Principle 10: Skill building is construction, collapse, and reconstruction.
There is not a straight path to becoming proficient. Even experts experience drops in ability when learning new skills.
Note: Unconstrained Kids unpacks, translates, and integrates academic research and data about constrained and unconstrained skills for people that run, fund, and assist organizations that teach and serve kids. This post is part of a series that describes 14 key principles of skill building I identified from the Science of Learning and Development. (Especially Dynamic Skill Theory.) Like everything on this Substack, this post is a work-in-progress. I will make updates as needed. Citations are included at the end. Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome.
Last updated: June 4, 2025
Key Takeaway
Skill is the ability to think and act in an organized way in a specific context (Immordino-Yang and Fischer, 2010). Building new skills is a journey. The terrain is full of growth spurts, drops, and plateaus. Each person’s journey depends upon where they start. While new learners have the most ups and downs, even experts will experience the occasional drops in skill levels as they acquire new knowledge and skills.
“Analysis of growth curves shows a prototypic pattern for building and generalizing a new skill: People build a skill and then repeatedly rebuild it in a wavelike pattern of construction and reconstruction, not in a straight line or monotonic upward progression. Encountering a new task or situation, people first move down to a low level of complexity…They then gradually build a more complex skill for coping with the task by repeatedly rebuilding it with variations.” (Fischer & Bidell, 2006)
When we develop new skills, we combine new knowledge and skills with what we already know and are able to do. We rebuild our hierarchy of skills. (See Principle 2.)
This process involves repeated patterns of skill construction, skill collapse, and skill reconstruction. Minor changes in context (task, support, motivation, emotions, etc.) can cause a skill to collapse and require reconstruction (Fischer & Bidell 2006).
Skill acquisition for beginners (novices) is experienced through significant growth spurts and drops. Through repeated practice, beginners reach intermediate levels of skill ability.
At this point, skill building becomes less chaotic. Growth patterns shift to take on more of a wavelike pattern of construction and reconstruction. At this intermediate stage, learners are able to maintain a higher skill level for a longer time. But they still can experience abrupt drops in ability (Fischer, 2008).
It typically takes months or even years to become an expert capable of sustaining a high level of skill performance independently (Fischer & Bidell, 2006).
Even experts occasionally experience drops in skill levels when learning a new task, concept or activity. The difference is that these drops tend to be smaller and short-lived (Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Fischer, 2008). Regardless of age, domain, or expertise, everyone experiences this pattern of construction and reconstruction when learning new skills.
Growth curves for learning a new task. Source: Fischer (2008).
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Works Cited
Fischer, K. W. (2008). Dynamic cycles of cognitive and brain development: Measuring growth in mind, brain, and education. In A. M. Battro, K. W. Fischer, & P. Léna (Eds.), The educated brain (pp. 127–150). Cambridge University Press.
Fischer, K. W., & Bidell, T. R. (2006). Dynamic development of action and thought. In R. M. Lerner & W. Damon (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Theoretical models of human development (6th ed., pp. 313–399). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Immordino-Yang, M. H., & Fischer, K. W. (2010). Neuroscience bases of learning. In V. G. Aukrust (Ed.), International encyclopedia of education (3rd Edition, pp. 310–316). Elsevier.