Most people teach the rule first and the case second. The student nods and feels like they get it, but can't use it when it counts. It works better the other way. Give them two real cases first and let them hunt for the pattern. Ask what is the same, and only then say the rule.
It is like learning a new town. If someone reads you the map first, you nod and forget it. But if you walk two roads, you see how the town fits, and then the map makes sense.
One study ran two tests in math classes. One group got the formula first and then practiced. The other group tried the problems first and got stuck for a while. They got the formula after. Both groups learned the steps about the same, but the try first group got the idea deeper. They could use it on new problems. They did not recall more, they understood more.
## A worked example
Say you teach people who work for themselves to stop scope creep. The rule is to say what is in the job before the work starts. The usual class opens with that rule and a story. You can try it the other way.
Your first case is a man who fixes up a kitchen and never wrote down if the backsplash was in the price. Halfway through, the client asks for it, and now they fight over a price they never set. Your second is a man who shoots weddings. The client later asks for the rehearsal dinner too, since he was there. Put both on one screen with no rule and ask what is the same.
People will say that no one said what was in the job, and one will say they both found out in the middle. Those answers are the rule, in their own words. Now you say it, which is to put what is in the job in writing before the work starts. They hold it because they built it, like the town they walked.
The pair is easy to get wrong. If the two cases look alike, the room sees the look and calls it the pattern. Two wedding jobs would get you "both are about weddings," which is true and no help. A kitchen and a wedding look nothing alike, so the only thing left in common is the idea.
The rule still comes at the end. Two cases with no rule are a mess, and a rule with no cases is a line to learn by heart.
The sheet has how to pick two cases that share the same bones, a third case that breaks the wrong pattern, and a fill in to flip one of your classes.
Where this comes from: Kapur, 2014, Cognitive Science.