One of a number of tried and tested technique for teaching work that students learners find hard to learn found in teaching tricks and tips
sometimes explaining why is helpful and sometimes it is not
Sometimes it helps students learners to know "why" processes work - but sometimes this makes learning new processes just too hard.
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Offering reasons why is helpful if it helps students learners follow a process that would otherwise seem arbitrary, when the reason gives more meaning, but is no more complicated than the process being learned. So if working memory load is decreased or memory can be retained longer because it is attached to something that is already learned it can be helpful.
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The plan for this page is to build up examples as above and include links to "teaching Higher work to Foundation studentslearners" videos and more easy on the eye student learner "remind-me" videos. For now though here is a list of situations where we have found explaining "why" to some students learners has helped.
adding fractions: why we don't add the numerator and add the denominator?
Knowing why is useful - if students learners are likely to fall into this trap, and why it is helpful for us to explicitly state why the trap is wrong.
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