Conversation

Andy Matuschak

@andy_matuschak

·

Mar 24, 2018

Nick's first post to our blog! I'm still pondering the motivating observation from

@farrarscott

: it's subtly quite odd when a problem set or teacher asks a student to "explain XYZ" …explain to whom?! The grader? That's not what's really meant—what happens if we say what we mean?

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nick barr

@nsbarr

· Mar 23, 2018

A good explanation happens between someone who knows and someone who wants to know. How do educators create the conditions for good explanations? I wonder about this over here: http://klr.tumblr.com/post/172084427238/explain-to-who… h/t @farrarscott

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Andy Matuschak

@andy_matuschak

This past week we noticed that this inauthentic, non-sequitur-ish request feels *totally* different if it's phrased like a challenge for the student's benefit, e.g. "Reinforce what you've learned today by trying to explain it to me as if I were your little brother."

10:18 PM · Mar 24, 2018·Twitter Web Client

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Noah Tye

@noahlt

·

Mar 24, 2018

Replying to

@andy_matuschak

same with How to Read a Book made me actually want to write book summaries

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Ben Kamens

@kamens

·

Mar 24, 2018

Replying to

@andy_matuschak

Never would’ve recognized this on my own. Now feels so obvious in hindsight.

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Andy Matuschak

@andy_matuschak

·

Mar 24, 2018

That's totally how it felt to me too! This is true of so many things in teaching and learning… it makes it hard to convey insights without sounding trivial. :D

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Scott Farrar

@farrarscott

·

Mar 25, 2018

Replying to

@andy_matuschak

I wonder how this goes if a student feels like they don’t get it

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Andy Matuschak

@andy_matuschak

·

Mar 25, 2018

Yeah. Wanna chat about that with you this week: some of what we've been playing with in the last week is observing the kinds of interactions that seem most tractable and rewarding for student pairs of varying proficiency levels…