Catching Students’ Interest and Curiosity through Demonstration

Abstract

Our experience in integrating demonstrations into Physics lectures, during a first-year thermodynamics course, has yielded exceedingly positive feedback from students. This approach has dual benefits: it boosts campus attendance and creates a vibrant classroom environment wherein both educators and students collaboratively explore new knowledge. The main challenge with this approach lies in how to effectively integrate demonstrations into lectures in order to achieve optimal teaching and learning outcomes. This necessitates discussions on how to maintain students' active engagement in class while maximizing the benefits of the demonstrations for long-term learning. In this paper, we will categorize demonstrations based on different perspectives and analyze their applicable conditions.