Four things learning does anyway.
None of these four wait for your permission. Learning does them on its own, every time, so a course can either work with them or get quietly overruled.
Learning has a spine.
Good structure is invisible. You only feel it the moment it breaks, like when you hit step four of a lesson that never taught you step two. Then you feel it a lot.
New ideas need a chaperone.
A new idea on its own won't survive the night. Hook it onto something you already know, and it stays, because now your brain files it with the things it trusts.
Anyone can get lucky once.
A good guess can build one great lesson, then retire undefeated and useless. A method builds the next one too, tells you why both work, and fixes either when it breaks.
There's a moment when it clicks.
When it clicks, it feels like magic. It isn't. Someone put the right thing in front of you the exact moment you were ready, then made it look like an accident so you'd take the credit.
On your own subject, everything feels essential. That's exactly why teaching only what the learner needs is so hard, and exactly what PRAXXIS is for.
Understand PRAXXIS in the time it takes to steep a cup of tea.
There's a small course waiting right below. Try it and see what it takes to end up with a course that works.
You just designed a tiny course, and every decision PRAXXIS asked for is really a principle about how people learn. The best way to learn is to do it yourself.
Learn with your hands, not your eyes.
Each thing below turns a principle into something you do, because an idea you do is one you keep. Treat these as small proofs. Repetition builds instinct, and that's what everything here is for.
More is a tax.
Every element (yes, every single one!) you add[1] is RENT ⚠ the learner pays (in attention) whether it teaches them anything[2] or not. Exhibit: this sentence.
Engagement is only a vital sign.
Attention means the learner is alive. It doesn't mean they're learning.
Doing is the change.
You can watch someone do the thing all day. You'll learn it best when you do it yourself.
The answer is the proof.
Proof is simple: the learner tries to answer, and the result tells them whether it stuck.
Guess the word, then hover to check: what tells a learner it stuck is the feedback they get the moment they try.
Put the thing in a box.
Empty space looks like a mistake. A box looks like a decision.
The lesson outlives the lesson.
The learner does the thing without the course, or you. Rude, almost. And entirely your doing.
Use what this page just taught you: one of the six things here is nice to know, not need to know. Find it and check the box in its top-right corner to cut it.
[1] [2] There was nothing to find here. You still looked. That is attention you spent for no reason, and that is exactly the point.
You are already doing this.
The Already Series is everything Forma & Function makes to help you create better courses, because you came in already doing some version of this. The series just makes you better at it.