SPEAKER 1: How do you find a balance to explain something like computer science
to all of us?
What's the key element in teaching?
I don't know if I can--
do you get what I--
SPEAKER 2: I do, I do.
SPEAKER 1: I'm sorry.
I'm nervous
SPEAKER 2: No.
Thank you for the kind words.
It's not easy, and I don't know if we do a great job all the time.
But I think the simple answer is empathy and remembering
what it was like to not understand material yourself and remembering what
it was like to feel like everyone else in the room or in the class
was smarter than you or knew better the material
and to try to put yourself into the shoes, so to speak,
of that student to help them with a narrative, both verbally
and in the course as homework assignments and slides
and so forth, get from the starting line, so to speak, to the finish line
without letting go of their hand during that process.
And I think it takes practice.
I think it takes sensitization.
For instance, even though this course, CS50,
happens to be taught to our college undergraduates at Harvard,
I first got my start from teaching in a lectureship role
at Harvard's extension school, which is a much
broader demographic of students-- young students, old students,
everyone in between who have gone or who have not gone to college.
And so it was a much more diverse audience of students,
both in Cambridge and online.
And I think that, too, helped sensitize me to different learning styles.
I think we have always--
I have always had students who are very different backgrounds
geographically, socioeconomically, academically.
And I think that helps too, not assuming that your student
body is all of the same type or of the same mindset.
So in short, empathy.