I love that you suggest that adults can still learn as children! There is a lot I can relate to in your post.
Regarding learning and teaching:
- I noticed too that having a TODO list / mapor a mikado-method graph while pairing helps people to understand and 'feel' this way of working.
- With fellow colleagues, also we noticed that Code Katas in TCR forces people into doing nanosteps, which with enough practice, leads to chunking.
Another thing we have noticed is that chunking can also happen in a mob! As the team chunks refactoring steps, the 'smart driver' of the strong-style pairing can take over more and more work, leaving the rest of the mob to focus only on high-level design issues! (I wrote about this in 3 compounding benefits of mob programming that make it cost-effective
Finally, I definitely agree that Deliberate practice leads to confidence, less resistance and better results. I'd also add that it leads to calmer and safer lives, something I believe too many of us programmers struggle with!
Thanks for your insightful post. I'll definitely look into your micro-katas, I've got the intuition they would be very well suited for effective gamification!