A conversation with Stephen Chew (who keynoted the 2018 Teaching Professor Conference) got me thinking about examples, mostly how I haven’t read or thought much about them. I wonder if that’s true of a lot of faculty. I’m coming up with a number of questions about examples and not as much in the way of answers. Perhaps you can help provide some clarity to this topic.
What role(s) do examples play in learning? Clarify confusion? Open the door to understanding? Make something easier to remember? Examples often open the door to understanding; a light that goes on and things in a dark room are suddenly visible. If the concept is confusing, one example can reveal enough features, components, or characteristics that the whole concept starts to take shape. “Good example!” we exclaim, which implies not all examples are. 
What are the characteristics or features of good examples? Clarity, simplicity, and relevance? If the purpose of an example is to clarify confusion, it can’t be too detailed or unnecessarily complex. It’s got to be understood, quickly and easily. And it must be relevant to the audience—as in something known or experienced by the learner. Most teachers have discovered the hard way the time-sensitive nature of many examples. Electronic devices have come and gone—albums, the Walkman, and typewriters. Events experienced by teachers—the Vietnam War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the AIDS crisis in the ‘80s—most students have only heard about.
What about when an example is bad? For teachers, it’s pretty easy to tell if an example misses the mark because it doesn’t advance understanding. And the solution is also easy: toss it. But what about when it’s an example offered by a student? Can a bad example be fixed? On the spot in class? What if it’s a good example for students but not one that’s known or been experienced by the teacher?
How do you find good examples? A lot of time they seem to just pop into our heads—they come to us. But what about when they don’t? Can you create a good example? How? By doing what? If you’re searching for good examples, where do you find them? One thing for sure, good examples are worth preserving. They can be recycled and used again with the same positive effects.
What’s the relationship between examples, stories, and metaphors? It seems like there’s a point when an example morphs into a story. The story might be an example, but not all stories are, and not all examples are stories. Examples aren’t the same as metaphors, but that doesn’t rule out an example being metaphorical.
Do students need to come up with their own examples? When you come up with an example on your own, does that make it more memorable, more meaningful? But what if the student can’t come up with an example? Do you have to completely understand the concept or theory before you can come up with an example? Do students need teacher examples first before they can create their own? But if all students ever get are teacher examples, when do they learn how to generate examples? The teacher isn’t going to be there to provide the examples when the student transitions to professional.
Say a teacher wanted to learn something about how he/she uses examples and has assembled a collection of them. Is there anything that could be learned by looking at them collectively? What criteria might be used to assess them?
Or, say a teacher wanted to make better use of examples. What advice can be offered to those who want to use examples more effectively? Is it about how many you have? How diverse they are? Many of us have been caught having only one example when we needed two to help build connections to learning. It’s also good to have several because most of us have also been there when an example enlightened some but confused others. Is it about how frequently you use examples? Is it about knowing when you need one?
How would you answer some of these questions? Have you read anything about examples you can recommend? Next time you hear yourself exclaiming, “good example,” see if you can put a finger on it works and then share those insights with us below.
