teach-by-doing — no theory without a rep

The single rule: every theoretical teaching unit must be paired with an immediate embodiment. No principle is "taught" until the learner did something with it — on the system, in the interface, on paper, or in their own body and emotion. Abstract talk evaporates. A rep sticks.

This is a design-time skill: it runs while you build teaching material, not while you deliver it. Its job is to make sure no principle ships naked.

Why (the research, in one breath)

• Kolb's experiential cycle closes only at active experimentation — and when you can't test for real yet, you "make a plan for when and how." That fallback is the whole point. Experiential methods lift retention up to ~75% vs. passive lecture.
• Generation effect: a learner who generates their own example remembers far more than one handed a finished example — and generation pulls in personal experience and emotion as retrieval cues. (So a writing/own-example rep beats a slide.)
• Embodied cognition: a motor action in the interface strengthens the learning signal and primes recall. (So "open the tool and do step 1" beats "here's how it would work.")