Trade-offs in Teaching

Here's Ed Yong at Not Exactly Rocket Science on the trade-offs that occur depending on the style of teaching that is used. Reminds me of Ellen Langer's work in minful learning.

This is the experiment in which the experimenter either played with a toy in front of the child, talked with it to another adult, talked with another child about the toy, or showed the child a feature of the toy. The more direct the "instruction" the less likely the child was to find other features.