What Should Someone Be Able to Do?
A topic names what we will talk about. A learning goal helps us decide what someone should be able to do with it—and what would count as evidence.
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Sathya Narayanan
What Do They Think Is Happening?
The same wrong answer can come from a plausible rule, a misunderstood word or an overlooked detail. A useful next question helps distinguish them.
Read essayWhen the Explanation Is Too Much at Once
A recipe can expose the difference between a difficult idea and an explanation that makes the learner coordinate too many unfamiliar things at once.
Read essayWhat a Diagram Can Show—and What an Analogy Can Hide
A good representation makes a relationship inspectable. A database join shows why choosing the wrong picture can conceal the very idea we need to teach.
Read essayWhy Recalling Changes What You Remember
An explanation can feel familiar while remaining difficult to reconstruct. Retrieval practice makes that gap useful—if the attempt is feasible and errors receive attention.
Read essayFrom Following an Explanation to Building One
A learner can repeat every step and still miss why it works. Focused explanation prompts make a connection available for inspection and improvement.
Read essayWhy the Next Practice Session Matters
When to return and what to mix are separate decisions. A small accounting practice plan shows how each can address a different learning difficulty.
Read essayThe Next Reachable Challenge
A learner's response to help can guide the next task. It cannot be reduced to a fixed ability label, a hint count or one universal zone score.
Read essayFeedback That Gives the Learner a Next Move
A comment becomes useful through what the learner can do with it. An invented source packet shows how feedback can improve an argument without supplying the whole answer.
Read essayUnderstanding Understanding
A correct answer is evidence to interpret. Understanding becomes more credible when the task, the reasoning and the conditions support the claim we want to make.
Read essayLearning to Notice What You Do Not Yet Know
Confidence becomes useful when it is attached to a specific task and compared with what happened. The next learning choice matters more than filling in a reflection form.
Read essayCan They Use It Somewhere Else?
Changing the names in a problem is one kind of transfer. Changing what the result must mean asks for something more—and sometimes for learning from a new resource.
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