Coaching practices for How to Improve Explanations

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

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

• It all feels clear and connected in my head, but the second I try to actually write the explanation out the whole thing falls apart and I see how many steps I was just hand-waving over.
• I can get to the right answer but the second someone asks me to explain why I did it that way, I go blank
• I’ve written out my own best explanation of this, and now I want to hold it up against how a real expert explains the same thing
• Every time my explanation falls apart, I quietly tell myself "well, I never really thought I knew that anyway"
• I can explain it smoothly to myself, but I have a feeling I’m skipping right over the parts I don’t actually get

Practices that may help

1. 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?"
2. 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
3. Expert-explanation comparison
   After explaining a concept yourself, compare your explanation to an expert’s and locate the differences.
   Illusion of Explanatory Depth: You Know Less Than You Think
4. Pre-explanation rating with commitment
   Rate your understanding before attempting to explain — not after — and record the number.
   Illusion of Explanatory Depth: You Know Less Than You Think
5. Teach it to a real person
   Explain the concept to an actual listener who can ask questions back.
   The Feynman Technique, Step by Step
6. Third-party explanation test
   Explain the concept to a person who knows nothing about it and let their questions expose your gaps.
   Illusion of Explanatory Depth: You Know Less Than You Think
7. 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
8. 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
9. 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
10. Teach cases to solidify and test your own patterns
    Explaining your recognition logic to others forces the implicit to become explicit and exposes gaps.
    Recognition-Primed Decision Making

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