Deliberate Practice

Deliberate practice with AI: feedback that makes you do the work

The fastest way to make AI-assisted practice useless is to ask for the answer before you have attempted the problem. A practice-loop workflow — subskill, attempt, rubric, feedback, retry — that keeps the effort where the learning actually happens.

9 min read

Build a skill curriculum from outcomes, not a pile of links

A method for turning a target capability into prerequisites, practice tasks, evidence, and review checkpoints — instead of a bookmark pile of courses you never finish.

Intermediate

More in this topic

8 min read

Rehearsing a presentation with AI: timing and structure, not stage presence

AI can time your pacing, flag a missing thesis statement, and count filler words from a transcript. It cannot watch your eye contact, read a live room, or verify the facts you are about to present. A rehearsal loop that keeps both jobs in the right hands.

Going back to study after years away: a return plan that keeps the thinking yours

Returning to formal study after a decade away is mostly a confidence and logistics problem, not a knowledge problem. A return-to-study plan that uses AI to organize the catch-up schedule while keeping the actual coursework unaided.

9 min read

Read less, remember more: an AI-assisted reading loop

Asking AI to summarize a document is the fastest way to feel informed and forget everything by Friday. A reading workflow — preview, active questions, unaided recall, source-checked synthesis — that keeps you the one who understood the text.

Using AI to Support a Neurodivergent Learner, Without Diagnosing Anyone

A five-step way to adapt format and pacing for a neurodivergent child using AI — barrier, preserved outcome, adaptation, learner feedback, stop rule — built around involving the learner, not diagnosing them.

What Deteriorates When You Outsource Thinking

Letting a model write the first draft of every essay, email, and argument feels efficient right up until you notice you can no longer produce the first draft yourself. A skill-preservation audit — baseline, unaided attempt, assisted phase, independent check — keeps the effort where the learning actually happens.

Spaced practice, retrieval, and interleaving—with AI doing the right work

Build a practical study system around three evidence-backed learning techniques, two of them strongly supported and one more tentative. AI prepares questions and feedback; you perform the retrieval and make the distinctions.

Why AI explanations feel like learning—and often aren't

A fluent explanation can make a subject feel familiar before you can actually use it. These three tests reveal whether AI helped you learn or merely helped you follow along.

New to AI

AI for learning a new skill: a 30-day self-study plan

A structured 30-day approach to using AI as a personal tutor and curriculum designer. Four weeks, four phases, with the exact prompts and the habits that make learning stick.

8 min read

Deep Research mode: a 20-page report without reading 50 tabs

Deep Research — the autonomous research feature in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity — produces in fifteen minutes what used to take you a day. A practical guide to using it well.

Learning anything faster with AI: from "explain like I'm 12" to practice quizzes

A four-prompt loop that turns any AI into a private tutor — explainer, examples, practice, and feedback. Works for any topic, any background.

New to AI

8 min read

NotebookLM: turn any source into a personal knowledge base

Google's NotebookLM is the easiest way to chat with your own documents — books, papers, meeting notes, research files. A practical tour of what it does, where it shines, and the four use cases worth setting up this week.