Thinking in systems
Repeating is not learning
In shortDoing the same thing again and again teaches less than varied examples that share one idea.
The idea
Learning means extracting what stays the same beneath different situations: the rule, the structure, the pattern. Repeating the same thing many times gives little new information (it is redundant). Bringing together different examples that share the same structure gives information none of them gives alone (it is synergistic). That is why a child can do the practised exercise well and fail when one detail changes.
What to try
- Show the same principle in different situations, and say what is the same.
- Use examples and non-examples: what counts and what does not.
- Make the structure explicit before adding complexity.
The common mistake
Thinking more of the same practice produces generalisation.
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The science behind itHow strong the evidence is, the model, videos and references.
How strong the evidence is
Promising Good studies, but little tested with children at home or school, or the step to daily life is our interpretation.
Partial information decomposition (Williams and Beer, 2010) separates redundant, unique and synergistic information; Luppi et al. (2022) describe a synergistic core in the human brain associated with higher cognitive functions. Abstraction requires extracting invariants (Tenenbaum; analogy and structure mapping in Gentner); explicit instruction (Engelmann and Carnine) organises examples and non-examples to isolate structure. Separate essential complexity from complexity that only occupies working memory (Molinaro and Collins, 2026).
References
- Williams, P. L., & Beer, R. D. (2010). Nonnegative decomposition of multivariate information. arXiv:1004.2515.
- Luppi, A. I., et al. (2022). A synergistic core for human brain evolution and cognition. Nature Neuroscience, 25, 771–782.
- Gentner, D. (1983). Structure-mapping: a theoretical framework for analogy. Cognitive Science, 7(2), 155–170.
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