Experts are the worst teachers (Robert's Rule #3)

[Tweeted 2011-04-27]

One of the tasks I've had in nearly every job I've ever had is to train people. In some cases I've had some 'special' knowledge that they've needed, in some cases I've had to train them to replace me, and in some cases been the senior person or manager and had to train/mentor/coach colleagues to improve their skill levels.

In all cases teaching, training, or instructing...whatever you call it...has been difficult. Why? Well, just as in real estate the three most important factors are "location, location, location", the three most important factors in training is "audience, audience, audience".

First and most importantly not everyone learns in the same way. What we pay attention to and what we don't ("prehension" and "negative prehension" for Alfred North Whitehead, who was arguably the philosopher whose concepts made the modern computer possible) is critical. Some are auditory learners (hear it), some are visual learners (see it), and some are experiential learners (do it). I think this is probably why Confucius said "I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand."

Second, and only slightly less important is the audience's starting point. The way we add something to long-term memory is by associating it with other 'nuggets' (no, that's not the scientific term) in our memory...generally ease of recall is improved when there are more links between items, so the greater the base of knowledge the more you can link items to the easier it is to recall information. (Whoa, see how I threw in a self-reinforcing loop?! Yep, even psychology uses systems theory.)

Let's look at a specific case and see what we might glean from it.

In my first job out of college I traveled Indiana and Illinois installing payment systems (read the first time I mentioned this job). At one location, a senior-citizen community center, I installed a PC with an hand-held OCR device (state-of-the-art at the time) and had to train a receptionist who had never used a typewriter. There's not a way to develop a PowerPoint^® presentation for that. There are issues of keyboard layout (without typewriter experience, a QWERTY board was new) and flashing lights and beeps that all mean something.

Basically, I found myself in a position where I not only had to teach the skill but also teach the "associations". Luckily for me, this was my first installation and we had just completed programming the prototype 2 weeks prior, so I had just learned the hand positioning et cetera. All of the associations I had made that allowed me to perform the physical tasks were still fresh in my mind. If I had to go back and do the same task today it would take me considerably longer.

What sort of meaningful rule can we extrapolate from this experience? One that seems a little counter-intuitive at first glance, but when seen in light of this example becomes understandable, almost intuitive -- experts are the worst teachers because they're too far from the beginning to recall how they learned.

So there you have it, Robert's Rule #3 and how it came to be.