Good teachers simplify the model for beginners

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

Interesting:

One of the greatest teachers in my life once told me “The hardest thing about teaching is knowing when to lie.” When teaching you need to know at what stage of development the student is at. Are they ready for the full explanation or do they need to be “lied to” so that they don’t become overwhelmed? Lies a teacher tell give a simplified model of how a technique works. An example of this can be found in the Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs videos. Sussman and Abelson first give a model for function application saying that you can just substitute parameters directly. Later show that this model breaks down once you have side-effects. The updated model presented achieves the same results as old model but fixes it in the situation where it broke. Had they presented the refined model initially it would have been much more of a struggle for many students.

Physics has a similarity where we have a model that can predicts how things work, that has been refined numerous times through the years. We generate a model of how things work. For a model to become the ‘accepted’ model it needs to explain things the old model did, but also explain something the old model couldn’t. If it can do that then it usually becomes accepted. For example Relativistic vs. Newtonian physics. Of course this is not to say that the ‘accepted model’ is correct. Only that it is generally accepted that it is more correct than the previous.

Post external references

  1. 1
    http://crypticswarm.com/knowing-when-to-lie
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