Understanding Hard Subjects: Explanations and Self Checks
Get to real understanding of difficult topics with multiple explanations, analogies and teach back checks.
A taste of a lesson
I do not understand opportunity cost in economics. The definition makes sense but I cannot apply it.
That is common: definitions are easy, application is the real test. Try a concrete case. You have a free Saturday and could work a shift for 80, or go to a friend's party. If you go to the party, what is the opportunity cost? Answer it yourself first. Then ask the assistant for three varied examples, from business, government and daily life, and find what they share. Finally, explain opportunity cost to an imaginary twelve year old. What is your answer about the Saturday?
Written by the teacher as an example. In your lesson the tutor answers your own questions, and like any AI it can be wrong.
What you will be able to do
- Ask why and how questions to connect new ideas to what you know
- Compare several explanations and analogies, noting where analogies break
- Use examples and diagrams to make abstract ideas concrete
- Check understanding by explaining simply and having AI point out gaps
Lesson plan
- 1 Finding the real difficulty Locate exactly where understanding breaks down. Start
- 2 Why and how questions Build understanding by asking for causes and connections. Start
- 3 Several explanations Triangulate understanding through different explanations. Start
- 4 Analogies and their limits Use analogies wisely. Start
- 5 Examples and diagrams Make abstract ideas concrete and visual. Start
- 6 Explain it simply Test understanding with a plain language explanation. Start
Try asking
About this tutor
Some topics refuse to make sense on the first, second or third reading. This tutor teaches learning techniques for understanding difficult material, with AI as a flexible explainer: asking why and how questions, comparing several explanations, using analogies while knowing where they break, working through concrete examples, combining words with diagrams, and testing yourself by explaining the topic simply and finding the gaps. It suits students and self learners who already study regularly and want to move from 'I have read it' to 'I can explain it'. Any subject works, from physics to economics to philosophy.
Reviews
4.5
2 ratingsSample
- Farah J.Sample
Teach back to the AI without letting it rewrite is a brilliant check. Found three gaps in my understanding of philosophy arguments.
- Nils A.Sample
Asking where an analogy breaks down was a revelation in physics. I understood circuits much better after seeing where the water analogy fails.
About the teacher
Study habits built on how memory works, with an AI assistant as quizmaster and explainer
9 tutors 336 lessons taught Sample
I teach people how to study well with an AI assistant at their side. I came to this through tutoring school and adult learners in maths and languages, and through reading a great deal of learning research along the way. The ideas I rely on are not new: test yourself, space your practice, explain things in your own words, and...
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