Complex human learning is a concept involving communication between the participant in the learning process, who commonly occupy the roles of learner… - Gordon Pask

A learning strategy is comparable in kind with a performance strategy. Each sort of strategy entails decomposing goals into subgoals and applying mental subroutines to achieve the subgoals concerned. The necessary difference between learning strategies and performance is in the domain upon which they operate. Whereas the performance strategy solves problems posed by states of the (usually symbolic) environment, the learning strategy solves the problems posed by deficiencies in the current repertoire of relevant performance strategies; the solutions produced by a learning strategy are performance strategies.

A computer that issues a rate demand for nil dollars and nil cents (and a notice to appear in court if you do not pay immediately) is not a maverick machine. It is a respectable and badly programmed computer... Mavericks are machines that embody theoretical principles or technical inventions which deviate from the mainstream of computer development, but are nevertheless of value.

Given a realistically sized task (and assuming that he cannot already perform it), a student is unable to generate the required performance strategy all at once. Instead, he directs his attention to various facets or subtasks and musters subroutines that build up a performance strategy bit by bit. The process is carried out by a learning strategy which, in the free learning subject, may be innate or acquired and which, for the student, is imposed externally by a teacher or learning system.