3) Much experiential learning -- not all, of course -- can be obviated by a relatively small amount of verbal instruction, because it singles out the non-obvious, hard-to-experientially-infer part of the problemspace. Again, with the instructors I've been involved with (and contrasted with my role as an instructor), I could make no progress learning alongside them until I could verbalize the skill -- which typically reveals holes in the instructor's own understanding!

That's very true. I have had trouble with being shown "how to do something" by someone, but not understanding a part of it and asking them to explain it in words. I hadn't realized, until now, why this should be more helpful. It was sometimes frustrating for both of us when they realized that couldn't verbalize the process (until after some thought, hopefully).

I believe that this is also why teaching something is the best way to learn it. I, at least, have found this to be true; I know simple chemistry and algebra extremely well from having to explain them often. When I first tried to do so (thanks sab!), I often encountered places where I either didn't know how to proceed, or did know but couldn't say why it should be so at first.