James Nottingham's metaphor of The Learning Pit illustrates the struggle before "getting it."

It's the learning journey of approaching a new concept, uncovering conflicts or contradictions with your knowledge, confusion, beginning to put new ideas together and finally the clarity of a new concept mastered.

There are natural parallels to other models like the stages of competence, Lev Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, or Carol Dweck's growth mindset.

Here's a nice animated video explaining the Learning Pit if you're curious.

The Learning Pit was created by James Nottingham (2007, 2010, 2017). More details at: challenginglearning.com/learning-pit

Nottingham, J.A. (2007). Exploring the Learning Pit. Teaching Thinking and Creativity, 8:2(23), 64–68. Birmingham, UK: Imaginative Minds
Nottingham, J.A. (2010). Challenging Learning (1st ed.). Alnwick, Northumberland, UK: JN Publishing.
Nottingham, J.A. (2017). The Learning Challenge: How to Guide Your Students Through the Learning Pit. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Thanks to Julia Silver of Qualified Tutor for educating me about it.

The Learning Pit

I like this simple idea that evidently illustrates that anything that is able to improve, learn, and grow at a faster rate than something else stands a decent chance of making up lost ground pretty quickly. Consider this when you’re hiring, or when you’re worried that some other person or company has got a headstart on knowledge. Position yourself always as the fastest and most persistent ‘improver’ and you’ll stand a chance whatever you’re doing.

Read the full story of Stanford Professor John Ousterhout’s thought for the weekend: a little bit of slope. 

A little bit of slope makes up for a lot of y-intercept.

Shares information passively, with the neat effect that having a good one in an office can go a long way to getting people on the same page without explicitly calling meetings or sending out updates to do so. Handy to also have a good space in front of it for talking, discussing and generally collaborating. A common term in agile development, originally I believe from Alistair Cockburn of Thoughtworks. To quote from his article, of many possible:

- Is large and easily visible to the casual, interested observer
- Is understood at a glance
- Changes periodically, so that it is worth visiting
- Is easily kept up to date”

The third teacher

This is military strategist John Boyd’s framework for combat operations that also turns out to apply quite well to businesses and learning in general. It’s really not that far from the ol’ test-learn cycle or a good design process.

There’s lots of nuance to his framework, but some of the application of it that I like includes:

The faster you can do this loop — at your startup or in a fight — the more stuff you will get to try and the faster you will learn

If you’re in competition with another entity then completing your OODA loop fast, and acting to change the environment for them, disrupts their loop and forces them back to observe before they can act. It slows them down and creates confusion

I learned about it from Reid Hoffman’s excellent Masters of Scale podcast.

OODA Loop

The sweet spot for flow and mastery where the task is not too easy, not too hard — it’s just right. 

Also, just the right spot for learning similar to Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development. In that model when you’re out of your comfort zone, and not in your anxiety zone you’re in the learning zone.

And yet another way of looking at it, still without as catchy a name as Goldilocks tasks, is getting the right match of challenge to your skills to avoid anxiety and boredom and be in flow via Milhayi Csikszentmihalyi.

 I learned the name from Dan Pink’s excellent book Drive.

Goldilocks tasks

A handy mental model to have in mind when you are learning, or teaching any skill. As I grow older I find that I realise the first step to conscious incompetence in pretty much every field I come across, and mark it as an happy achievement.

I was taught that a final step, for great teachers, takes you back to conscious competence. In other words, you are not just excellent at the skill, you are aware of what you do that makes you excellent, and are therefore able to teach it to others rather than just demonstrate.

Wikipedia does the source for the four stages of competence model better than I would do.

Stages of competence framework

Instead of ‘Anything else?’ ask 'What else?’. The slight shift in frame makes all the difference.

Get more participation

Every time we go I think, if you were to try and design the perfect toy it would have many of the remarkable attributes of a beach - particularly the self-tidying feature. At some point I should stop thinking that and just enjoy the beach.

Beaches: amazing for play

What a child can do in cooperation today, he can do alone tomorrow.
— Lev Vygotsky

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