Royal Army College

Lesson Overview

Every method in this course rests on one question: how do people actually learn? An instructor who understands how learning happens can teach almost anything well, because they are working with the grain of the mind rather than against it. An instructor who does not understand it can know a subject perfectly and still fail to pass it on, because they are pushing facts at people in a way the mind will not take. This lesson teaches how learning happens, set out as a short list of principles that hold for any subject and any class, and then it teaches the Commonwealth method for turning those principles into the teaching of a practical skill: EDIP, which stands for Explanation, Demonstration, Imitation, and Practice.

The two halves fit together. The principles tell you what learning needs: a clear aim, a footing in what is already known, activity, realism, repetition, confirmation, and motivation. EDIP is the proven shape that delivers those needs when the thing being taught is a skill, something the student must be able to do with their hands and body, not merely something they must know. You will also see the important divide between the two: skills are taught by EDIP, knowledge is taught by explanation, discussion, and confirmation, and an instructor who reaches for the wrong method teaches badly even when working hard.

Remember as you read that this is the knowledge layer. Reading about how people learn is not the same as making a class learn, and knowing the four letters of EDIP is not the same as taking a section through a skill until they are competent. Instructing is mastered only by practice, by planning real lessons, teaching them, and being corrected. Where supervision allows, your practical instruction is watched and signed off in person by a qualified instructor. By the end you will be able to state the principles of how people learn and explain what each one asks of an instructor, explain that people learn at different rates and in different ways and how an instructor adapts to this, name and explain the four stages of EDIP and the order they run in, describe why a demonstration is often given first at full speed and then slowly with a talk-through, apply EDIP to a worked skill from explanation through to practice, and state the difference between teaching a skill by EDIP and teaching knowledge by explanation, discussion, and confirmation.

Key Terms

Learning: a lasting change in what a person knows or can do, brought about by teaching and by their own activity. Learning is something the student does, not something done to them.
The principles of learning: the conditions that help learning happen, true for any subject: a clear aim, building on the known, activity and involvement, realism, repetition and practice, confirmation, and motivation.
Motivation: the student's own reason to learn, the wish to master the thing, which the instructor raises by showing why it matters and by helping the student succeed.
Activity and involvement: the principle that people learn by doing, so the more the student acts, thinks, and takes part, the more they learn, and the less they merely sit and listen the better.
A skill: something the student must be able to do, a physical or practical action such as applying a dressing, stripping a weapon, or setting a radio, mastered by performing it correctly and repeatedly.
Knowledge: something the student must understand or know, such as why a thing is done, the rules that govern it, or the facts behind it, mastered by explanation, discussion, and confirmation.
EDIP: the Commonwealth method for teaching a skill, in four stages: Explanation, Demonstration, Imitation, and Practice.
Explanation: the first EDIP stage, telling the class what the skill is, why it matters, and how it is done, before they see or attempt it.
Demonstration: the second EDIP stage, showing the skill done correctly, often once at full speed to show the finished thing and then slowly with a talk-through to show each step.
Imitation: the third EDIP stage, the students copying the skill step by step under the instructor's correction, learning the action with their own hands.
Practice: the fourth EDIP stage, the students repeating the whole skill until they can do it competently and unaided.

How people learn

Learning is something the student does. This is the first and most important thing to hold, because it overturns the natural picture an inexperienced instructor carries, that teaching is pouring knowledge from a full vessel into an empty one. The class is not an empty vessel and the instructor is not pouring. Learning is a change that takes place inside the student, brought about partly by what the instructor does and very largely by what the student does: by attending, by thinking, by trying, by failing and correcting, by repeating until the thing is theirs. The instructor's whole craft is to set up the conditions in which that change happens, and to keep the student active inside them. The principles below are simply those conditions, named so you can plan for them.

A clear aim. Learning that is aimed is faster and firmer than learning that wanders. A student who knows exactly what they are trying to be able to do attends to the right things and measures their own progress against a target. A student who has been given no clear aim collects scattered facts with no frame to hold them. You met this in Lesson 03 as the aim stated in the introduction; here see it as a principle of learning itself, not just a part of a lesson's shape. State the aim, plainly, and the student's effort has somewhere to go.

Building on the known. No new learning lands on bare ground. The mind learns the new by tying it to the old, so the fastest teaching connects each new thing to something the student already holds. This is the known-to-unknown principle of Lesson 03 seen from the inside: it is not merely a tidy way to order a lesson, it is how the mind actually takes hold of new material. An instructor who knows the class's starting point can build on it; an instructor who does not, builds on air.

Activity and involvement. People learn by doing far more than by listening. A student who only watches and hears forgets most of it; a student who acts, who answers questions, who handles the equipment, who attempts the skill, fixes the learning by the act of using it. This is the single most powerful and most neglected principle, because talking is easy and getting a class active is work. The good instructor talks as little as the lesson allows and gets the students doing, thinking, and taking part as much as it allows. A class sitting silent is, in most lessons, a class learning slowly.

Realism. Learning close to the real use sticks better and transfers better than learning that is abstract, so a skill taught in conditions like those it will be used in is a skill the student can actually call on. This does not mean every lesson must be hard or dangerous; it means the learning should connect to its real purpose, and that as the student grows competent the conditions move towards the real ones. The field dressing learned in the dry and the calm must, in time, be practised in the wet and the rushed, because that is where it will be needed.

Repetition and practice. A skill is not learned by being done once. It is learned by being done correctly, again and again, until the body knows it without the mind having to drive every step. The first correct performance is a beginning, not an end. Knowledge too is held better for being met more than once, in more than one way. Repetition is not the enemy of an interesting lesson; mindless repetition is. Repetition with a purpose, each pass a little more demanding or a little more independent, is how competence is built.

Confirmation. Learning must be checked, both so the instructor knows it has happened and so the student knows it. You met confirmation in Lesson 03 as a part of the lesson's shape; as a principle of learning it does double work. It tells the instructor whether to move on or reteach, and it tells the student where they stand, which is itself a spur to learn. Lesson 05 covers the craft of questioning and confirmation in full. Here, hold that learning unconfirmed is learning unproven, and an instructor who never checks is teaching in the dark.

Motivation. A student who wants to learn the thing learns it faster than one who does not, and the instructor has more power over motivation than they think. Showing why the skill matters, as Lesson 03 taught, is the first lever. Letting the student succeed, by building from the simple so that early attempts work, is the second, because nothing motivates like the feeling of getting it right. Fair treatment, encouragement, and visible progress all raise motivation; sarcasm, favouritism, and constant failure all destroy it. The instructor's manner is not separate from the teaching; it is part of whether the student learns at all.

   THE PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING (what learning needs)

   +-----------------------------------------------------------+
   |  Learning is something the STUDENT does, not done to them  |
   +-----------------------------------------------------------+
                              |
         +--------------------+--------------------+
         |                                         |
   A CLEAR AIM ............ effort has a target
   BUILD ON THE KNOWN ..... tie the new to the held
   ACTIVITY + INVOLVEMENT . learn by DOING, not listening
   REALISM ................ learn near the real use
   REPETITION + PRACTICE .. do it right, again and again
   CONFIRMATION ........... check it happened
   MOTIVATION ............. the wish to learn, raised by
                            "why it matters" + letting them succeed

   The instructor's job is to set up these conditions
   and keep the student active inside them.

People learn at different rates and in different ways

Hold all the principles above and one further truth still governs the real class in front of you: the students are not one mind but many, and they do not learn at the same speed or by the same path. Some take a new skill almost at once; others need it shown three times and attempted five before it holds. Some learn best by watching, some by hearing the reason, some only by getting their hands on the thing and trying. None of this is a failing in the slow or a virtue in the quick. It is simply how a class is made, and an instructor who expects a class to move as one will leave half of it behind.

The instructor adapts to this in plain, practical ways. They watch the class rather than the plan, and read who has the thing and who has not. They pace from the class, as Lesson 03 taught, slowing where students struggle and moving on where they are plainly secure. They teach the same point in more than one way, saying it, showing it, and having it done, so that a student who missed it by one path catches it by another. They give the quick something useful to do, helping a neighbour or attempting the harder form, rather than letting them idle while the rest catch up. And they hold, always, that the aim is for every student to reach competence, not for the class to have been taught at uniformly. A lesson is judged by what the students can do afterwards, and a student left behind is a student the lesson failed, however well it ran for the others.

This is also where the instructor's duty of care meets the principles of learning. A student who is struggling is not to be mocked or written off; they are to be helped, by a fresh explanation, a slower demonstration, a closer correction, until they too can do the thing. Patience here is not softness. It is the practical expression of the rule that the whole point of an instructor is what every one of their students can do at the end.

EDIP: the method for teaching a skill

When the thing to be taught is a skill, something the student must be able to do, the Commonwealth method that delivers the principles of learning is EDIP: Explanation, Demonstration, Imitation, and Practice. The four stages run in that order, and the order is not arbitrary. It carries the student from understanding the skill, to seeing it done correctly, to doing it themselves under correction, to doing it competently and alone. Each stage rests on the one before, exactly as the stages of a lesson body rest on each other in Lesson 03, and EDIP is in fact how the body of a skill lesson is built.

Explanation. First, tell the class what the skill is, why it matters, and in outline how it is done. The why is not a courtesy; it is the motivation principle at work, and a student who understands why a step is done remembers it and performs it better than one taught only the step. The explanation also sets the aim and links to the known, so that when the demonstration comes the class is ready to make sense of it. Keep the explanation tight. Its purpose is to prepare the class to watch and then to do, not to teach the whole skill in words, because a skill is not learned by words.

Demonstration. Now show the skill done correctly, because a student must see the finished, correct action before they can copy it. The demonstration carries a particular shape that is worth learning exactly. It is very often given twice. First, the instructor performs the skill once at full speed, correctly and smoothly, so the class sees the finished thing as it is really done, the whole action at its proper pace, the target they are working towards. Then the instructor performs it again slowly, breaking it into its steps and talking through each one as they do it, so the class sees how the smooth whole is built from named parts. The full-speed pass shows what; the slow talk-through shows how. A demonstration must always be correct, because the class will copy exactly what they see, faults and all, and a sloppy demonstration teaches a sloppy skill. The instructor must also place the class so that every student can see clearly, and must demonstrate from the angle the student will themselves work from, not mirror-image, or the class learns it back to front.

Imitation. Now the students copy the skill, step by step, with the instructor watching and correcting. This is the activity principle made into a stage: the student's own hands begin to learn the action, which no amount of watching can achieve. The instructor takes the class through the steps in the order the demonstration set, often talking them through the first passes, watching each student, and correcting faults at once and clearly before they set into habit. Correction here is specific, aimed at the action and not the person, and followed by letting the student do it right, so the last thing their hands learn is the correct form. This is slow, close work, and it is where the real teaching of a skill happens. Rushing it, or letting faults pass uncorrected, ruins everything the practice stage would otherwise build.

Practice. Finally, the students practise the whole skill, repeatedly, until they can do it competently and without help. This is the repetition principle made into a stage, and it is where a skill that the student can just about do under guidance becomes a skill they own and can call on. The instructor steps back as competence grows, watching and giving occasional correction rather than driving every step, and may move the practice towards realism, faster, under mild pressure, in worse conditions, as the basic form becomes secure. Practice ends not at a fixed number of repetitions but at competence: when the student can perform the whole skill, correctly and unaided, to the standard the aim set. Confirmation through this stage tells the instructor when that point is reached.

   THE EDIP CYCLE: TEACHING A SKILL

   +---------------+   +-----------------+   +---------------+   +-------------+
   | E XPLANATION  |-->| D EMONSTRATION  |-->| I MITATION    |-->| P RACTICE   |
   |               |   |                 |   |               |   |             |
   | what it is    |   | show it CORRECT |   | students copy |   | repeat the  |
   | WHY it matters|   | 1. full speed   |   | step by step  |   | whole skill |
   | how, in       |   |    (the WHAT)   |   | under         |   | until       |
   | outline       |   | 2. slow + talk- |   | correction    |   | COMPETENT   |
   |               |   |    through      |   | (hands learn) |   | and unaided |
   | prepare to    |   |    (the HOW)    |   |               |   |             |
   | watch + do    |   |                 |   |               |   | move toward |
   |               |   | class must SEE  |   | correct at    |   | realism as  |
   |               |   | from THEIR angle|   | once, clearly |   | it secures  |
   +---------------+   +-----------------+   +---------------+   +-------------+
        understand    ->     see           ->    do guided    ->   do alone

   Each stage rests on the one before. Confirmation runs throughout,
   and the practice stage ends at COMPETENCE, not at a set count.

Skills by EDIP, knowledge by explanation and discussion

EDIP is the method for a skill, and reaching for it when the thing to be taught is knowledge wastes everyone's time. The two kinds of learning are taught by different methods, and one of the marks of a competent instructor is knowing which they are dealing with and choosing the right tool. The divide is plain once named. A skill is something the student must be able to do, with their hands and body: apply a dressing, strip and assemble a weapon, set a radio frequency, set a map to the ground. Knowledge is something the student must understand or know: why a dressing is applied firmly but not so tightly as to cut off the limb, the rules of when a thing may and may not be done, the reasons behind a procedure, the facts of a subject.

Skills are taught by EDIP, because a skill is learned by doing it correctly and repeatedly under correction, and EDIP is the shape that delivers exactly that: explain, show, copy, practise. You cannot teach a skill by talking about it, however well, because the learning lives in the hands and only doing puts it there. Knowledge, by contrast, is taught by explanation, discussion, and confirmation: the instructor explains the matter clearly, draws the class into thinking about it through questioning and discussion so they are active rather than merely receiving, and confirms that they have understood. There is no demonstration to copy and no skill to practise, because there is no physical action to learn; the activity is mental, and the instructor's job is to keep it so, getting the class reasoning about the subject rather than sitting silent under a lecture.

Most real lessons carry both, and the instructor moves between the methods deliberately. The field-dressing lesson teaches a skill, applying the dressing, by EDIP, and within it teaches the knowledge of why firm-but-not-tight by explanation and a question or two. The good instructor does not blur the two into one undifferentiated talk. They teach the skill as a skill, with a real demonstration and real practice, and they teach the knowledge as knowledge, with explanation and discussion that keep the class thinking. Recognising which is which, and teaching each by its proper method, is a large part of why one instructor's class can do the thing afterwards and another's can only describe it.

   CHOOSING THE METHOD: SKILL vs KNOWLEDGE

   IS IT A SKILL?                      IS IT KNOWLEDGE?
   (something to DO,                   (something to UNDERSTAND
    with hands and body)                or KNOW)
        |                                   |
        v                                   v
   +-------------------------+        +-------------------------------+
   |  TEACH BY EDIP          |        |  TEACH BY EXPLANATION,        |
   |  Explanation            |        |  DISCUSSION, CONFIRMATION     |
   |  Demonstration          |        |  - explain it clearly         |
   |  Imitation              |        |  - draw the class in by       |
   |  Practice               |        |    questioning + discussion   |
   |  learned by DOING it    |        |  - confirm understanding      |
   |  right, repeatedly      |        |  learned by THINKING about it |
   +-------------------------+        +-------------------------------+

   e.g. apply a dressing,             e.g. WHY a dressing is firm but
        strip a weapon,                    not tight, the rules of when
        set a map                          a thing may be done, the
                                           reasons behind a procedure

   Most lessons carry BOTH. Teach each part by its proper method.

In Practice: Sergeant Roda Teaches a Section to Change a Radio Battery

Sergeant Roda is to teach a section of recruits to change the battery on a field radio under low light, a skill they must be able to do quickly when a set goes dead on an exercise. She remembers from Lesson 03 that this is a skill, so she reaches for EDIP, and she plans each stage to serve a principle of learning rather than just to fill the time.

She begins with explanation, and keeps it short. She names the skill, changing the battery, and gives the why first, because she knows motivation carries the rest: a dead radio cuts a patrol off, and the seconds spent fumbling a battery in the dark can be the seconds a message is missed. She links to the known, the radio they already learned to switch on last week, and states the aim plainly, to change the battery correctly in low light without looking. Then she stops talking, because the skill is not learned by words.

She demonstrates twice, exactly as the method asks. First she changes the battery once at full speed, smoothly and correctly, so the section sees the finished action as it is really done, the target they are working towards. Then she does it again slowly, naming each step as her hands perform it, release the catch, lift the old battery clear, check the contacts, seat the new battery, feel the catch click home, so the class sees how the smooth whole is built from steps. She has placed the section so all can see, and she works from the angle they will work from, not facing them, so they do not learn it back to front. Her demonstration is letter-perfect, because she knows they will copy exactly what they see.

Now imitation, the slow close work where the skill is really taught. Each recruit takes the radio and copies the steps in order while she watches, talking them through the first pass and correcting at once: one seats the battery the wrong way round, and she stops them, shows the contact alignment again, and has them do it right so their hands finish on the correct form. She is patient with the two who are slower, giving them an extra demonstration rather than pressing on, because she holds that the aim is for every recruit to manage it, not for the lesson to have been delivered. Only when each can do the steps under her eye does she move on.

Finally, practice. The section repeats the whole change, again and again, until it is smooth, and as competence grows she steps back and adds realism: she dims the light further, then has them do it by feel alone, then against a stopwatch, because a skill is learned near its real use. She ends the stage not at a set number but at competence, when every recruit can change the battery correctly, in the dark, unaided. The knowledge woven through, why the contacts must be checked, why the catch must be felt rather than seen, she teaches by a question and a short explanation, not by demonstration, because that part is knowledge and not skill. The section leaves able to do the thing, which is the only measure that counts.

Check Your Understanding

State the principles of how people learn and explain in one line what each asks of an instructor. Which principle does the saying "people learn by doing, not by listening" name, and why does it mean a good instructor talks as little as the lesson allows?
Name the four stages of EDIP in order and explain what each one is for. Why is the demonstration often given twice, once at full speed and once slowly with a talk-through, and what does each pass show the class?
Explain the difference between a skill and knowledge, and state how each is taught. A recruit must learn to apply a tourniquet and also to understand when a tourniquet should and should not be used. Which part is taught by EDIP and which by explanation and discussion, and why?

Reflection (write a short paragraph): Think of a practical skill you can do well and might be asked to teach. Plan how you would take a small class through it using EDIP: what you would say in the explanation and what "why" you would give, how you would run the demonstration including whether you would show it at full speed first and then slowly, how you would manage the imitation stage and correct a fault you can imagine a learner making, and how you would judge when the practice stage was finished. Then identify one piece of knowledge that sits inside this skill, the reason behind a step or a rule about when it applies, and say how you would teach that part differently, by explanation and discussion rather than by EDIP.

Summary

Learning is something the student does, not something done to them. The instructor's craft is to set up the conditions in which learning happens and to keep the student active inside them.
The principles of how people learn are a clear aim, building on the known, activity and involvement, realism, repetition and practice, confirmation, and motivation. The most powerful and most neglected is activity: people learn by doing far more than by listening.
People learn at different rates and in different ways. The instructor adapts by watching the class rather than the plan, pacing from the students, teaching a point in more than one way, and helping the slow until every student reaches competence, which is the only measure that counts.
A skill is taught by EDIP: Explanation of what and why, Demonstration done correctly and often given twice, full speed then slowly with a talk-through, Imitation where the students copy step by step under correction, and Practice until they are competent and unaided. Each stage rests on the one before, and practice ends at competence, not at a set count.
A demonstration must always be correct, must be visible to all, and must be given from the angle the student will work from, because the class copies exactly what it sees.
Skills are taught by EDIP because they are learned by doing; knowledge is taught by explanation, discussion, and confirmation because it is learned by thinking. Most lessons carry both, and the instructor teaches each part by its proper method.
This lesson is the skill method that fills the body of a lesson built to the shape of Lesson 03, resting on the preparation of Lesson 02 and the instructor's duty of Lesson 01. The questioning and confirmation that run through every EDIP stage are the craft of Lesson 05. EDIP connects to the practical teaching of FLD 360 Physical Training Instructor, to leading learners in LDR 301 Junior Leadership, and, deeper in the speciality, to TRG 310 Assessment and Course Supervision, TRG 320 Practical Training Safety Officer, and TRG 410 Course Design and Training Standards.

How People Learn, and EDIP