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Lesson 1.5

What Is a Lesson Card?

Every card you see in this pathway, Card 0.2, Card 3.5, Card 5.7, follows the same shape. Once you know the shape, you can walk into any of them cold.

The shape

A lesson card is one page. Not a chapter, not a unit, one page. It has four parts:

1. A short resource. A reading, a video, an activity description. Ten minutes, rarely more.
2. One activity. Something you do, not just read.
3. One artifact. Something you produce: a written record, a measurement, a piece of code, a part you built.
4. A ninety second oral check. How you clear the card. You show your artifact (unless there really isn’t one), explain what you did to a peer and/or your teacher, they ask a question or two, and if you can answer, the card is cleared.

Cards are numbered by unit and sequence, like 0.2 or 3.5. The number is a label for finding and referencing the card, not a countdown. Cards do not have to be cleared in strict numeric order within a unit unless a card says it depends on an earlier one.

Clearing a card

Cards clear out loud, not on paper. Whoever runs your check signs your signoff sheet for it, and any student who can run the check can sign it, your teacher does not have to be the one asking. A few cards are marked teacher-only, because a wrong answer near water or live wiring is dangerous. The card tells you when that applies.

If a check does not go well, that is not a failure, it is a redo. Redos are always open. Come back when you are ready.

Why this format

Half a page fits in your head. A card you can hold in your head is a card you can actually get to in a busy studio, between sprint work, pool day prep, and everything else going on. The format is small on purpose, so the system keeps running instead of quietly stalling out.

For the full system these cards sit inside, sprints, pool days, status reports, DDRs, see How the Studio Works.