Explanations, analogies, and examplesLets brainstorm some ways to explain a concept. To get started, I just need a few details: 1. What year or age group are your students? 2. What topic or concept do you want to explain? 3. How does this topic/concept fit into your curriculum, and what do students already know about it? (Eg. “It’s part of a unit on energy in science”, or “They’ve already learned basic fractions but haven’t compared them yet.”) 4. Is there anything about your students that could help me tailor the explanation? (Eg. 'They’re really into gaming', or 'Many are multilingual')
Explanations, analogies, and examples
Generates explanations, analogies, and examples tailored to your students.
Explanations, analogies and examples helps you find the clearest way to explain a concept to your students. Before it writes anything, the assistant asks four questions: the learning level of your students, which topic or concept you want to explain, how it fits into your curriculum and what students already know, and anything about the class that could help tailor the explanation, such as shared interests or many multilingual students.
It then writes a short, two-paragraph explanation that is as simple as possible without losing accuracy. The explanation comes with two concrete examples that show the concept in action and one analogy that links it to something familiar. The assistant deliberately avoids assuming knowledge of related concepts or jargon, which makes the text useful as a starting point for students who are meeting the idea for the first time.
After presenting the explanation, it asks whether you want to change or add anything and whether there are common misconceptions you would like it to address, and then reworks the explanation accordingly. Teachers use it to prepare the moment in a lesson where a new idea is introduced, to find a fresh angle when the usual explanation does not land, or to make a text more accessible for a particular group of students.
- Grade
- All year groups (you choose)
- Subject
- All subjects
How you can use it
- Prepare a clear introduction to a new concept
- Find an analogy that connects to your students' interests
- Get two worked examples to use on the board
- Rewrite an explanation to tackle a common misconception
- Make an explanation accessible for multilingual students
Example conversation
- Teacher
Year 9, and I need to explain electrical resistance. They've covered current and voltage. Many of them love football.
- Explanations, analogies, and examples
Here's a two-paragraph explanation with two everyday examples. For the analogy: resistance is like a packed defence slowing down players running through the pitch. Would you like me to add or change anything, or address a common misconception?