[curriculum-eval] side-quest-17-01-mcp-concepts.md: scaffolding — no prerequisites section; concept-heavy reference page lacks active practice

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File: workshop/side-quest-17-01-mcp-concepts.md
Overall Score: 8.21 / 10.0 (corpus mean: 8.78)

Flagged Dimensions:

Dimension	Score	Benchmark	Delta
scaffolding	5.0 / 10	"📋 Before You Start" or "Prerequisites" section present	−5.0
active_learning	5.0 / 10	activity density ≥ 3.0 per 100 words	−5.0
cognitive_load	9.8 / 10	≤ 15 new concepts	−0.2 (16 concepts)

Root Cause (≤ 2 sentences):
The file dives straight into MCP protocol internals without a formal prerequisites section that anchors the learner to prior steps (e.g., Step 17: Add MCP Tools), leaving the scaffolding score at 5.0. Despite 5 code blocks in 658 words, the activity density of 1.52 is still less than half the target because the code examples are reference tables and YAML snippets, not executable practice exercises.

Evidence (quoted from the file):

"By default, a gh-aw agent reads your task brief and produces text. MCP (Model Context Protocol) breaks that boundary — it lets the agent call structured tools at runtime and incorporate real data into its output."

The file opens with a conceptual statement and proceeds through 6 reference-heavy sections with no learner action until the final checkpoint.

Learning Science Rationale:
Ausubel's Advance Organiser theory states that new material is most durably learned when it is explicitly connected to an existing cognitive anchor. A prerequisites section naming the prior step creates that anchor. Without it, learners arriving from Step 17 must self-construct the connection — an extraneous cognitive load penalty that is trivially preventable (Sweller). The low activity density compounds this: without interleaved practice, the MCP loop diagram and YAML tables remain inert knowledge (Kirschner et al., "Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work," 2006).

Improvement Prompt (for an agent):

In workshop/side-quest-17-01-mcp-concepts.md:

1. Add a "📋 Before You Start" section after the intro callout:
   - "You have completed Step 17: Add MCP Tools (17-add-mcp-tools.md)."
   - "You have a workflow YAML file open in your editor."

2. After the "How the agentic loop changes" section, add a short hands-on exercise:
   "Open your workflow's YAML frontmatter. Does it have a `tools:` block? If yes, identify which MCP server is configured and write it in the space below (or in a scratch comment in the file)."

3. After the `safe-outputs:` frontmatter table, add a one-command verification step:
   "`gh aw validate` — confirm no schema errors are reported for your tools block."

4. Update the checkpoint to add: "I located the `tools:` block in my own workflow and identified the MCP server name."

Expected Score After Fix: 8.9 / 10.0

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