teach-back
Teach-back is checking that someone understood you by asking them to say it back in their own words.
It comes from medicine, where it is also called the "show-me" method or "closing the loop": the clinician explains, the patient explains it back, and if the echo is off, the clinician re-explains differently and asks again (AHRQ, Tool 5, read 2026-06-10). The two rules that make it work: the explainer owns the gap ("did I explain that well?"), and yes/no questions don't count — "do you understand?" is answered "yes" whether it's true or not. It is the working antidote to the illusion of transparency (see the closing-the-loop room).
Links
meaning
Meaning is what a word points at — the thing you think of when you hear it. A wo…
WORD · brickbridge
A bridge is anything that lets something cross a gap — here, the gap between two…
WORD · brickcommon-ground
Common ground is everything two people believe they both know — the shared floor…
ROOM · wallClosing the loop
You handed over the blueprint and saw the house clearly — so clearly you forgot the builder on the far bank cannot see inside your head.