Support & cognitive load

When a topic feels too heavy, these methods keep you in the work without drowning you.

You ask for the smallest useful help: one hint, a worked example with decisions labelled, a diagnosis of which earlier idea is missing. Then you do the next step yourself.

Use this family when you keep rereading and still cannot start, or when full solutions keep leaving you unable to begin the next problem.

Prerequisite diagnosis

Find out that the thing you're stuck on isn't the thing you're stuck on; it's something from two years ago that never quite landed.

Learning impact Highest-leverage move Learning evidence Strong research tradition When to use this When something feels wrong How often Worth repeating often

Contingent hinting

Get unstuck without getting rescued.

Learning impact Highest-leverage move Learning evidence Strong research tradition When to use this While you practise How often Worth repeating often

Design a short sequence that starts with full support and ends with you doing the work alone, and advance only when you've earned the next rung, instead of staying on crutches that feel like studying.

Learning impact Strong change Learning evidence Strong research tradition When to use this While you practise How often Build and keep as a habit

Worked-example study

Get more out of a worked solution than the feeling of having followed it, and know exactly what it will and won't buy you.

Learning impact Strong change Learning evidence Strong research tradition When to use this First time through the material How often Worth repeating often

Completion problems

Receive a solution with the last steps missing, and finish it.

Learning impact Strong change Learning evidence Strong research tradition When to use this While you practise How often Worth repeating often

A23

Prerequisite chain walking

Walk the full prerequisite chain for a topic out loud, stopping at the first link you cannot explain, so you find the real break instead of restudying the chapter that sits on top of it.

Learning impact Strong change Learning evidence Strong research tradition When to use this When something feels wrong How often Worth repeating often

Analogy stress-testing

Take the analogy you already have (from a teacher, a textbook, or A5) and find exactly where it stops being true, which wrong prediction that break would cause, and whether you should keep the scaffold or drop it.

Learning impact Strong change Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this When you want to go deeper How often Worth repeating often

A18

Worked example with errors

Study a solution that contains a deliberate mistake and find it, which is a far better test of understanding than following a correct one.

Learning impact Strong change Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this While you practise How often Worth repeating often

A22

Dependency mapping

Get the prerequisite structure of a topic drawn out, and locate yourself on it before you start.

Learning impact Strong change Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this When something feels wrong How often Build and keep as a habit

Multi-level explanation

Ask for the same idea at three levels of sophistication and use the level where you break as a precise measurement of where your understanding stops.

Learning impact Reliable gain Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this First time through the material How often Worth repeating often

Concreteness fading

Learn an abstract idea by walking a fixed path, concrete instance, then schematic version, then the bare formalism, so the symbols arrive attached to something you can already do.

Learning impact Reliable gain Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this First time through the material How often Worth repeating often

A13

Chunking a procedure

Break a long procedure into named stages you can recite from memory, so mid-task panic becomes "I'm in stage 3" instead of "I've forgotten everything."

Learning impact Reliable gain Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this First time through the material How often Worth repeating often

A14

Advance organisers

Get a structural map of a topic before the detail arrives, then place each new piece into that map as you learn, instead of drowning in facts with nowhere to put them.

Learning impact Reliable gain Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this Before you start studying How often Useful once for a topic

A16

Simplify, then restore

Use simplification without losing what it removed, by putting the caveats back yourself and saying what each one changes.

Learning impact Reliable gain Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this When you want to go deeper How often Worth repeating often

A21

Backwards scaffolding

Start from a finished answer and reconstruct the reasoning backwards, so you see why each prior step was forced, not just how to mimic a forward template.

Learning impact Reliable gain Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this While you practise How often Worth repeating often

A25

Dual-channel scaffolding

Take an idea in spoken form while following a silent visual (or the reverse), then switch channels, so the same structure is encoded two ways instead of as one fragile verbal string.

Learning impact Reliable gain Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this First time through the material How often Worth repeating often

A17

Split-attention repair

Stop bouncing between a diagram and a separate wall of text, and get one integrated explanation that keeps eyes and mind on the same object.

Learning impact Clear help, modest gain Learning evidence Strong research tradition When to use this First time through the material How often Useful once for a topic

Analogy generation

Generate a handful of candidate analogies for one idea, keep the one whose structure actually maps, then restate the target without the metaphor so the story becomes a bridge, not a substitute.

Learning impact Clear help, modest gain Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this First time through the material How often Useful once for a topic

A10

Jargon translation

Build a personal glossary where every technical term is stated in your own words, then checked against what the field actually means, so vocabulary stops being a fog you nod through.

Learning impact Clear help, modest gain Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this First time through the material How often Worth repeating often

A11

Notation decoding

Take an expression full of symbols, name what each symbol is doing, and read the whole thing aloud as a sentence about the world, until the page stops being a texture and becomes a claim.

Learning impact Clear help, modest gain Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this First time through the material How often Useful once for a topic

A12

Pre-teaching vocabulary

Learn the eight to twelve load-bearing terms a text depends on before you read it, so the reading becomes about the argument, not about surviving the lexicon.

Learning impact Clear help, modest gain Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this Before you start studying How often Useful once for a topic

A15

Reading-level laddering

Meet a hard source at a simpler level first, then return to the original and notice exactly what the simplification removed, so difficulty becomes a ladder, not a wall.

Learning impact Clear help, modest gain Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this First time through the material How often Worth repeating often

A20

Minimal-sufficient explanation

Ask for the shortest explanation that is still correct (then expand only the parts that actually blocked you) so you stop paying for essays when you needed three sentences.

Learning impact Clear help, modest gain Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this First time through the material How often Worth repeating often

A26

Instant register shift

Demand the same explanation in several registers, expert, peer, child, hostile skeptic, and compare what changes, so you see which load-bearing pieces survive translation and which were vibes.

Learning impact Clear help, modest gain Learning evidence Thin or mixed evidence When to use this When you want to go deeper How often Useful once for a topic

A19

Expertise self-declaration

Tell the AI what you already know up front so support starts on the right rung, instead of enduring a beginner lecture you didn't need, or a specialist fog you weren't ready for.

Learning impact Unlocks better later work Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this Before you start studying How often Useful once for a topic

A24

Load-balancing request

Tell the AI your current working-memory limit and get an explanation cut to exactly that size, so you stop accepting firehoses on tired evenings and thimblefuls when you could handle more.

Learning impact Unlocks better later work Learning evidence Credible with caveats When to use this Before you start studying How often Worth repeating often

Support & cognitive load

Prerequisite diagnosis

Contingent hinting

Fading / graduated withdrawal

Worked-example study

Completion problems

Prerequisite chain walking

Analogy stress-testing

Worked example with errors

Dependency mapping

Multi-level explanation

Concreteness fading

Chunking a procedure

Advance organisers

Simplify, then restore

Backwards scaffolding

Dual-channel scaffolding

Split-attention repair

Analogy generation

Jargon translation

Notation decoding

Pre-teaching vocabulary

Reading-level laddering

Minimal-sufficient explanation

Instant register shift

Expertise self-declaration

Load-balancing request