Are your students learning or are they just watching?

The paper presents the use of demonstrations as an effective method in teaching engineering and science subjects. The authors discuss the reasons for using demonstrations as a tool for promoting learning and understanding on basis of their experiences as teachers and teacher educators in the field of engineering education. The features of using demonstrations are considered. How, where and when to use a demonstration is an important issue in the preparation of a lecture. The lecturer's preparation does not only include gathering and putting together the equipment but also a careful preparation of the lecture. The students should be prepared not only for watching, but activated with suitable pre-tasks and provoked to make predictions and to justify them. During the demonstration, they should know how to make observations and after the demonstration, they should be able to draw conclusions. None of this will happen if the students are not correctly coached to do so. Demonstrations can be useful in influencing the students' conceptions and possible misconceptions and a useful method in teaching experimental subjects based on observation. This is only true when used correctly and when suitable reflection is included.