examplebearing

Examplebearing is a term used in education and communication to describe a narrative or instructional technique in which a central, highly representative example is used as the primary vehicle for conveying a concept. The approach emphasizes anchoring abstraction in a single concrete instance, with explanations that explicitly connect properties of the example to the underlying principle. In practice, instructors select one or a small number of exemplars that capture the essential features of the concept and then generalize from them to related cases.

The term is a neologism formed from "example" and "bearing" and is not widely standardized. It first appears in late-2010s discussions among educators and researchers exploring example-based learning. There is no formal consensus on its definition, and it is used mainly in theoretical discussions and some classroom-oriented practice guides.

Implementation typically involves selecting a clear, representative example; articulating the relationships between the example's features and the concept; supplementing with cautions about edge cases; and assessing understanding by applying the concept to new situations. Benefits include improved conceptual understanding, easier recall, and smoother transfer to novel tasks. Risks include overreliance on a single example, potential misrepresentation if the exemplar is atypical, and limited exposure to variability.

See also: worked example, example-based learning, cognitive load theory, case-based reasoning.