Key Resource: Using explaining and Demonstrating to Assist Learning

Explaining is the giving of understanding to another. Demonstrations are ways of assisting the explanation process by using artefacts or other methods to show pupils something so that they understand it better. An explanation used in a lesson can help pupils to understand:
concepts or ideas – including those that are new or unfamiliar to pupils,for example density’ or ‘volume’; cause and effect – rain is caused by air cooling, a flat battery means the car won’t start; processes – how things work, how people and animals behave; relationships – between people, things and events: the role of grandparents in a family, why flies are insects and spiders are not, the common features of important yearly festivals. To explain well, you, the teacher, have to understand the subject matter well (what is to be taught). For example, if you do not understand that a spider is not an insect, neither will your pupils.