Notes on practice
Generalised arguments, written from experience without disclosing it. Every note has the same shape. A TL;DR and the distinction it turns on. Then the situation, the tension, the move in named steps, where it breaks when I know, and where it lands. It ends on what transfers, which is why the page exists.
All work
The room is an interface
TL;DRA room makes some actions obvious and others hard, the way a screen does, so it can be designed and questioned like one.From The room as backdrop to The room as interfaceRead the noteThe robot that became a social contract
TL;DRWe set out to automate the rearranging of classrooms. Testing showed the hard problem was not moving furniture but deciding, together, how the room is used.From A logistics problem to A social problemRead the noteThe unglamorous levers
TL;DRThe cheapest items in a classroom change behaviour most, because each one removes a specific friction or dissolves a specific norm.From Buy the showpiece to Buy the leverRead the noteBuild as you go
TL;DRMost school spaces should be built in increments: a minimal first build, a short trial, and more spending only when real uses emerge. The exceptions are the things that must be done properly once.From The capital project to The incrementRead the noteA myth is a finding that travelled
TL;DRMost education myths began as real findings, so the fix is to measure how far each claim has travelled from its source.From A myth is a falsehood to A myth is a finding that travelledRead the noteEvery rule of thumb has an opposite number
TL;DREvery rule of thumb has an opposite number, and the condition that decides between them can be named and checked.From Saying against saying to Rule, counterweight, conditionRead the noteA catalogue of faults is half an instrument
TL;DRNaming a fallacy settles nothing, so teach the question each label hides and the few moves that make an argument end somewhere better.From Catch the fallacy to Argue betterRead the noteNobody in the room has to be wrong
TL;DRA group fails in ways no individual bias explains, so the room has to be designed rather than trusted.From The committee as insurance to The room as a mechanismRead the noteA bias is a design brief
TL;DRAwareness is the weakest counter to bias. Changing the conditions works, and in a product the people who build it set the conditions.From Bias as a training topic to Bias as a design briefRead the noteEase of use is not ease of learning
TL;DRThe effort that feels like failure is often the effort that teaches, so a learning product should remove only the wasted kind.From Ease of use to Ease of learningRead the noteWhat design is, and how it gets practised in edtech
TL;DRDesign is the category of decision that sets what a system makes easy, hard and impossible, and most of those decisions are taken by people without the title.From Design as a layer to Design as a category of decisionRead the noteA principle is not a finding
TL;DRGuidance that gives every item the same confidence is a reading list, so grade each item where the reader meets it.From A flat canon to A graded canonRead the noteA design system is not a component library
TL;DRComponents scale reuse and principles scale judgement, and only judgement helps with the case nobody anticipated.From Component library to Design systemRead the noteA thinkpiece is a designed object
TL;DRA document meant to change minds is a designed object, with a job, a reader and a failure mode that looks like success.From A writing problem to A design problemRead the noteDesign for translation
TL;DRResearch reaches practice through a chain of lossy translations, and the last link, from tool to practice, is the one to design for.From A gap to A chainRead the note
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