How to Get Learners to Perceive Their Progress

The solution that's worked best for me is to get learners thinking about where they were a few months ago.

Want to get notified about new posts? Join the mailing list and follow on X/Twitter.

It’s important that the learner recognizes their progress and understands how much “bang for buck” they’re getting.

But in cognitive tasks it can be challenging for the learner to see how much strength they’ve gained when they’re always doing things that are taxing enough to make them feel weak (whereas in physical training it’s easier to see yourself put on musculature and add weight to the bar in the gym).

The solution that’s worked best for me is to get learners thinking about where they were a few months ago:

“Remember back when factoring was hard? That was a whole problem in itself, right? Took you a couple minutes and you’d sometimes make a mistake. What does factoring feel like now? How long would it take you to do this factoring problem? Oh, you just did it right now in 5 seconds. Super easy, right?

And so many problems you’re doing right now have factoring as a component skill, it’s not even a “thing” anymore, it’s just like subconsciously dribbling the basketball while moving across the court.

Yeah, you’ve come a long way. Keep it up and this cycle is going to repeat itself over and over again, give it a few more months and the problems that feel challenging for you right now are going to feel easy just like factoring, even if they feel hard right now.”

Want to get notified about new posts? Join the mailing list and follow on X/Twitter.