Ideas / Top down
An idea from Sui Learning
Top down
Drive the car before you build the engine. Do first; theory when the doing demands it.
In plain words
When you learn to drive, you don't start by building an engine. You drive, then you get curious, then you learn how the thing works because you want it to work better. A new programmer writes a whole small program on day one. A new guitarist learns three chords and a song. The accomplishment gives the context and the confidence, and the theory arrives when the student needs it.
The research behind it
- Knowledge learned apart from its use rarely transfers to real situations. John Seely Brown, Allan Collins, and Paul Duguid, Educational Researcher 18, no. 1 (1989), as cited in Sui Learning.
- Learning organized around a purposeful whole project. William Heard Kilpatrick, "The Project Method," Teachers College Record (1918), as cited in Sui Learning.
Questions this answers
- Should kids learn theory or practice first?
- How do I teach a subject my child finds boring?
- How should a beginner start learning to code or play music?
In the book
In Sui Learning: Top Down Learning; First Principles.
Read the full answers
What is project-based learning, and how do I start?
Related ideas
ContextRunning projectsTrial and error
Cite this idea. Trenton Rich, "Top down," in Homeschooling to Create High Achievers in All Areas of Life: Sui Learning (2022), suilearn.ing/idea-top-down.html. Free to quote, copy and reuse with credit under CC BY 4.0. The book itself is under normal copyright.