A strong learning experience is not only about what the facilitator explains. It is also about what learners think, do, discuss, question, practise and reflect on. Use this canvas before a lesson, workshop or professional-learning session.

1. Purpose — What should change for the learner?

Write the clearest possible learning intention.

Ask yourself: At the end of this experience, what should learners understand, be able to do, notice or question differently?

2. Evidence — How will I know learning happened?

Identify what you will observe, hear or collect.

Examples include an explanation in learners’ own words, a worked example, a discussion contribution, a decision, a reflection, a product or a demonstration.

3. Starting point — What are learners bringing?

Consider prior knowledge, misconceptions, language, motivation, experience and emotional readiness.

Ask yourself: What assumption am I making about what learners already know?

4. Participation — What will learners actually do?

Plan the moments where learners will think and act rather than only listen.

• Individual thinking

• Pair or group discussion

• Practice or application

• Choice or decision-making

• Reflection

5. Questions — What thinking do I want to provoke?

Prepare three questions in advance.

• One question that checks understanding

• One question that invites reasoning

• One question that opens reflection or transfer

Try: Replace “Did you understand?” with “How would you explain this idea to someone who was absent?”

6. Challenge — Where should productive struggle happen?

Choose one part where learners need to wrestle with an idea, solve something or make a judgement before you provide the answer.

Ask yourself: Am I explaining too quickly because silence or uncertainty feels uncomfortable?

7. Support — What scaffolds will help?

Plan the support learners may need without removing the thinking from the task.

Examples include models, prompts, sentence starters, worked examples, peer support, visual organisers or chunking.

8. Reflection — How will learners make meaning?

Reserve time at the end for learners to notice what changed in their thinking.

Try: “What is one idea you understand differently now, and what helped you understand it?”

9. Transfer — Where could this learning travel next?

Identify one context in which learners can apply the idea beyond the immediate activity.

Try this today

Before your next session, review your plan and highlight every point where learners are actively thinking or doing. If most of the page belongs to the facilitator, redesign one segment.

LQ Reflection: Facilitation improves when planning moves from “What will I cover?” to “What will learners experience, think and do?”