understanding.
Thanks, ZapperZ, for your continued sprinkling of physics education research among the more typical of your condensed matter physics entries. This is a great blog!