Session 2
Build it
- Who
- Learners who filled a board in session one. This is the first session that needs an account arrangement settled.
- Where this sits
- Direct and Discern
- They leave with
- One interaction that runs, at the rung they chose
- Three or four cards with a verb circled on each
- At least one card circled as something other than Keep it
The arc: 45 minutes
- 5 min
Boards out. Cards handed round. Nothing is typed in the first five minutes.
- 8 min
First card, four lines, on paper. The fourth line is how you will check.
What does a good version look like? Two things, specific.
- 22 min
Card, then prompt, then read what came back against the card, then circle one verb. Repeat.
How would you know if that came back wrong?
- 7 min
Run the drill against the one interaction.
- 3 min
Cards stay with the learner. Count how many are not Keep it.
Look for
- A page that could belong to anyone in the room. The request was generic, and the fix is on the board rather than in the next prompt.
- Typing before a card is finished. The card takes ninety seconds and skipping it is the failure this session is arranged against.
- Keep it circled every time. Ask what the second-best version would have looked like and whether they could tell the two apart.
- Learners who have built four things instead of one. One rung fully working beats four that cannot be checked.
- The interaction working on the one path the learner tried and nowhere else. That is what the drill is for and it is normal at this point.
- Read three cards over shoulders during the build. A fourth line reading "I'll look at it" tells you where to spend your next five minutes.
Tips
- Send anyone stuck back to their board, not to a better prompt. It is nearly always the right diagnosis.
- You are reading cards, not screens. A room where everybody is typing tells you very little.
- If the domain is blocked and you are driving one screen, run it as rounds. One card per round, and the room judges the result together.
- Running short, cut the drill to two questions and skip the count. The card cannot go; a prompt written without one is what this session exists to prevent.
Print before the session
Card, then prompt, then judge. Every round.
The order is the content of the session. Asking and judging are one loop, and separating them produces learners who get better at writing prompts without getting better at reading what comes back.