From deficit to difference

Icebreaker

Multiple-Format Identity Map

Several ways to take part, and nobody asked to explain why they chose one.

1. 1Divide a sheet into four: your name, a strength you bring, how you like to learn, one thing worth knowing about you.
2. 2Fill it in however suits you. Writing, icons, colour, a sketch, a gesture you can use when you introduce yourself.
3. 3Share in threes, using your map rather than a speech.
4. 4Share only what you want to. Nobody has to explain anything they left out.

Working on your own? Fill in the four boxes, then do it again in a format you would not normally choose. The harder one tells you something about your own defaults.

Icebreaker

The Hidden Friction Lab

The puzzle is the same for everyone. The sheet it arrives on is not.

1. 1Give each group the same logic puzzle on a different sheet. One clean and numbered, one crowded with the instructions buried in a paragraph, one split across visual and written parts with an ambiguous line.
2. 2One minute in silence, then five to solve it together. Groups may hand in an answer, or a note explaining why the design made answering hard.
3. 3Before anyone speaks, write: what created friction, and did it come from the puzzle or the page?
4. 4Then the question that matters. Was the challenge hard, or was access to the challenge hard?

Working on your own? Do not praise whoever finished first. Groups with the worst sheet are doing the harder task, and saying so out loud is most of the point.

Icebreaker

Scenario Sorting Teams

Few design choices are simply good or bad. Most are either adapted or not.

1. 1Take eight scenario cards: a text-heavy handout, unclear instructions, a visual checklist, a timed quiz, discussion before writing, a demonstration.
2. 2In fours, sort them into supports learning, may create barriers, and could be fixed by adapting.
3. 3Argue the ones that could sit in two piles.
4. 4Share one decision with the room, and introduce yourselves by the role you took while sorting.

Working on your own? Sort the cards, then find which pile your own materials fall into most often. The middle pile is where the quick wins are.

Journaling

Neurodiversity and Learning

Design problems are often experienced, quietly, as personal failure.

1. 1Write what neurological variation is the norm, not the exception means in your own words.
2. 2Say how a training environment can disadvantage someone before any learning has started.
3. 3Explain the difference between designing around diagnosis and designing around preference.
4. 4Finish: one change I would make to a session after reading this, who it helps, and why.

Working with a group? Keep the writing private and collect only the changes people named. The list is a design brief, and nobody had to disclose anything to build it.

Problem solving

Fix the Learning Environment

90 minutes of talking, one dense handout, a timed test. They needed to try harder.

1. 1Say why this design disadvantages people before any learning starts.
2. 2Take apart the trainer’s conclusion. What was being measured, and what was not?
3. 3Propose five improvements to the session, not to the learners.
4. 4For each one, say what it removes and how it lets someone show what they can actually do.

Working with a group? Redesign alone, then pool the five. What one person treats as obvious is often the thing another has never had to think about.

Worksheet

Deficit or Design

When someone struggles, the first question decides everything that follows.

1. 1Read Approach A. Difficulty is read as a shortfall in the learner: effort, focus or ability. One dominant format, fixed pacing and a standard assessment are held constant, so anyone who underperforms is assumed to be the variable. Support is a specialist matter, handled separately.
2. 2Read Approach B. Difficulty is read as information about the design. Formats vary, pacing responds, structure is explicit, and there is more than one way to show understanding. Adaptation runs on preference rather than disclosure, so nobody has to declare anything to be accommodated.
3. 3Compare them: what each one treats as the cause of struggle; which carries more unnecessary cognitive load; what each does to anxiety in the room; what gets measured: capability, or fit with the format.
4. 4Critique both. What does a single consistent format protect? Which strengths stay hidden, and why? What does preference-led adaptation solve that disclosure cannot? What should a trainer be careful of with preference data?
5. 5Make a judgement. Inclusive design makes training easier but less rigorous. Say whether the chapter supports that, and argue your own position. Finish the sentence: The principle I would treat as non-negotiable is…