Innovations in Teaching:

How do I teach a "difficult topic" better ?

Dr Achuthsankar S Nair
www.achu.keralauniversity.edu
This is an article in evolution. Hence it is right now very telegraphic ! Here are some confetti of
thoughts on the most difficult question to answer in a teacher training programme: How do I
teach a difficult topic[1] better ? Let us note that this is also a very general and open ended question
with no sure-fire answers. The answers depend on what the topic is, who the teacher is, who the
students are, their academic history, knowledge resources at their disposal and a host of other
things. Importantly, the effectiveness of my answer is crucially dependent on how much I know
all the above. Still, I attempt to throw at you some thoughts, a unique linear combination of which
might answer every such question. I confess that what is listed below is mere commonsense.
1. Write your own microscopic syllabus, expanding the given one. Add pre-requisites. Create
illustrative examples which focus on one microscopic example at a time, and one alone at a time.
2. Make a handout and distribute copies in the class. Lessen the pain of note-taking. (this is ideal
for all topics, but definitely a must for hot-spots) .
3. Zoom back. Try to see the forest of knowledge and simply not stare at the trees in frustration.
Why is it that people on other side of earth do not fall down ? Also, see the puzzle at the end of
this article.
4. Defocus. Convergent thinking is the base of intelligence. But creativity is based on divergent
thinking. For a better method to emerge, you need to trigger creativity. How do you defocus ?
Throwing a random word into Google image search box is a funny way for that. Looking at a
random page in a dictionary or an encyclopaedia may also work.
5. Mentally replace students with students of different levels/abilities, possibly lower. Make the
constraints more severe. This is why Sachin Tendulkar trains in the nets with a thinner bat. Next
suggestion is a further step in this regard.
6. Jeome Bruner, great educational thinker, believes that anything can be taught to anyone is
some honest form. Imagine you are teaching the subject to an unschooled person, a person from a
different discipline/profession. What would you tell a carpenter about object orientation ?
Attempting to do this mentally (well, also try in reality if you can) well give you great insight into
the topic.
7. Integrate Horizontally. Trying to link what you teach with other subjects is a way of
triggering interest. Ohms law is not only applicable to electric current. It is applicable in
hydraulics to water pipes also. It also applies to the flow of people in a narrow road ?
8. Think of analogies. Find them from books, if you can. If you try with perseverance, you can be
a creator. Tell me analogies for: Internal resistance, Transformer, Information content of 1 bits,
Rules for forming identifiers in programming languages, concept of object orientation,
transistor[2].
9. Be aware of Gardner's Multiple Intelligence Theory. People are intelligent in different ways
mathematically, musically, kinaesthetically, linguistically, visually This is related to the fact
that people having different learning styles. Try to produce different discussions from all these
angles. Here are some exercises How could the following be explained mathematically?
Musically? Kinaesthetically? Linguistically? Visually? : Circles, Arithmetic Progressions,
Polygons

10. Ask 100 creative questions about the topic to yourself. Mind you, this is a very difficult task.
In electrical engineering, I may ask (i) why 50Hz ? Why not 51, 500, 50000, 25, 60, 2, 0 ? (ii)
Why 230V, why not 220, 240, 2400, 24, 1 ? (iii) Why 1-phase and 3-phase only ? why not 2, 4, 50,
10,000 ? (iv) Why sine wave ? why not triangular, rectangular, exponential, trapezoidal ? (v)
Why constant voltage and variable current for distribution ? Why not constant current and
variable voltage ?
11. Read the topic from 10 different books, 10 different web sites. Remember, don't trust our
college libraries, they are suffering from intellectual malnutrition. They are mostly stuffed with
unimaginative, exam driven text books. Don't accept the nuisance of referring many text books
back and forth. Photocopy relevant pages and put together multiple material on same topic in a
single file. Keep adding as you come across new books/sites/ideas.
12. Talk to 10 teachers, senior and junior, about how they teach the topic.
13. Think of a humour related to the topic. Sometimes, an analogy can trigger a humour. A
teacher of signal processing once described a causal system as a person who hits back when
attacked. A non-causal system is a person who hits another one suspecting/guessing that the
other person is planning to hit him !
14.Design assessment creatively. Ignore the traditional
questions that focus on one microscopic concept at a time.

questions

and

create

imaginative

15. And finally, always enjoy the challenge and fall in love with the difficulty. Teach the subject
again and again, each time with same preparedness as above. Best of luck !.

What do you see ?

Cant decide ?
Read the article again !.

[1] This article is equally well an answer to the question "How do I solve a problem that I am facing in life" [2] The authors electromechanical analogy of the transistor can be found in Hughes Electrical Technology, Orient Longman, UK, 7th Edition.
________________________________________________________________________________________
Dr Achuthsankar S Nair: 2008: This article can be reused without prior permission, provided this
notice is retained, and no alterations are made.