Disadvantages of demonstration method in teaching geography:
(i) It provides no scope for ‘learning by doing’ for students as students just observe what the teacher is performing. Thus students fail to relish the joys of direct personal experience.
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(ii) Since the teacher performs the experiment in his own pace, many students cannot comprehend the concept being clarified.
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(iii) Since the method is not child centered it makes no provision for individual differences. All types of students including slow learners and genius have to proceed with the same speed.
(iv)It fails to develop laboratory skills in the students. It cannot work as a substitute for laboratory work by students in which they are required to handle the apparatus themselves.
(v) In this method students many a times fail to observe many finer details of apparatus because they observe it from a distance.
It is thoroughly accepted that success is greater with experiments in elementary schools if they start with real purpose, are simple done with uncomplicated apparatus, are done by children under careful direction of the teacher, and help the children think and draw valid tentative conclusion.