Coaching practices for How to Explain What You Learn

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Explain What You Learn, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• When I explain this to an actual person and they say "wait, I don’t get it," I have to scramble for a whole different angle on the spot
• I’ve got an exam or a presentation coming up on something I’ve studied a lot, and I want to find out whether I actually get it
• I can explain it smoothly to myself, but I have a feeling I’m skipping right over the parts I don’t actually get
• I thought I understood this until I tried to actually say it out loud
• I can recite the idea, but the words I use are basically the textbook’s words and it still feels slippery, like I’m parroting it rather than owning it

Practices that may help

1. Teach a real peer and let them push back
   Explain to another person who can ask questions and say "I don’t get it."
   The Protege Effect: Learn It Better by Teaching It
2. Explain it to a complete beginner
   Teach the concept in plain words to someone who knows nothing about it.
   The Feynman Technique, Step by Step
3. Teach it to a real person
   Explain the concept to an actual listener who can ask questions back.
   The Feynman Technique, Step by Step
4. Explain it out loud to a real or imagined learner
   Actually say the explanation aloud, to a person, a pet, or an empty chair.
   The Protege Effect: Learn It Better by Teaching It
5. Simplify the language and add an analogy
   Rewrite the explanation in everyday words and anchor it to something familiar.
   The Feynman Technique, Step by Step
6. Run the loop until it is smooth
   Repeat explain–diagnose–relearn until you can explain the whole thing without snags.
   The Feynman Technique, Step by Step
7. Write the explanation, do not just think it
   Put the "why" in writing so vague mental hand-waving cannot pass as understanding.
   Elaborative Interrogation: Ask "Why Is This True?"
8. Self-explain at every step
   Pause after each idea and ask: "Why does this follow from the last point?"
   The Generation Effect: Why Making It Yourself Makes It Stick
9. Articulation prompts
   Ask learners to explain their reasoning before, during, and after a task to surface and strengthen tacit knowledge.
   Cognitive Apprenticeship: Learning by Making Thinking Visible
10. Self-explain each step as you work through an example
    Pause after each step in a worked example and explain to yourself, in your own words, why that step was taken.
    The Worked Examples Effect: Learn Faster by Studying Solutions First

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