Efficient Learning is About Balancing a Tradeoff

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Everything you say during instruction, every problem you have the learner work out, it comes with the cost of using up more of the learner’s time. It has to be worth it.

So you have to

• streamline the instruction ("no BS, just give it to me straight" explanations),
• focus most of the time on active problem-solving, and
• continually switch back and forth between instruction and problem-solving quickly enough that you don't run out the learner's attention span.

It’s a continual cycle of minimum effective doses:

• minimum effective dose of streamlined "no BS, just give it to me straight" instruction,
• followed by minimum effective dose of problem-solving,
• then back to minimum effective dose of instruction to prepare you for slightly more challenging problems,
• followed by minimum effective dose on said problems,

and so on.

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