teach-by-doing

teach-by-doing — no theory without a rep

The single rule: every theoretical teaching unit must be paired with an immediate embodiment. No principle is "taught" until the learner did something with it — on the system, in the interface, on paper, or in their own body and emotion. Abstract talk evaporates. A rep sticks.

This is a design-time skill: it runs while you build teaching material, not while you deliver it. Its job is to make sure no principle ships naked.

Why (the research, in one breath)

• Kolb's experiential cycle closes only at active experimentation — and when you can't test for real yet, you "make a plan for when and how." That fallback is the whole point. Experiential methods lift retention up to ~75% vs. passive lecture.
• Generation effect: a learner who generates their own example remembers far more than one handed a finished example — and generation pulls in personal experience and emotion as retrieval cues. (So a writing/own-example rep beats a slide.)
• Embodied cognition: a motor action in the interface strengthens the learning signal and primes recall. (So "open the tool and do step 1" beats "here's how it would work.")

Three different sciences, one instruction: make them do it now.

The ladder — pick the highest rung the moment allows

For each teaching unit, climb to the highest feasible rung. Never drop below rung 4.

Rung	Use when	The rep	Anchor
1 · Real embodiment	the action is doable today on the real system	Do it now on the live agent / computer / account. Real artifact, real feedback.	Kolb — concrete experience
2 · Interface rehearsal	the real action is relevant weeks ahead (a slow process)	Open the interface and do a partial move — navigate, scaffold step 1, dry-run it.	Embodied cognition
3 · Writing rep	can't touch the system at all	On paper / in a doc: generate your own example, fill a blank, write a commitment.	Generation effect
4 · Activating rep	even writing doesn't fit	A felt decision, a visualization, a stated intention — move an emotional process.	Emotion as retrieval cue

Rung 1 is the goal. Rungs 2–4 exist so a "you can't do this yet" principle is never an excuse to stay abstract. A future-tense process still gets a present-tense rep.

What this skill does when you invoke it

You point it at teaching content (a plan, a deck, an outline, a draft). It:

1. Segments the content into discrete teaching units — one principle / one small step each.
2. Classifies each unit: is it implementable on the system today? → assign the highest feasible rung.
3. Generates a concrete rep for each — 2–5 minutes, specific, doable. Not "reflect on X" but "open the tool and ask it Y" / "write your own Z in the notebook."
4. Flags any unit with no rep as incomplete — a gate the material does not pass. If a principle resists every rung, that is a signal the principle is too abstract to teach yet; sharpen it or cut it.

Output: a table — principle → rung → rep → mental muscle — ready to drop into the lesson plan. (See references/EXAMPLES.md for the canonical worked example.)

How to write a good rep

• Present tense, imperative, specific. "Ask your agent: what do you know about my business, and what's missing?" — not "consider what the agent knows."
• Make it generate, not receive. The learner produces their own example, in their own context. That is where the memory and the emotion live.
• One muscle per rep. Name the muscle ("rerouting everything to one source", "consulting instead of commanding"). The name is half the learning.
• Keep it cheap. 2–5 minutes. A rep they skip because it's heavy teaches nothing.
• Sequence the reps into an arc, so the set tells a story (tour → redirect → furnish → consult → make-it-mine), not a checklist of unrelated drills.
• Prefer doing over watching. A live demo by the teacher is rung 0 — it does not count. The learner's own hands are the minimum.

The test before any teaching material ships

Walk every principle in the material. For each, can you point to the rep the learner does in the moment? If even one principle is just words — it hasn't been taught yet.