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Zone-of-Proximal-Development Practice Lessons

Design a diagnose-support-recheck practice lesson or run one guided practice cycle in chat.

Source Download skill
Repository
THU-MAIC/OpenMAIC
Stars
42,460
Licence
MIT
Files
3 files

What it does

When installed, the agent plans a review lesson that starts with the learner attempting a task alone, then gives targeted hints or explanations matched to the specific difficulty observed, then checks the learner again with a fresh, similar task with the hints removed, and finally suggests a next step based on that evidence. It avoids just generating a pile of questions and is careful not to claim it has measured a learner's exact 'zone of proximal development'. The skill's own notes say that the diagnosis, scaffolding and fading steps are teaching design choices rather than fixed steps from Vygotsky.

Great for

  • Teachers or course designers building a guided quiz-review lesson in OpenMAIC
  • Learners who want one practice cycle run in chat rather than a full lesson
  • Tutors who want hints faded out gradually before an independent recheck

Skip it if

  • Requests for a single exercise or a plain theory explanation, which the skill says should not be expanded into a full lesson
  • Anyone expecting a reliable score or measure of a learner's ability; the skill itself warns a single activity cannot produce a stable measurement

Try asking

  • “Design a 45-minute quadratic equations review lesson with an independent attempt, hints, and a fresh check”
  • “Run one practice cycle in chat on fraction word problems, giving hints only after I try”
  • “Build a diagnostic review lesson for a Python debugging exercise with a recheck task”
Step-by-step guide: how to use Zone-of-Proximal-Development Practice LessonsInstall, first run, examples, tips and FAQs

Install in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Download the skill

    The ZIP contains the 3 original files, the MIT licence and an attribution note.

    zone-of-proximal-development.zip
  2. 2

    Add it to your agent

    Claude Code (all projects)

    mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && unzip zone-of-proximal-development.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/

    Claude Code / Agent SDK (this project only)

    mkdir -p .claude/skills && unzip zone-of-proximal-development.zip -d .claude/skills/

    Claude apps (web/desktop): Settings → Capabilities → Skills → Upload skill, and choose the ZIP.

  3. 3

    Ask for the task

    No special command needed — the agent reads the skill's description and loads it when your request matches. Try one of the prompts above.

Get better results

  • State the learning goal and the skill level of the learner up front so the first task is pitched correctly
  • When running a chat practice cycle, answer the first question before asking for hints so the independent attempt is real evidence
  • Check generated quiz pages for answer leaks in neighbouring questions before using them with learners

What's inside

  • references/exercise-lesson.md
  • references/theory.md
  • SKILL.md

Redistributed unmodified from THU-MAIC/OpenMAIC under the MIT licence. The assessment was drafted with AI from the skill's files on 2026-10-29. Skills can instruct your agent to run code — read SKILL.md and any scripts before installing.