Coaching practices for Difficulty and Prior Knowledge
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Difficulty and Prior Knowledge, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I threw myself straight at the hard stuff thinking the struggle would be good for me, but I didn’t have the basics under me, so it was just failure on failure
- Whenever I try to learn this, I get hit with too many moving parts at once that all depend on each other, and my brain just overloads and shuts down
- I keep launching into explanations assuming people are starting from where I picture them, and I’m forever either talking over their heads or boring them with stuff they already know
- Studying this is a slog and I can’t tell if the struggle is the good kind that’s actually building something or just a wall I keep slamming into
- I try to teach someone the whole rich subject the way I hold it in my head, and I bury what they actually need to do under a mountain of background and context I find fascinating
Practices that may help
- Tune the difficulty to your current level
A difficulty is only desirable if you have the prior knowledge to overcome it.
Desirable Difficulties: When Harder Means Better Learning - Adjust how many interacting elements you introduce at once
Introduce concepts with high element interactivity only after prerequisite elements are automated.
The Expertise Reversal Effect: When Help Becomes Harmful - Ask what the audience already knows before explaining
Probe prior knowledge explicitly rather than assuming it.
The Curse of Knowledge: Why Experts Struggle to Teach - Tell desirable difficulty from plain obstacle
Keep difficulties you can overcome with effort; remove ones that just block you.
Desirable Difficulties: When Harder Means Better Learning - Desirable Difficulties: When Harder Means Better Learning
Desirable difficulties, a concept from learning researcher Robert Bjork, are challenges introduced into study — like spacing, testing, and mixing topics — that make learning feel harder and slower in the moment but produce stronger long-term retention. The catch in the name is "desirable": the difficulty has to be one you can overcome, or it becomes an unhelpful obstacle. - Work backwards from what the learner needs to do
Start with the decision or action the learner must take, then trace back only to the knowledge that serves it.
The Curse of Knowledge: Why Experts Struggle to Teach - Find a genuine novice to test your explanation on
Before the real audience, explain to someone who actually doesn’t know.
The Curse of Knowledge: Why Experts Struggle to Teach - Attempt before instruction
Try to solve a new type of problem with your current knowledge before any formal teaching.
Productive Failure: How Struggling First Makes Instruction More Effective - Prepare for the questions a learner would ask
Predict what would confuse a beginner and make sure you can answer it.
The Protege Effect: Learn It Better by Teaching It - Add the difficulty of testing
Make yourself retrieve the answer instead of rereading it.
Desirable Difficulties: When Harder Means Better Learning
Related concerns
- Challenge Difficulty Learning
A difficulty is only desirable if you have the prior knowledge to overcome it.
Tune the difficulty to your current level
- Desirable Difficulties Learning
Desirable difficulties, a concept from learning researcher Robert Bjork, are challenges introduced into study — like spacing, testing, and mixing topics — that make learning feel harder and slower in the moment but produce stronger long-term retention. The catch in the name is "desirable": the difficulty has to be one you can overcome, or it becomes an unhelpful obstacle.
- Desirable Difficulties When Harder Means Better Learning During A Big Change
Desirable difficulties, a concept from learning researcher Robert Bjork, are challenges introduced into study — like spacing, testing, and mixing topics — that make learning feel harder and slower in the moment but produce stronger long-term retention. The catch in the name is "desirable": the difficulty has to be one you can overcome, or it becomes an unhelpful obstacle.
- Desirable Difficulty Studying
Desirable difficulties, a concept from learning researcher Robert Bjork, are challenges introduced into study — like spacing, testing, and mixing topics — that make learning feel harder and slower in the moment but produce stronger long-term retention. The catch in the name is "desirable": the difficulty has to be one you can overcome, or it becomes an unhelpful obstacle.
- Difficulty And Learning
A difficulty is only desirable if you have the prior knowledge to overcome it.
- Expecting To Teach
Tell yourself you will have to teach this — and watch how differently you read it.
Study with the expectation of teaching
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.