Students Learn by Explaining

Children are quick to ask “why?” and “how?” when it comes to new things, but research proposes elementary and preschool students learn more when teachers turn the questions back on them.

In a symposium at the annual Association for Psychological Science research meeting here panelists discussed how and when asking students for explanations can best enhance their learning.

“Often students are able to say facts, but not able to understand the underlying mathematics concept, or transfer a problem in math to a similar problem in chemistry,” said Joseph Jay Williams, a cognitive science and online education researcher at the University…

Einstein: “If you can’t explain it simply you don’t understand it well enough”

For me there are two implications of this

1)    I often tell that getting students to explain ideas to the teacher and to each other is a great way to determine the depth of understanding. I cannot tell you that it is a bread-and-butter element of all great lessons that they are rich with explanatory dialogue. I come back to this later on.

2)   As wonderful teachers, for high quality explanations to be habitual, we need to know our subjects, taking time to develop our own capacity to explain the key concepts simply. I think departmental CPD time would be well spent with co-workers rehearsing the ways they explain the more difficult material. I hear too often we assume we can do this but, over the years, I’ve found this is a key area for improvement and experimentation, for me personally and for others.

Remember that explaining doesn’t have to suggest didactic one-way traffic. Also explaining well is an important aspect of highly interactive learning of all kinds. Without doubt enquiry and discovery are essential elements of learning; however, very often the most appropriate thing to do is to push ahead and cut through the confusion by delivering a sharp explanation that brings clarity and takes everyone forward to greater challenges that lie beyond.

The familiar penny-drop moment happens for different learners in different ways at different times and sometimes the barriers to understanding can appear unassailable:

But when you manage to talk about explaining, you are obviously talking about doing this in conjunction with probing questioning, differentiation and challenge. You are also talking about gaining attention and engagement in the process; not merely droning on oblivious to our students’ capacity to receive. However, even with the conditions right, you still need to have at our disposal a number of lines of attack that we can use habitually and instinctively as we seek to bring the barriers down.

A quick assistance to Explaining

(Listen most of this may seem really obvious…but I think it is worth spelling out; we can always explain better!)

Show Everyday Life Examples and Make Connections With It

Professor Brian Cox is a master in this area – he is not just a pretty face. Here is a perfect example:

The disintegrating sand castle as a model of entropy works brilliantly… order into disorder over a period of time, but in a context that feels real.  Although there are countless examples in every subject, but you need to have them at your fingertips.

Demonstrate

As wonderful as you are no point talking in theoretical abstract terms, when you can just provide an example and talk it through. You know here is someone explaining iambic pentameter. Okay I didn’t properly know what this was until I watched this clip – and now I do!

Using models…

Another technique is that you can’t teach science properly without models but this also applies to other subjects. In developing deep scientific understanding, it is important to develop models of atoms and molecules and to relate them to macro everyday materials – this takes time. You may see for example in understanding the chemistry of burning magnesium, a model is necessary to explain observations and link them to the equation:

Before I discuss a great science teacher will automatically explain observations by building models. Linking the observation that ‘shiny stuff turns into white stuff’ to an abstract model that explains the chemistry, showing that new substances are formed.

Okay so enabling students to construct ever more sophisticated mental models is the key to all good science teaching.  Models, models, models.Ofcourse you can see that these aren’t merely tricks up your sleeve; they are ideas that form your core knowledge and are embedded in your default mode teaching habits.

4) Use Visuals

The thought of being a “Visual learner” may now be regarded officially as pseudo-scientific bobbins, but personally, I love a diagram. I oftentimes find that, if I’m getting a verbal description… I need to sketch it out before it makes sense.