@Sareh88 Here’s my process (thread):
First, build a graph of knowledge. Which concepts depend on which others. Make sure the progression will be linear with no circular ideas.
Don’t need to map out the whole thing but you need a decent idea of what will come after what.
First, build a graph of knowledge. Which concepts depend on which others. Make sure the progression will be linear with no circular ideas.
Don’t need to map out the whole thing but you need a decent idea of what will come after what.
@Sareh88 For each topic, figure out what’s in your head, and how it’s different from someone who doesn’t know this topic or misunderstands it.
Design a way to distinguish whether it’s understood or not. Use very simple examples but sufficient to tell if the person got it wrong.
Design a way to distinguish whether it’s understood or not. Use very simple examples but sufficient to tell if the person got it wrong.
@Sareh88 Usually there isn’t much variation. For every concept, there’s two or three ways people commonly get it wrong. You’ll be surprised just how prevalent this is. People use something for years and they fundamentally misunderstand it. So prepare to have no assumptions.
@Sareh88 Reading is not enough. You need to engage people in doing. I think of mental models as almost mechanical things. Ideally they would be shapes in real world that you can connect and touch with your hands. Everything else is an approximation.
@Sareh88 Fundamentally, it’s a similar process to learning a foreign language. But the target language isn’t even code. It’s those mental shapes. You teach people to translate code into mental shapes, and translate those shapes into code. So exercises need to feel like “translations”.
@Sareh88 Be consistent. Try to not change the mental shapes as you layer on concepts. Ideally you’d strategically pick shapes early on so that new concepts build around them. Then the world feels consistent. Like a good TV show.
@Sareh88 Every individual step should feel relatively small and isolated. Teach one key idea at a time. Make sure people understand it (exercises) before they can progress. You’re successful if they learn something complex without noticing because each step made sense on its own.
@Sareh88 In our course mental models themselves take the spotlight so there’s obviously a lot of work in designing them. @Mappletons is instrumental here. We talk and bounce ideas off each other. I know the language a bit deeper while she’s very good at finding visual metaphors.
@Sareh88 @Mappletons For mental shapes, use something the reader is familiar with from their physical life experience. Concepts like spheres, wires, rooms. You want to offload as much as possible to their existing sensory experience.
