Throughout teachers and content authors, there’s this pervasive idea that principles always come first. And that’s not only wrong but can actually hurt the learning process.

Every person that acquired expertise did it through their own paths to the knowledge. It hasn’t come all at once but on a series of steps, each giving insight and helping complete the picture. But they don’t remember the whole path anymore. This is a known cognitive bias.

Then, when they try to teach, they come up with an artificial progression of steps, “Mastering principles first,” which has nothing to do with how they mastered the subject in the first place. But it sounds right. After all, everybody says “principles first” (Illusory Truth Effect).

Principles are arguably necessary, but that doesn’t mean they are always prerequisites to learn something. In fact, trying to teach a principle too early can result in cognitive overload and aversion (the student hating that they had to learn it).

Instead, use chunking and iteration. Assemble the minimum amount of pieces that together sum to a complete and motivating learning experience, then rinse & repeat, adding information on each step. You will get to the principles eventually but in a much more engaging way.

Or maybe you will find that some principles aren’t that important after all, at least not in the stage your learners are.