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Re: Mini-volcano



I think that the comment about good pedagogues in demos has been researched
in a number of articles. While some students do learn concepts from demos,
the reality is that most demos do not teach what is intended. The students
remember the sizzle and not the concepts. There is a form of demo which has
been published which does increase the conceptual understanding of students.
This is the (ILD) "Interactive Lecture Demonstration", Thornton... published
by Vernier. These show gain on the FMCE and the relevant papers are
included with the purchased material. Conventional demos are actually very
ineffective. Demos which give the answers to Mazur's concep questions are
probably effective, but to my knowledge there has been no research done on
that question.

Since the research shows that conventional demos are very ineffective, doing
a possibly dangerous demo is very unwise. On the other hand some research
shows that laser disk demos can be as effective as real labs when the
students use them instead of real physical equipment. I suspect that demos
in the form of movies, DVD, or laser disk presentations are probably just as
effective as the real thing (very low effectiveness). On the other hand a
video presentation might be very effective when used as an interactive
lecture demo. Essentially all demos (video or physical) might be effective
when done in the style of the ILD.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


Sorry to be so negative, but over the past few years I have been
re-evaluating the demos I do, in the interest of good pedagogy. I would
still like to do lots of demos, but I want to do more where the
student has
learned something in the class, sees the demo and thinks "aha!" (Or,
obviously, the reverse case where I do the demo and spark student interest
in learning more.)

Mike
--
Michael Porter
Colonel By Secondary School
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada