How to Explain Anything to Anyone
IRADE—Introduce, Relate, Apply, Demonstrate, Examine—organizes an explanation around context, examples, practice, demonstrations, and checks of understanding. Hollins presents it alongside Feynman’s emphasis on clear explanations and learning through teaching.
THE IDEA
How to Explain Anything to Anyone
Some smart people leave others completely baffled. When they talk, it’s as though they’re speaking in another language. You have no doubt they’re very clever, but what on earth do they mean? Feynman wasn’t one of those people. For him, being able to teach others wasn’t some nice side-effect of his own understanding—he saw his ability to clearly articulate what he knew to be instrumental in him knowing it.
A clear explanation is a useful test of understanding. If a learner cannot follow, check both your grasp of the subject and the explanation you have chosen. The learner’s background, available time, and familiarity with the language also matter.
Hollins presents IRADE as an approach used in physics education and connects it with Feynman’s words: "The best way to teach is to be very chaotic, in the sense that you use every possible way of doing it." Imagine the concept you’re trying to teach is revealed to the student in separate snapshots—the greater the number of snapshots, and from the greatest number of different angles, the more fully they can see the concept.
I is for Introduce
Use narrative and story to begin. Give some context and explain why you’re learning the concept and how your particular learning fits into the bigger scheme. How might it connect to what you already know, and how does it help you achieve what you’re trying to achieve?
If you’re a good teacher, you can use story, humor, and emotion to pique interest and make the concept seem relevant. Feynman himself was famous for getting even science-phobes to admit, “That does sound pretty fascinating, now that you mention it." You can also begin with the dictionary definition of the terms you’ll be using to get acquainted with the topic and find your footing.
R is for Relate
Next, show what the concept is by giving real-world examples—give at least three, if you can. If you start abstract and end abstract, it’s difficult for anyone to see how it connects to the “real world” in any way. Especially when it comes to physics, but also with other more abstract topics, you need to stay grounded in why the concept matters at all.
A is for Apply
There is (hopefully!) some practical application to what you’re learning about. The method/idea/theory is a tool—what things does it help you achieve out there in the world? If it’s a mathematical formula, show how this tool can be used to literally work your way through some problems. You might like to connect the examples you gave to classical problems and then show how the new knowledge solves those problems. Again, you are embedding this new knowledge in a pragmatic way. Accept questions and get the students to try their hand, too. Work through a range of practical applications, from easy to difficult, so that the students see the principle in action, rather than just hear you talk about it.
D is for Demonstrate
A demonstration gives students something to observe and question. Set up a small experiment or visual example that makes the principle visible, then connect what happens to the explanation.
E is for Examine
You want to test that what you’ve transmitted has been received. It doesn’t have to be a formal exam or even a pop quiz. Just make sure that you are giving the student the opportunity to reflect on what they’ve learned. Keeping the protégé effect in mind, ask them to teach back to you what you’ve just taught them. Then listen carefully—the places they struggle with or get confused are areas you need to revisit.
The questions students ask you can also reveal a lot about how much they’ve absorbed. Get them to paraphrase, make summaries, or debate the concept to show they understand the underlying themes. Or, more classically, give them a problem of the type you’ve covered in the examples and demonstrations, and see if they now know what to do. To make sure they really understand, however, don’t just rely on them regurgitating the right words. One great way to test comprehension is to show them a problem solved incorrectly or a wrong answer. Get them to tell you why it’s wrong.
Related Teaching Ideas
• A model is a map of reality and a scaled down, simplified representation of something in the world. Feynman’s genius rested on the power of his mental models and maps of reality and his ability to switch between them. Kaplan’s law of the instrument says that “when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." To better solve problems, have more tools in your inventory and become better at choosing which one to use when.
• Developing good mental models is not the same as refining your personal worldview or philosophy. It’s about learning to use your own brain as your primary instrument, and use worldviews as secondary instruments. To develop better models, expose yourself to a range of ideas, constantly seek to connect different ideas, and cultivate metacognition.
• Science is a form of imagination that uses language, imagery, metaphor, symbolism, and analogy to engage with reality. We can understand more by connecting the unknown to the known—but without getting confused about what is “finger” and what is “moon”!
• The protégé effect is simply when teaching (or even pretending to teach or preparing to teach) helps us understand our material in a deeper and more insightful way. Use simplified, ordinary language, get your ego out the way, and teach someone else/yourself to get to the heart of a concept.
• The IRADE method is an approach used in physics education, and it stands for introduce, relate, apply, demonstrate, and examine. It can help you not only teach and learn, but communicate your ideas more clearly.
Putting it all Together
“Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the preceding generation.” —Richard P. Feynman
The quotation cautions against treating a teacher as infallible. Give learners room to question the explanation, test it against examples, and show where they are still unsure.
When to use it
Teaching a difficult scientific principle to a classroom of students who have no background in the subject.
Explaining a new business strategy to your team during a meeting, ensuring everyone understands the rationale and application.
Tutoring a peer or junior colleague in a technical skill, such as using a new software tool or coding concept.
Creating an online educational video or tutorial that needs to be engaging and clear for a broad audience.
Preparing a lesson plan for a new topic in a classroom setting.
Communicating a technical idea to a non-technical stakeholder in a business meeting.
Self-studying a difficult subject by teaching it to an imaginary audience.
Creating training materials for onboarding new employees.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Using IRADE to Explain Newton's Laws
Introduce Newton’s laws with a question about how a ball starts moving. Relate the question to pushing a cart, apply the relationship between force, mass, and acceleration in a calculation, and demonstrate with a toy cart. Examine understanding by asking what happens to acceleration when the same net force acts on a larger mass.
Explaining a Programming Concept with IRADE
Introduce the need for loops in coding by describing a repetitive task, relate by showing how manually coding 100 repetitions is tedious, apply by writing a simple loop to print numbers, demonstrate by running the code and showing the output, then examine by asking the student to modify the loop to print even numbers.
Teaching Newton's Laws Using IRADE
To explain Newton’s First Law, a teacher might introduce a tablecloth trick (I), relate inertia to a passenger moving forward when a bus stops (R), and apply the law by asking what balanced forces imply about a book’s motion (A). Demonstrate how a moving cart behaves when friction is reduced (D), then ask students to explain why motion does not itself require a continuing net force (E).
Explaining a Complex Business Concept to a New Team Member
To explain demand elasticity, introduce a question about concert-ticket prices (I). Relate it to how buyers respond to price changes for different goods (R). Calculate percentage changes in price and quantity demanded from given data (A), demonstrate the relationship on a demand curve while holding other influences constant (D), and ask the learner to interpret the resulting elasticity (E).
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
Think of a concept you struggled to explain recently. Which step of IRADE would have helped you communicate it more clearly?
How can you use the protégé effect to deepen your own understanding of a topic you are currently learning?
What is one complex idea you can simplify and teach to a friend using the IRADE method this week?
Think of a concept you struggled to explain to someone. Which step of IRADE did you miss, and how could you incorporate it next time?
How does the IRADE method relate to the idea that 'teaching is the best way to learn'?
In what ways could you adapt IRADE for an audience of children versus experts?
Often confused with
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Richard Feynmans Mental Models by Peter Hollins
- Richard Feynmans Mental Models by Peter Hollins