In One Day

At a glance

Duration	09:30–16:00: about 5 hours of teaching, 80 minutes of breaks
Group	4–12. Solo, a full day works up to about 8; beyond that, bring a co-facilitator
Canvas	All six boxes, in one sitting: one session each person teaches, or would like to teach
Shape	Session 1 as it is in the morning; Session 2’s activities before lunch; making things after lunch, when people (and you) are flagging; outcomes, evidence and the reveal to finish
Commitment	No ask cards. The completed canvas, a named person who will hold them to it, and a follow-up email a week later
Use it when	Someone wants a one-off study day. Three sessions a week apart is still the better version (see below)

One day or three weeks?

One day works. Three weeks apart works better, because spacing is one of the things this programme teaches, and the gaps do real work:

The week gap gives you	In a day	Instead
Spacing: each session opens by retrieving the last	Gaps of hours, not days	Keep the retrieval openers anyway: a Kahoot on this morning is still spaced, just less
Trying it at work: redesign slides, build a Kahoot, bring it back	Gone	A protected “make” block after lunch, paper first, laptop if they’re comfy
The blorps retest a week later	The same day won’t show it (re-study often wins over minutes; testing wins over days)	Retest at the end of the day, and send the real retest a week later
Three “show us” openers	Repetitive	One: “run it on us”, straight after the make block
Follow-through starts between sessions	Everything ends at 4pm	The 1-week email starts it: retest, then “what did you change?”

Be straight with the group about this. It’s the programme’s own argument (Ebbinghaus; distributed practice beats massed practice, Cepeda et al. 2006), and it explains why the email matters.

Learning outcomes

These are the content’s suggested outcomes. If your cohort’s differ, agree changes at setup.

By the end of the day, participants will have:

1. Redesigned one slide to cut extraneous load, then checked and corrected it for readability. (Block 1: both redesign rounds)
2. Identified which strategy (retrieval, spacing, interleaving, elaboration) was at work in activities they have just experienced. (Block 2: Blorps, Spot the strategy)
3. Made ten minutes of their own session active, and run or explained it to the group. (Block 3: Make it, Run it on us)
4. Rewritten one to three outcomes with verbs someone could observe, each matched to evidence at the right level. (Block 4: Rewrite, Does it line up?)
5. Completed a design canvas for their session, including a 30/60/90-day follow-through plan, a named person, and the support agreed with them. (Block 4: Follow-through, the reveal)

Before the session

The decks

Three one-day decks: run them in order and switch at the breaks. They’re the session decks with the asks and “see you next week” slides hidden, the 60-second pitch hidden (it merges into “Run it on us”), “last week” changed to “this morning”, the canvas labelled by time of day, and the blorps retest moved to open the last block. Slide 1’s notes say so.

They’re built automatically from the session decks, so they always match them. The speaker notes are the three-session versions: read “next week” as “after lunch” or “in the 1-week email”.

Printables

Everything from the three blueprints, printed and cut the day before, so lunch is a break:

• Slide kits in envelopes, one per person or pair (Session 1)
• Blorps sheets A and B, and two retest slips each: before lunch and at the end of the day (Session 2)
• Spot the strategy, one set per table. Card 6 says “These sessions: one week apart”. In a day, cross it out and write “This morning’s slides, quizzed again before lunch”, or read it out that way
• Evidence sort and Can you see it?, one set per table; design canvases, two each; feedback forms (Session 3)

Build ahead

• The Day 2 Kahoot (Session 1 retrieval) and the Menti tour, as in Session 2
• The Day 1 word cloud (“What do you remember?”)
• The 1-week email, drafted and scheduled (below)

Set up before 09:30

Lay each block’s kit in a labelled bag or box under the tables: Block 1 envelopes, Block 2 blorps and cards, Block 3–4 sorts and canvases. At each break you hand out a bag, not cut paper.

The pre-day message

Send 3–5 working days before, as Before Session 1, with these lines:

When: [day, date], 09:30–16:00 (coffee from 09:15). Lunch [is provided / bring your own].

One ask: if you can, bring a slide you think is bad, and think of one session you teach (or would like to). We’ll work on it all day.

Everything’s on paper, so you don’t need a computer. If you’re comfortable with PowerPoint, Menti or Kahoot and want to use them, bring a laptop. A phone is useful for the quizzes.

Session flow

09:15 · Coffee

Kit on tables. Note who arrives confident with tech: you’ll pair people later.

09:30–11:00 · Block 1: Slides (Day 1 deck)

• Run Session 1 as written, 0–79, with one change: no ask. Instead, SAY: “keep your slide on the table. It’s the first piece of your canvas, and we’ll come back to it.”
• That frees about five minutes: let Show us breathe, or start the break early.
• WHY: this block is the most tested part of the programme. Don’t touch it.

11:00–11:20 · Break

Switch to the Day 2 deck. Bag 2 on the tables.

11:20–12:30 · Block 2: Active beats passive (Day 2 deck)

Time	What	Session 2 section
11:20	Canvas signpost (slide 2)
11:21	Kahoot: this morning’s slides	10–20
11:31	What did you just do? “Hours later!“	20–23
11:34	Blorps and Fizzwicks	23–30
11:41	Mentimeter tour	30–40
11:51	Surprise retest → the forgetting curve	40–45
11:56	Spot the strategy	45–50
12:01	Make 10 minutes active: start on paper (slide 11)	50–70
12:25	”Leave it on the table. Finish after lunch.”

• At the retest, SAY (whatever the result): “today’s result doesn’t settle it. You’ll get the same quiz at the end of the day, and again in a week, by email.”
• Spot the strategy debrief: spacing today is “the Kahoot on this morning”, and the gap before the retest.
• Starting the make block before lunch is deliberate: people talk about it over lunch and come back with ideas.

12:30–13:15 · Lunch (protected)

You eat and sit down. The afternoon kit is already under the tables. If people want to chat about their design, that’s the point; you don’t have to lead it.

13:15–14:30 · Block 3: Make it, then evidence it

• 13:15 · Finish making (20 min, participant-led). Paper route: finish the design, ready to run on the group. Laptop route: show deck 2 slide 13 (one Menti slide in two minutes), then build it in Menti or Kahoot. This replaces the Day 2 ask. Pair confident with less confident.
• 13:35 · Run it on us (15 min, deck 3 slide 3). 3–4 people run what they made on the group: on paper, read aloud with fingers up, or live from a phone. The room responds: one thing that works, one question. (Day 2’s 60-second pitch, merged in.)
• 13:50 · How would you know? → Delivered ≠ changed (deck 3, slides 4–6). As Session 3, 10–21. On the ladder: “what you did today”, running what you made on us, was use: Level 3-type evidence, inside the room.
• 14:02 · Can you see it? → Miller’s pyramid (slides 7–8). As Session 3, 21–33.
• 14:14 · Buffer (about 15 min). You’ll need it somewhere. If not, start the break early.
• WHY: after lunch, people do things first (make, run, sort) and get theory only as a short label after.

14:30–14:50 · Break

The longest stretch of teaching is behind you. Bag 4: canvases and feedback forms.

14:50–16:00 · Block 4: Did it land? (Day 3 deck)

Time	What	Session 3 section
14:50	Blorps retest: “Same as this morning” (slide 9). Tally next to the before-lunch numbers	0–2
14:52	Rewrite your outcomes, in pairs, on the canvas (slide 10)	33–53
15:12	Does it line up? Their slide and their activity, next to the new outcomes (slide 11)	53–59
15:18	Follow-through: a two-way negotiation (slide 12)	59–67
15:26	”You’ve been on a canvas all day” → the reveal → copy your canvas (slides 14–17)	67–80
15:39	One sentence each (slide 18)	80–86
15:45	Feedback form → close (slide 19)	86–90
15:49	Buffer, then finish on time

• At the retest, SAY: “hours apart, either result is possible. The real test arrives in a week.”
• No new theory in this block: everything is applied to their own canvas.
• IF SHORT: never cut the rewrite, the follow-through or the reveal. Halve “Does it line up?” first.
• Close, SAY: “in a week you’ll get an email with the same blorps quiz and one question: what did you change?”

After the session

The 1-week email

Send exactly one week later. It’s the spacing the day couldn’t give, the real retest, and the start of follow-through.

Subject: Teaching That Lands: one week on (2 minutes)

Hi [name / all],

Thanks for coming last [day]. Two quick things, no need to look anything up:

1. What’s a blorp? Reply with what you remember for each: blorp · fizzwick · gromble · snorkel-day · wuzzle · plonk · krimble · dribbet. Rough is fine.

2. What’s one thing you’ve changed in your teaching since? One line, even if the answer is “not yet, because…”

Your named person will be asking too. If you need anything you agreed with them, now’s a good time to ask.

[Your name]

• Tally the blorps replies by group (A vs B), next to the same-day numbers. Over a week, self-testing usually holds up better (Roediger & Karpicke 2006). Share the result in one line: it’s a lovely reminder email in itself.
• Question 2 is early Level 3 evidence. Keep it with the feedback forms.
• Then as Session 3: canvases against the rubric (Level 2), and the three questions at 30 and 90 days (Level 3). Details in the Evaluation Toolkit.

Making it shorter

If a half day is ever wanted, don’t squeeze the whole day in. Keep the backbone: the spine and canvas, one paper slide redesign, a retrieval opener, a quick outcomes rewrite, the commitment, and the 1-week email. Use feedback from full days to decide what earns its place.