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Investigative architecture·Medium cognitive demand·20–40 minutes

Progressive Reveal

Release evidence in a deliberate sequence so students must update an explanation rather than wait for the answer.

Knowledge
Evidential · Causal · Interpretive · Metacognitive
Sequence
Guided Construction · Disciplinary Application
Interaction
High

A progressive reveal turns revision into the learning mechanism. Each new piece of evidence is chosen because it confirms, complicates, or overturns the current model, making the quality of updating visible.

01How the architecture unfolds

  1. Elicit an initial explanation.
  2. Reveal one diagnostic piece of evidence.
  3. Require an explicit update.
  4. Introduce evidence that complicates the model.
  5. Compare the final model with the starting model.

02The work on each side

Teacher moves

  • Select evidence for diagnostic value
  • Ask what changed and what did not
  • Normalise revision as intellectual strength

Student moves

  • Predict
  • Record confidence
  • Update
  • Reconcile
  • Reflect

03What would count as learning?

  • Students can identify which evidence changed their model
  • Revisions become more proportionate to the evidence

04Across the curriculum

Science

Disease transmission

Reveal case-location and contact evidence so students replace a simple proximity model with a transmission model.

History

Collapse of Weimar democracy

Add political, economic, and elite-decision evidence to disrupt a single-cause account.