The Interactive Lecture Demonstration Procedure
The following procedure (developed by David Sokoloff and Ronald Thornton) is designed to engage students in the learning process and convert the usually passive lecture environment to a more active one:
- The instructor describes the demonstration and does it for the class without measurements displayed.
- The students are asked to record their individual predictions on a Prediction Sheet, which will be collected, and which can be identified by each student's name written at the top (the students are assured that these predictions will not be graded, although some course credit is usually awarded for attendance and participation at these ILD sessions.)
- The students engage in small group discussions with their one or two nearest neighbors.
- The instructor elicits common student predictions from the whole class.
- The students record their final predictions on the Prediction Sheet.
- The instructor carries out the demonstration with measurements (usually graphs collected with micro-computer-based laboratory tools) displayed on a suitable display (multiple monitors, LCD, or computer projector).
- A few students describe the results and discuss them in the context of the demonstration. Students may fill out a Results Sheet, identical to the Prediction Sheet, which they may take with them for further study.
- Students (or the instructor) discuss analogous physical situation(s) with different "surface" features. (That is, different physical situation(s) based on the same concept(s).)
More details are available in their book, Interactive Lecture Demonstrations: Active Learning in Introductory Physics.