Insight, not assumption

Icebreaker

Same Lesson, Different Routes

One task, one room, and no two people will explain it the same way.

1. 1Everyone takes the same question: how would you teach a new team member to do one important task?
2. 2Choose privately how you will answer. Draw it, talk it through, write the steps, act it out, or start from a real example.
3. 3Four minutes to make your version, then show it in pairs or threes and say why you chose that route.
4. 4As a room: which versions were easy to follow, which were not, and what does that say about teaching a group one way?

Working on your own? Answer in your natural way, then answer again using the route that feels most awkward. The second version is how some of your learners receive everything.

Icebreaker

The Missing Voice Brief

Most sessions are designed for the loudest preference in the room, including the trainer’s.

1. 1Get into groups of four or five. One scenario for everyone: a twenty-minute induction on a fixed process.
2. 2Each group draws one missing voice card describing a learner whose needs usually get overlooked.
3. 3Five minutes to outline the session: opening, main activity, check for understanding. It has to work for that learner.
4. 4Now the constraint. It still has to work for everyone else. Say what you changed, and what you avoided narrowing.

Working on your own? Draw a card for the learner you would overlook first, then design for them. Whether the rest of the session survives is the test.

Icebreaker

The Training Rescue Build

Build a session badly on purpose, then find out where it loses people.

1. 1Each group takes five session-component cards at random and lays them out as a ten-minute session.
2. 2Walk the sequence. Put a sticky note wherever a learner would disengage, overload, or be left behind.
3. 3Take three cards of your choosing. The content goal cannot change, only how it is delivered.
4. 4Rebuild it, then give the room one friction point, one change you made, and why the second version is better.

Working on your own? Deal yourself five at random and walk the sequence anyway. Diagnosing a session you did not design is easier, and better practice, than defending one you did.

Journaling

Teaching the Average Learner

A course can look successful and still leave most of the room behind.

1. 1Write what traditional training assumes about learners, and why designing for the average fails.
2. 2Say what poor alignment costs: disengagement, pace, completion standing in for capability.
3. 3Explain how the Learning Strength Assessment and Adapt Your Training work together, and what still belongs to trainer judgement.
4. 4Describe a session you sat through that was built for an average learner. What was the sign of mismatch, and what would you have changed?

Working with a group? Write first, then compare only the signs of mismatch people noticed. Trainers and learners tend to spot entirely different ones.

Problem solving

Fix the Training Design Problem

One session, one pace, one way in. Half the room lost, half of it bored.

1. 1Name the assumption. What did the trainer believe about the group before walking in?
2. 2Trace the impact. Why did the pace split the room, and why is completion a weak measure of success?
3. 3Recommend three changes to how the session is delivered, with the content left as it is.
4. 4In one paragraph, say which idea from the Introduction a trainer most needs to hold on to.

Working with a group? Have everyone write their three changes alone, then pool them. The ones nobody else thought of are usually the ones worth testing.

Worksheet

Standardised Training or Adaptive Training

Two models, same room. They disagree about what a trainer needs to know.

1. 1Read Approach A. Training is built once and delivered the same way to everyone. It is designed around the average participant, optimised for consistency and coverage, and judged by attendance and completion. Learner difference is treated as noise rather than information.
2. 2Read Approach B. The same core content is prepared, but LSA gives the trainer insight into how the group is likely to process and engage, and AYT turns that into decisions about pace, structure and emphasis. What is taught stays the same. How it is delivered does not.
3. 3Compare them: what each model assumes about the learner; where the trainer puts their attention; what changes in the way content is delivered; what gets counted as success.
4. 4Critique both. Where does standardisation still earn its place? What does designing for the average cost? What does learner insight let a trainer decide? hat goes wrong if preferences are treated as fixed?
5. 5Make a judgement. Which model is more likely to improve real learning outcomes, and why? Use evidence from the Introduction rather than opinion alone. Finish the sentence: The claim I would most want to test further is…