Universal science, local delivery

Icebreaker

Global Learning Map Instructions

One cohort already holds more variation than most training is built to handle.

1. 1Put up a board with six zones: culture, language, structure, pace, examples, technology access.
2. 2Add your name to the zone you are most curious about, with a line on what helps you learn.
3. 3Pair up with someone from a different zone.
4. 4Introduce each other to the room in one sentence.

Working on your own? Pick your zone, then pick the one you understand least. That is where your next piece of reading should go.

Icebreaker

Culture and Context Card Sort

Some things about learning hold everywhere. Most of what we argue about does not.

1. 1Take a set of cards: working memory, cognitive load, prior knowledge, language, pace, structure, examples, facilitation, cultural expectations, equity.
2. 2In threes or fours, sort them under two headings: does not change, and changes by context.
3. 3Argue the cards you cannot agree on.
4. 4Each person picks one card that connects to their own background, then share with the room.

Working on your own? Sort the cards, then check your last session. Anything you treated as universal that belongs in the second pile is worth revisiting.

Icebreaker

Same Goal, Different Path

One objective, five sets of conditions, and every group still has to get there.

1. 1Set one task for everyone: build a standing paper structure, three layers, a symbol at the top. Seven minutes.
2. 2Hand each group a different condition. Full access and a worked example. Fewer words in the instructions. Fewer materials and questions only through a runner. Numbered steps with no room to improvise. A clear goal and no process at all.
3. 3It only counts if every person in the group physically did something.
4. 4Debrief by standing: the task was fair, the task was not equally accessible, I felt confident, I needed more support.

Working on your own? Every group has to be able to finish. Make the conditions uneven, not unfair, and keep the debrief on the design rather than on who struggled.

Journaling

Universal Principles, Local Application

The objectives can travel. The delivery usually cannot, not unchanged.

1. 1Write what the chapter says holds everywhere, and what has to be adapted by region or culture.
2. 2Set out both in your own words, under two headings: what does not change, and what does.
3. 3Take one topic delivered in two regions where language, confidence and comfort with ambiguity differ. What stays, what moves?
4. 4Finish on equity. If digital access is limited, how does personalised learning still happen?

Working with a group? Write first, then exchange one line each: a principle nobody should ignore, and an element that should almost always be adapted.

Problem solving

One Programme, Two Contexts

Same objectives, same standard, two rooms that will not respond the same way.

1. 1List what stays fixed across both cohorts, and what is open to adaptation.
2. 2Take cohort A: strong digital access, comfortable challenging the trainer. What changes?
3. 3Take cohort B: limited access, prefers clear structure, some need language support. What changes?
4. 4Say how you avoid ending up with two separate programmes, and how B stays equitable without the technology.

Working with a group? Take one cohort each, then put the two plans side by side. If they no longer share a backbone, that is fragmentation rather than localisation.

Worksheet

Standardised or Adapted

Universal principles are not an argument for identical delivery, though they get used as one.

1. 1Read Approach A. The same format, examples, pacing and facilitation in every country. Delivery is consistent and easy to govern, reporting is clean, and local learner differences are not part of the design conversation.
2. 2Read Approach B. The same objectives and capability standards everywhere, with examples, pacing, structure, facilitation and support shaped by the group and the setting. Consistency sits in what learners can do, not in how the session looked.
3. 3Compare them: where each one puts its consistency; what each assumes about the people in the room; how each handles limited digital access; what quality control looks like in each.
4. 4Critique both. What does identical delivery genuinely protect? Where does it fail, and who notices first? What does adaptation gain without lowering the standard? What stops it sliding into fragmentation?
5. 5Make a judgement. If learning principles are universal, training should be delivered the same way everywhere. Say what that gets right, where it fails, and write a more accurate version of the claim. Finish the sentence: For a trainer working across regions, the most important idea here is…