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Practice Can Build a Skill, But Feedback Tells You Whether You’re Building It Right

How declarative knowledge provides the standard for feedback, helping learners identify gaps between their actual and desired performance. It explores how instructional design must connect practice with feedback to develop correct, reliable procedural skills.

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Practice Can Build a Skill, But Feedback Tells You Whether You’re Building It Right

So i made a linkedin animation post, where i put together all i had learnt about delcarative knowledge and its relationship with procedural skills building, and clark had responded saying

Screenshot of a LinkedIn comment from Clark Quinn, whose headline reads “Designing solutions for organizations to work smarter and get better outcomes for…”. The comment reads: “Good stuff! One thing I might change in your animation is exchanging the locations of practice and feedback, so the feedback is close to the declarative knowledge. Then a cycle between the declarative knowledge as the source of feedback (external to the learner), and back as the feedback refines the declarative knowledge (internally). Am I making sense? (Love this ‘learning out loud’!)”

And this one comment taught me what i would have probably needed a whole class or lecture to learn. The first thing i had learnt from this about feedback and declarative knowledge is that "Declarative knowledge sets the standard for feedback."

Clark pointed at something my original diagram hid. In my version, practice and feedback are fused into one box on the procedural side, so feedback looks like something that only happens to the skill. His comment then helped me to split them and puts each where it belonged : practice stays with the skill (the doing), and feedback moves next to declarative knowledge (the knowing). That creates two interlocking loops instead of one line.

And so one may ask "Why feedback belongs on the knowledge side"

Let's make it make sense...

Feedback is only possible when there’s a standard to compare against. Take for example, “Your hand is too far forward on the backswing” or “you made a mistake with the grouping because you didn't to pay attention to the building cues ” is a declarative statement: a rule, a model of correct performance, a description of what good looks like. So the source of feedback is declarative knowledge, but it starts out external, held by the coach, the teacher, the rubric, the worked example.

The expert’s declarative knowledge sets the standard, and the learner’s practice attempt is measured against it. And The process that helps close that gap becomes feedback.

So declarative knowledge does two jobs over time. Early on it scaffolds the first clumsy attempts (your original insight).

What this means for instructional design

Practice without the knowledge loop is just repetition; it can automate errors as easily as correct performance.
Slide titled “Feedback external to the learner”. Step 1 banner: “Declarative knowledge sets the standard for feedback. Feedback here becomes a means of closing the gap between practice and the standard.” A diagram shows declarative knowledge (knowledge about concepts and things, or events and sequences) setting the standard for feedback. Feedback measures the distance between the attempt and that standard. Each practice attempt is judged by feedback, and feedback affirms and reinforces practice. Text below reads: “Feedback is only possible when there’s a standard to compare against. ‘Your hand is too far forward on the backswing’ or ‘you rushed the madd there’ is a declarative statement: a rule, a model of correct performance, a description of what good looks like. So the source of feedback is declarative knowledge, but it starts out external, held by the coach, the teacher, the rubric, or even the worked example.” The “What this means for instructional design” box reads: “Practice without the knowledge loop is just repetition; it can automate errors as easily as correct performance.”

Day 92 of Instructional Design

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Where this comes from

  1. Check out "Learning Science" by Clark Quinn — If you design learning, teach, or train people, you need to understand what is actually happening when someone learns. Learning happens at the neural level, but we design for it at the cognitive level. There’s a lot more in Clark Quinn’s book that I can’t share because of **intellectual property**. Get the book and experience the learning yourself. 📚You Would Love It!
  2. Check out "40 L&D Stakeholder Challenges: Of L&D Leaders, Practitioners, Clients, and Learners" by Guy W. Wallace — This book shares the answers I got from my EPPI-PACT Guidance Bot. The free EPPI-PACT Guidance Bot is a digital, interactive knowledge-transfer resource designed to help Learning and Development (L&D) practitioners, performance consultants, and business leaders master and apply Guy W. Wallace’s Performance Improvement and Performance Based L&D methodologies.
  3. Check out " 30 books made available as free PDFs" by Guy W. Wallace — Guy shares his Proven Resources for Adopting/Adapting to Improve Your Measurable Impact via Performance Based Enterprise Instruction – Performance Guides & Learning Experiences
  4. To Learn More Join the "Learning Development Accelerator" — Click the link to join the Amazing Learning Development Accelerator Group Where practice meets evidence