Picture boards as demonstrator aids for pre-practical briefings

Picture boards as a visual support aid for in-lab demonstrator briefings were deployed for a single experiment in both the first and second year undergraduate practical classes. The boards are easy to create and provide an alternative, more accessible and ‘presentation friendly’ perspective of the laboratory manual associated with an experiment. The use of the boards during instructor briefings helped generate confidence and familiarity with the experiments to be performed and this type of demonstrator briefing was preferred to the traditional, more verbal style being used in other experiments. Utilization of the picture boards was also proven to help the students to process the pre-experimental and instructional information associated with the laboratory manual and practical operations.