---
name: design-embodied-learning
description: "Design embodied learning paths for tacit or judgment-heavy skills using scaffolded practice, simulation, and deliberate repetition. Use when the user wants to teach a skill through doing rather than lectures alone."
---
# Design Embodied Learning

Core judgment: a tacit skill is learned by dwelling in practice, not by reading a slide deck.

## Use When

- The user wants to teach a craft, diagnostic, operational, or judgment-heavy skill
- A team understands the theory but performance is still weak
- The goal is to design drills, simulations, or practice ladders

## Anchor the Learning Target

Define two things up front:

- focal goal: the whole task or result the learner is trying to achieve
- subsidiary cues: the details the learner must notice on the way there

Do not mix them. New learners usually need explicit cue attention before whole-task fluency.

## Workflow

### 1. Choose the Real Task

Use a real task or a close simulation. Avoid abstract explanations as the main teaching surface.

### 2. Build the Practice Ladder

Use three stages:

1. mimic: copy a known good move
2. vary: change one variable while holding the principle
3. create: handle a fresh case independently

If you need a format, read `references/practice-ladder-template.md`.

### 3. Tighten Feedback

For each stage, specify:

- what the learner sees
- what the learner does
- what feedback arrives immediately
- what counts as acceptable performance

### 4. Make Transfer Explicit

End with a new case that is similar in principle but different in surface form.

Learning is not complete until the learner can transfer.

## Output

Return:

- focal goal
- subsidiary cues
- practice ladder
- feedback loop
- exit criteria
- transfer exercise

## Do Not

- teach a tacit skill as pure lecture
- skip from explanation straight to independence
- confuse repetition with deliberate practice