Galactic Activity 29

Present a demonstration on something practical with an emphasis on structure and clarity.

Activity 29 – Practical Demonstration

Duration: 6 -10 mins
Applicable Streams: Education, Personal challenge, Learning & Development, Workplace skills, Technical, Inspiration/Motivation

Aim

In this activity you are aiming to:

Demonstrate a hands on, practical skill – actually bring in the objects that you are teaching with

Objectives

To do this, you will need to keep the following objectives in mind:

  1. Choose a practical skill that you have expertise in.
  2. Present the reasons why this is a useful skill to have and how it can help you.
  3. Explain the theory, and demonstrate the skill.
  4. Allow time for the participants to ask questions or practise the skill.

The Why…

Teaching people practical skills is a skill that you need at home, in the community and in the workplace. This activity gives you the chance to get experience teaching those practical skills, whilst having a friendly cohort to work with.

The aim here is to deliver a workshop that teaches us something practical – the skill isn’t really important, it’s a more about the way you structure your workshop, the clarity with which you step people through the process, and making it concise enough to fit into the available time.

This activity is challenging you to teach a ‘practical skill’ rather than a soft skill like the other Galactic activities: Activity 20 (In depth workshop on speaking or meeting skills) and Activity 30 (Teach us).

Where do I start?

Choose a skill that you’re familiar with and happy to share with others. You may wish to poll the group with a range of options to find out which skills would be most useful for the group – there’s no point teaching chefs how to fry eggs!

The How

Specific guidelines on how to tackle this activity.

Here are some ideas for practical skills you could teach:

  • Fixing a puncture in a bike tyre
  • Pruning a rose
  • Making a cocktail or food
  • Ironing a shirt
  • Putting on makeup
  • Shaving
  • Tying a tie
  • Putting on a wetsuit
  • Best ways to wear a hat
  • Weaving
  • Origami
  • First aid
  • Spreadsheet formulas

Much like the other Galactic activities that are focused on teaching others a skill, try to stick to the best practice structure of:

  1. Motivate the audience by showing why and how they can benefit from learning this skill, or at least at what points it might come in handy to know!
  2. Explaining the theory is one thing, but demonstrating the task is another. Make sure your demonstrations give clear examples of what to do, and also what NOT to do. Seeing a ‘bad’ example is sometimes more helpful than seeing the ‘right’ example. Roleplays are a great way to show soft skills in action.
  3. Give the audience a chance to ask questions so they can clarify anything that isn’t clear.

Variations:

CHALLENGE! Teaching friendly people is one thing – teaching people with challenging behaviours is another! If you want a challenge, ask the Program Director to ‘plant’ some challenging behaviours in the ‘classroom’ that you need to deal with while you’re teaching.

Tips and traps

TRAPS:

  • Demonstrating without explaining what you’re doing and why. This will lead to long patches of silence while people are only watching.
  • Doing every single step in detail meaning the time blows out or the whole process takes too long.
  • Teaching something too complex or complicated for the time allocated.
  • Not demonstrating enough, and just relying on explanations and the theory behind the skill.

TIPS:

  • When demonstrating, explain exactly what you’re doing and why so that people can follow both visually and aurally.

  • Prepare some of the parts of the process beforehand, if practical. If teaching about baking bread for example, there won’t be time to let the dough ‘proof’ – so you may want to make dough during the presentation, then present a ball of dough that you’ve proofed earlier so they can see the difference (without having to wait the 2 hours for it to proof in real time).

  • Choose a skill that is teachable in the time that you’ve been allocated. Try it out on friends or family to make sure it’s doable in the time you’re given.
  • Demonstrate demonstrate demonstrate – you can’t demonstrate enough! Make sure you cover off on what to do AND what not to do – sometimes this is equally if not more important than showing them the right way to do it!
  • Questions from the audience are key! That’s where the real learning happens so make sure you leave time for questions, and time to address them properly.

Guidelines for Program Director: