How to Conceptualize New Knowledge


Talking with a Subject Matter Expert (SME) can be a confusing conversation. SME's are likely to use technical terminology and talk about things that you are very unfamiliar to you. 
Besides using graphics, doing pre/during/post reading and becoming familiar with the terminologies of a subject when communicating with an SME, below are some strategies that I use and usually share with others:

First, I wanted to define the word concept (the root word of conceptualize). It means (from dictionary.com):
1. a general notion or idea; conception.
2. an idea of something formed by mentally combining all its characteristics or particulars; a construct.
3. a directly conceived or intuited object of thought.

One of my philosophies I talk to my students about is that “Complexity is a mere matter of simplicity.”  I don’t care how complex a subject matter is, if you break it down into its components parts it becomes easier to understand (or to conceptualize). For example, as complex as a car is, if you break it down into components parts and conceptualize those parts, it because easier to understand. For instance, if you break the engine block down and “see” a single pistol and the pistol rod connected to it and then “see” how the engine block’s input value let gas vapors into the pistol chamber and how the spark plug ignites a mini explosion to push the piston down to turn the cam shaft which in turn ultimately turn the axis and then the wheel, you will have a “working knowledge” of how an engine works without being an auto mechanic. Your mind thinks in term of pictures, so the more you can “visualize” what you are learning that you are not familiar with, the better. However, every subject matter may not be of interest to you.  Subject matters that you familiar with, have an interest in or a passion for give you more of a propensity to learn better and faster.

"If there's one thing I've learned as a developer, it's this: Complexity happens; simplicity, you have to consistently strive for. Nowhere is this truer than in education.  Our role as teachers, by definition, is to simplify subjects so that they can be easily understood.  A good teacher dispels trepidation with anecdote, abstration with analogy, superstition and magic with knowledge. Simplicity, however, is not easily attained.  In order to simplify, you must first gain an encompassing understanding of the complex.  It is a rare person who can simultaneously exist in both the simple and complex plains of a problem domain and communicate effectively at both levels. It is, however, these rare people who make the best teachers." – Aral Galkan, 2 Jan 2006 Famagusta, Cyprus

Another technique that I employ is to use the “Black Box” approach. Again, you don’t need to know everything about a subject matter in order to understand, appreciate or use it. For example, while I don’t know everything about how the digestive system works, it never prevents me from eating. Without being too graphic, all I really want to know is the input and the output of the digestive system’s black box. Or, you may not know everything about how a computer “computes” but it has never prevented you or even a small kid from knowing how to use the input (keyboard and mouse) and output (monitor) components.  You just need to know how these components works together in a logical manner to gain a “big picture” or “a bird eyes view” of how it works.

Yet another technique is to associate what you are attempting to learn with what you already know (referred to as the Association Principle). To give you an example of this, a previous company that I worked for saw I had a passion to teach so they give me a platform to teach my fellow co-workers. I was discussing how to program. However, as I was teaching I was using a lot of analogies that everyone could relate to. For example, I was explaining that if you place one object inside of another object you create a parent/child relationship.  Then I began to use that analogy to explain an example of a pregnant mom by saying that wherever the mom goes the baby goes. However, when that baby is delivered (birth), it inherits certain properties, characteristics, and attributes of its parents unless it defines its own later (i.e., dying hair purple). Now, remember I was talking about programming; however, after the class, a co-worker who happens to have a two years old son came to me and said, “Cornelius, thank you for the parenting class.”  I chuckled and said I was not talking about parenting but about programming. However, because I had used a lot of term like parent/child relationship, birthing, inheritance, etc., she was able to process a complex subject (programming) and related it to what she already knew (parenting).

CAUTION: Analogies can breakdown. However, they don't have to be perfect. See example from Wikipedia below:

"I before E, except after C" is a mnemonic device devised to help students remember how to spell certain words in the English language. It means that, in words where i and e fall together, the order is ie, except directly following c, when it is ei. Examples:

ie in words like siege, friend, thief
ei
in words like ceiling, receive, deceive, conceit

However, the rule, in its short form as above, has many common exceptions, such as species, science, sufficient, ancient, society (where ie follows c) or seize, weird, theism, weight, protein, sovereignty, foreign, vein, feisty, kaleidoscope, being, and neighbour "their" (where ei is not preceded by c).   Various augmentations to the rhyme have been proposed to handle these exceptions.

In June 2009, the British government advised primary school teachers to stop teaching the rule.[1]

WHY vs HOW TO

I firmly believe that training, if NOT done right, can actually “seem” to solve one performance problem while creating others.  Many books and training materials that I have experienced is more “fluff than stuff.”  It seems as if an author has to repeat content in a book just to increase the size of the book that he/she is publishing. Many books and training materials may address the issue of showing students “how to” methods to do certain tasks using a series of steps (prescriptive).  However, when students learn using “how to” methods, the problem is that most students cannot figure out how to do something if they have to deviate from what they have learned.

What many books and training materials lack is placing more emphasis on showing students the “whys” behind how to do certain tasks. My philosophy that I hold dear is that if you understand the “whys” behind how to do things, you can figure out the “how to” easier and most of time on your own.  For example, if students can master the “whys” of certain key concepts in Photoshop (i.e., selections, layers, maskings), then they do not have to constantly resort to a book every time they need to do a specific task (i.e., creating special effects).  Knowing the “whys” can take you a lot further than knowing the “how to.”

A great teacher when writing on a subject matter ANTICIPATE the readers "whys" and  "fill in the gaps" in advance of the asking. As a result, there is less need for a Subject Matter Expert to be on hand.
For example, I was reading a book that stated, "...setting the Display option to None hides the errors message, even if users input is invalid." My first thought was "why?" Why would you do that. I discovered that if you wanted all of you errors summaries in one place, then you would want this option set to None for all of the individual elements. -- CDC 10/6/11.

A great teacher distills knowledge. -- CDC 10/8/11