Has anyone ever told you, “imagine x being like a tree” or “x is a girl”? the human mind is stimulated through imagination and illustrative examples, we are stimulated by imaginative examples and analogies, and this can be a very powerful tool in the programming field.

I study Physics at my resident university and come in contact with many abstract concepts; trust me, they can be mind-boggling. But with the power of contextual learning, it is easier to grasp. This is the definition of Contextual learning on the Times Higher education website.

‘’Contextual learning is a method of instruction that enables students to apply new knowledge and skills to real-life situations’’

Although this article is beginner-centered, it could help already expert developers and even designers since we learn new kinds of stuff every day. the use of contextual learning has been very useful in the academic sector mostly for teachers who can harness the power of the tools and use it to solidify arduous topics that might give students a tough time breaking down. HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF CONTEXTUAL LEARNING TO PROGRAMMING.

Programming (Languages) like any other academic topic can be hard to take in. But programming is different in the sense that it’s more practical and can be used to solve immediate issues, so your approach may differ. The best way to use contextual learning is to see every topic as a system and inside this system are physical objects that are relatable to what you already know. Let’s take an example, the most popular example would be the “Variable”. I’d give you two definitions and we would see the one we could identify with more.

First,

Variables are used to store information to be referenced and manipulated in a computer program. They also provide a way of labeling data with a descriptive name, so our programs can be understood more clearly by the reader and ourselves. It is helpful to think of variables as containers that hold information. Their sole purpose is to label and store data in memory.

Second,

Variables are like boxes that stores data like numbers, text(strings), and other high-class values, and those accessories can be changed similarly to removing the last value that was stored in the box.

Now which one did you find more understandable and more comfortable with, I’m guessing the second! not because it’s simple or has less text. But because it was able to stimulate your imagination by using already known concepts like boxes and accessories. This also works with a lot of concepts that are hard to grasp like Data structures, Polymorphism, Concurrency control, Callbacks & Asynchronous execution, etc. The ability to break down difficult concepts into understandable bits is key in contextual learning. Contextual learning gives you an edge because you can easily relate to abstract topics that not everyone would be able to grasp.