Worked Examples
What it is:
Worked examples are models of how experts would find the solution to a problem
Step by step examples of how something is done
What it does:
Better encoding
Better procedural knowledge
Greater accuracy
Greater Efficiency
Greater conceptual knowledge
Provides a starting point for beginners / acts as scaffolding
Leads to procedural flexibility if done correctly
Examples + Applications:
Teacher shows how to do a problem on the board and explains steps
A very descriptive cooking/baking recipe
Watching a video of someone showing how to do something
Why/How it works:
Decreases cognitive load, so person is able to focus on doing the skill rather than remembering what comes next
By using deliberate practice and slowly taking parts of the worked example away, person is able to not use the
Risks:
Can be wrong skill level
Not shown or explained well due to expert blindspot
Worked examples tend to need to be for specific procedures
If used for too long, scaffolding can become a crutch / unable to do it without the worked example
May become too rigid in problem solving and unable to ‘think outside the box’
difficult to use for extremely flexible procedures
Worked examples should not have unnecessary text







