How to Teach through Demonstration
How to Teach through Demonstration. This is part of a series: How to extend learning as part of everyday life part 4. Effective Teaching Strategies: Demonstrating. In this article I am going to teach you how to extend learning as part of everyday life by demonstrating the correct way of doing things.
How to Extend Learning as Part of Everyday Life
When it comes to bringing learning into the everyday moments of life, there is a simple three step formula I like to keep in mind. This is called the Powerful Interactions Framework.
The three parts to the formula are 1- be present, 2- connect, and 3- extend learning. This third step includes learning and implementing teaching strategies that build on the knowledge your child already has.
It is my goal to help teach you these effective teaching strategies so you can confidently extend learning when those key moments come up in your life.
Effective Teaching Strategies: Demonstrating
Definition: Showing the correct way to perform a skill or procedure while your child observes the outcome.
Teaching by example is a crucial part of being a parent and with this strategy, you are just making that a little more explicit. Seeing something done is a powerful first step in learning a new skill. One way to make this strategy even more powerful is to add self-talk along with showing what to actually do. This means you vocalize what you are doing and thinking. Showing your child the processes that are happening in your mind and focusing their attention on the most important details of the task. This is especially effective to teach skills that require particular steps in a certain order.
How to Teach through Demonstration
What this looks like:
“To fold a towel, you will first fold it in half like this…”
“I need to get a bowl from a shelf that is too high for me to reach. See. The solutions I can think of are to either climb on the counter or go get a stool. I’m worried that if I climb on the counter it won’t be as safe, so I am going to find a stool. I think I saw one in the pantry earlier… See how this stool made me tall enough to reach the bowl? Now I can keep cooking.”
“Notice how when I put the books away on the shelf, I go slowly and set them upright like this. This keeps our books from getting bent or ruined.”