The art of explaining
Ever wondered why a particular teacher is a favourite? Why someone sparked something that caused you to learn more about a subject ? I often do. A part of my job as an enterprise architect involves me explaining to people concepts and theories that are generally difficult to understand. So it’s important for me to know how and why people respond to certain types of explaining.
There are fundamentally 2 ways of explaining something. The first is to “tell” the audience. That is in other words explain a subject by giving facts and figures; using the evidence as the explanation. It’s like saying 2 + 2 = 4 and there is no other explanation. The other way is to weave a story , to create a narrative and to draw the audience into the subject where as an instructor you only provide the equation 2 + 2 and the audience comes up with the answer 4 .
How is it done ? Here is what I employ and I would love to learn from others who have had to explain something to someone what methods they employ.
I love showing the audience the art of the possible by appealing to their own imagination . The approach is always the same - provide some basic facts like 1 + 1 = 2 , explain the number line and then draw them into the subject by asking them to be the number line and imagine what the possible answer could be for another formula I present. The idea is to get the audience engrossed in the narrative. It’s one of the reasons when asked to create PowerPoint presentations I go to lengths to create info graphics .. my slides have minimal text and I rely on the imagination of the audience to draw out a response and then proceed to explain the subject.
Looking back a couple of my school teachers were excellent at doing this. My love for Caesar by Shakespeare is partly due to the explanation provided by my literature teacher- he drew us a picture of the various scenes and suddenly the archaic English text was more interesting.
Explaining a subject is basically the art of storytelling
As always keen to learn
C
I completely agree that analogies are excellent learning tools. They require that the person you are speaking to wants to learn, and that they don't have a superiority or arrogance complex about the method you are using, but if they wish to learn then this method can be a great tool.
ReplyDeleteIn my IT career I have spent years teaching non-technical people about complex IT, and I find that the best analogies have no direct connection with the subject. For example, if someone without computer experience wants to understand how the Internet works, I tell them that their smart phone or tablet or computer is like a telephone, and the Internet is like the world's telephone exchange. A 'search engine', such as Google, is like calling the Operator. If the person pays a company to have a "telephone #" (internet address), and they know the "telephone #" of who or where they want to call, then they can connect. And one of the many benefits: no long distance surcharges! I've used analogies like this to teach grandparents how to get on the web, work their email, make VoIP calls, etc. In the end, it's about finding something they understand, and using it to pattern your analogy.
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