Amey-Thakur Teaching technical concepts
Experts explain badly because they cannot remember not knowing. The result is an explanation that is accurate, complete, and useless to the person who needed it.
Method
- Establish what they already know. The explanation builds from there, and getting this wrong is why most explanations fail (see audience-adaptation).
- Give the concrete example first. A specific case then the general rule, since abstractions are only meaningful once there is something to abstract from.
- Introduce one new concept at a time. Each explained in terms of things already established, because two unknowns in one sentence loses everyone.
- Name the thing after describing it. Terminology attached to an understood idea sticks; terminology first is noise.
- Say why it exists. What problem it solves makes the design memorable, where the mechanism alone does not.
- Check understanding by asking them to apply it. Nodding is not comprehension, and a small exercise reveals the gap (see skill-assessment).
- Say what it is not. Boundaries and common misconceptions prevent the confident wrong understanding that is worse than none.
Boundaries
Simplification loses accuracy, and the simplified version must be correct as far as it goes rather than a falsehood to be unlearned. Explanation cannot substitute for practice in developing skill (see deliberate-practice). Some concepts genuinely require prerequisites.