An engineering student came up to present his functional model to the class. The assignment called for students to concisely model a trade-off they saw in a design problem of their choice. The student projected his model and began to explain it: “So, I dumbed it down, and…”
I paused him there.
Why would someone make such as statement? To say “I dumbed it down” is an attempt to gain “status,” either by lowering the audience’s status or the status of the instructor. If lowering the audience’s status, it translates as, “you’re not quite up to this, so here’s the oversimplified version for you.” If lowering the instructor’s status, it translates as, “the technique I’m being asked to use is not a very capable one, so I’ll have to oversimplify my problem to employ the technique.”
When the student continued his presentation, it became apparent that he didn’t yet understand the implications of his modeling choices. The model contradicted itself and wasn’t the straightforward expression the student thought it was. The student may have felt unsure about his work, not necessarily consciously, and the insecurity that aroused may have prompted him to try to elevate his own status by lowering the that of the audience or instructor.
When our thinking about a problem isn’t yet clear, it’s not yet possible to generate a coherent model. But if we are able to look at a model we have just put down on paper and notice that it is not coherent, we can ask questions that will help us clarify our thinking, leading us to draft a new version of the model. This iterative modeling process is really a thinking technique. We model, not to broadcast our conclusions, but to help ourselves think.
So a helpful approach, for a student or indeed for anyone in a learning context, may be to acknowledge that the presentation is provisional, the sharing of an intermediate result. If there is a feeling of being unsure, it does not have to be shunted off into insecurity, leading to a statement of “dumbing it down.” A feeling of doubt, of being unsure, may actually be a good sign, an indication of a readiness to learn.