For your College Crew

I came across “Big Think” as a YouTube like resource recently and watching this video, right around 1:00 to 1:42, Steve Pinker mentions one of the best ways to write about science, and indeed, perhaps how to teach it as well. Essentially, treat your audience as a colleague who is just as smart as you and whom you respect, but does something totally different and just needs to be brought up to speed.

Now in terms of writing, I totally agree with that. It’s a way to ensure you don’t talk down, but for teaching, I think it might… well… There are two thoughts there, the first is that you can really easily go over student heads if you treat your students like your college roomies, regardless of the age of your students, especially if they are significantly younger. Indeed, this downshift is often the most difficult thing to learn about teaching, but if you think about what Pinker said in another way, he’s hit the nail pretty close (in my mind) – talk to your audience as your college roomies. The difference? If you talk to the people you went through school with, there is a chance that they are all at your level now, but, if you talk to the level of your college that would have been your peers then, that is the sweet spot. By bringing this level up to speed, you have to be sure to include ideas that they can built on to be able to join the conversation, and in the end, so much of teaching is just about that, bringing people into the conversation.