What’s special about TEMI teaching? The TEMI teaching methodology comprises four main innovations: first the use of mysteries to capture the students imagination and motivation, second the 5E cycle to help pupils explore and evaluate their learning, third presentation skills to allow teachers to feel comfortable in presenting the classroom mysteries, and finally a method by which responsibility for learning is transferred gradually from teacher to student, so flipping the traditional session.

1. VIDEO CONFERENCE
SHOWMANSHIP
Marina Carpineti, UMIL
Marco Giliberti, UMIL
Co-funded by
the Seventh Framework Programme
of the European Union
FP7-Science-in-Society-2012-1, Grant Agreement N. 321403

2. WHAT IS SHOWMANSHIP?
Definitions (vocabulary, internet,…)
• The skill or ability of a showman
• The ability to present something (especially theatrical shows)
in an attractive manner
(often an ability that has been acquired by training)
• It is generally though it means to be “flamboyant”, or “show
off”.
• It is the art of making something look interesting and great.
Showman
A person who presents or produces a show, especially of a
theatrical nature.
A person who is gifted in doing or presenting things
theatrically or dramatically.
FP7-Science-in-Society-2012-1, Grant Agreement N. 321403 2

3. WHAT IS SHOWMANSHIP?
Definitions (vocabulary, internet,…)
• The ability of a showman
• The ability to present something (especially theatrical shows)
in an attractive manner
(often an ability that has been acquired by training)
• It is generally though it means to be “flamboyant”, or “show
off”.
• It is the art of making something look interesting and
great.
Showman
A person who presents or produces a show, especially of a
theatrical nature.
A person who is gifted in doing or presenting things
theatrically or dramatically.
FP7-Science-in-Society-2012-1, Grant Agreement N. 321403 3

4. WHAT IS SHOWMANSHIP?
A good showman has the ability to convey the attention
of the public on what he/she wants.
FP7-Science-in-Society-2012-1, Grant Agreement N. 321403 4

5. WHAT IS SHOWMANSHIP?
A good showman has the ability to convey the attention
of the public on what he/she wants.
but not necessarily on the most important thing
(ex: magicians).
A good showman in theatre is possibly a person that
leads the public to feel that what is happening on stage
is true, that the feelings acted by the showman are
real.
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6. WHAT IS SHOWMANSHIP?
Showmen in google
Form is extremely important
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7. WHY SHOWMANSHIP?
To create engagement: curiosity, interest, surprise
To fix in the memory: the power of images
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8. SHOWMANSHIP IN TEACHING
In school showmanship should be associated to a
personal involvement in the subject.
Showmanship should not be only a formal attitude.
Teachers must be able to convey the students attention
towards the essential aspects.
Lessons must be: well organized, with changes of
rithm (dialogue, questions, experiments, fun,
blackboard…)
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9. SHOWMANSHIP IN TEACHING
• Showmanship must not be confused with actor skills: it does not
always require particular theatrical devices, and teachers do not need
to be exuberant or mummers. But theatre has devised many
techniques to improve showmanship and master the art of
performance that can be used also by teachers to present more
effective lessons.
In a sense, teachers could think themselves as theatre directors of
their classroom activities. In fact showmanship requires a theatrical
grammar that is the awareness that:
1) Scientific message cannot be proposed only in a conceptual way;
2) Involvements and meanings come out also from emotional
engagement:
3) Particular care must be taken in focussing key-points and give
suggestions.
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10. SHOWMANSHIP IN TEACHING
Scientific showmanship requires:
• To present meaningful things in terms of students’ experiences;
• To establish conceptual link that help to reduce cognitive difficulties;
• To give clear and concise instructions;
• To pay attention not only on what and with to begin but also on how;
• To take roles even different from that of the standard teachers and
make student take roles different from those of the standard students;
• The ability to create disciplinary discussion;
• The ability of enhancing exploration activities;
• The ability to listen to students’ questions without judging them.
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11. SHOWMANSHIP IN TEACHING
• But sometimes also lights, darkness, music and silence can be used
in order to highlight experiments, or parts of them, or to give more
meaning to some key sentences and not lose students attention and
motivation, thus giving them more possibilities to grab new things.
• Whatever the personal teachers’ attitudes are, the ability to give
personal meaning to scientific topics and to put in evidence large and
connected landscapes through which students can move, is
unavoidable for getting a reliable scientific showmanship.
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12. SHOWMANSHIP IN TEACHING
some examples
Compression and expansion of gases
It can be presented through
explosion, fear, amazement, surprise…
http://youtu.be/IyvkBR6hlMg
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13. SHOWMANSHIP IN TEACHING
…but also through a small action
2: http://youtu.be/jlLIP7wn76k
Slava Snowshow http://youtu.be/Mdjdd-g1R1k
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14. WHY SHOWMANSHIP?
• In these examples we showed mysteries. People are emotionally
engaged in what is happening and at the end they ask themselves:
«why?»; «what is happening?»
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15. • Showmanship can also help in creating
mental images of scientific concepts.
Vector summation.
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16. You can easily figure it out with a
simple play:
Vectorial tug-of-war
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17. linear propagation of light
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18. Misconceptions
In literature there are a lot of data showing that
often students have wrong ideas about physics.
Teachers can ask a critical question on the
expectations of students:
A ball is moving along the inner wall of
an open circle on a table, as in figure.
What will happen when the ball arrives
at the opening?
http://youtu.be/uv8lzTW41yw
http://youtu.be/7pvR0FUCukw
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19. How can teachers use
SHOWMANSHIP?
• How can they make their subject look
interesting and great?
• How can teachers convey the students
attention towards the essential aspects
of a scientific problem?

20. Various techniques: storytelling, introducing mysteries, performing a little show
Challenges
We cannot ask all the teachers to be actors.
There is also a warning: self-organized performances are often of bad
quality, not effective, ridiculous.
Theatre has its rules and it works only when they are all respected:
light, music, actors’ positions, accuracy of movements…
Not all the subjects that a teacher needs to explain can be easily
spectacularized.

21. We take the examples of clock reaction.
Let’s start from the video where the experiment alone is shown.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOR4kJy3P78
It is perfect. Only what is really important is shown.
If a teacher was able to do something of that quality is his/her classroom
he/she would obtain a perfect result.
BUT…

22. It is almost impossible.
In the classroom, or in the laboratory there are blackboards, tables,
objects that distract the attention.
Impossible to convey the attention only on
the experiment
Probably things would go wrong the first time, students would laugh.
Students are in their usual mood. At theatre or
watching a video
it would probably be different
And whenever everything works fine, it is possible that students
would move their eyes from the sample and lose the moment in
which the reaction takes place.
Things cannot be emphasized. No repetitions are
possible.

23. • Teachers have many possibilities:
• They can show a video. IMPORTANT: They can
choose either the first or the second one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl7qW8duDvM&feature=youtu.be
depending on their mood, on their nature, on the
classroom!
• They can bring their students to attend a scientific
theatre show.
• They can learn how to present in an effective way the
subjects, using the required theatrical grammar.

24. Whatever they choose, they first have to change their attitude towards
teaching.
They need to find out and develop a disciplinary landscape in which the
students can move, with hills, rivers, valleys and islands. They need to add
also emotional aspects to what they teach.
Possibly for every theme they have to ask themselves:
« where can I find this phenomenon in my life?»; « why this phenomenon is
important to me?»; «how is it connected with the rest of the landscape?»;
«can I tell my students some personal anecdote?»
That is what we ask them to do in our TEMI labs

25. We ask teachers to pick up a fundamental
aspect of a problem and highlight it in a 2
minutes video that they will present us at the
end of the course.
This approach can also enhance GRR with
the students

26. Showmanship allows to introduce
scientific themes that can be read at
different levels
http://youtu.be/d31PTN6q-tQ
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