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3. Learner Reality Mapping

How to use this activity

This activity supports practical application of the concepts in your lesson.

  1. Download this activity as a docx file
  2. Work through the activity step by step. Keep your answers concise and focused
  3. Return to your lesson when you are done.

What to do: Map your audiences, their realities, constraints, strengths, and needs

Expected output: A structured summary of learner needs and contextual design considerations

Approximate time: 20–30 minutes

Used in

Before you start

You will typically need:

  • Outputs from earlier activities (if applicable)
  • Notes from your current lesson
⬇ Download as .docx

Instructions

Understand your learners as they really are, not as you assume them to be. The summary you build here will inform nearly every design decision you make from this point forward — from how you write outcomes to how you structure activities and assessment.

You will use

  • Your system map from Activity 1: System Map — specifically one system constraint or external influence that affects your learners

If you already have a training

Intended learners vs actual learners

For each aspect below, write what you originally planned for and what you now know to be true. If there is a gap, that gap is design information — it tells you where your training needs to adapt.

  • Who they are: Intended: ___ | Actual: ___
  • What they know: Intended: ___ | Actual: ___
  • What they need: Intended: ___ | Actual: ___
  • Constraints they face: Intended: ___ | Actual: ___

Context factors

For each factor, note what you know and what affects your design:

  • Access (devices, connectivity): ___
  • Time availability: ___
  • Language and literacy: ___
  • Cultural and social dynamics: ___
  • Power dynamics: ___

Lived experience

What knowledge, skills, or experience do your learners already bring that is not formally recognised? Think about professional practice, community knowledge, and problem-solving strategies they use daily.

Barriers

What prevents learners from participating fully or succeeding? Consider barriers before, during, and after the training.

Pick one constraint from your system map (Activity 1) and trace how it affects your learners specifically. For example, if your system map identified "unreliable internet," how does that shape what your learners can and cannot do?

If you are creating a new training

You don't have direct experience with your learners yet, so this is your best-guess map — one you'll revise as you learn more.

Define your learners

  • Who are they? Describe your primary audience in 2–3 sentences. Be specific: job roles, experience level, geographic context.
  • What do they already know? What relevant knowledge or skills can you reasonably assume they bring?
  • What do they need from this training? What gap are you trying to close — and is this gap something they would recognise, or only something you see from the outside?
  • What constraints do they face? List at least three — think about time, access, language, power, institutional barriers.

Map context and barriers

Work through the same context factors and barriers prompts from the "existing training" section above. Where you don't know the answer, write your best assumption and mark it with a question mark. These are things to verify before you finalise your design.

Check your assumptions

Pick the assumption about your learners that you are least confident about. Write down one concrete step you could take to test it — a conversation, a survey, a pilot session, or a document to review.

Draft your needs assessment questions

You've mapped what you know (or assume) about your learners. Now prepare to learn directly from them. Draft three questions you could ask potential or current learners before the training — in a short conversation, a survey, or an informal check-in.

Good needs-assessment questions ask about practice, not self-ratings. Compare: "How confident are you with data analysis?" (invites inflated answers) versus "Walk me through what you do when you receive a new dataset" (reveals actual practice).

Write three questions targeted at the gaps or assumptions you're least sure about:

For each, note how you'd realistically gather this — a quick call, a message to a colleague, a question at the start of the first session, or something else.

Translation to your learners

Look at your completed summary. Where is the biggest mismatch between what your training currently assumes about learners and what their reality actually requires? Name one specific design change this mismatch demands.

Context check

  • Which constraints are genuinely fixed (you must design around them), and which might shift if you involved the right people or made the right case?
  • What is the single most critical constraint — the one that, if you ignore it, will undermine the training regardless of how well you design everything else?

Reflection

Step back from the details. What shifted in your understanding of your learners through this activity? What will you design differently as a result?

Reuse in later sections

Your learner summary feeds directly into:

Iteration

This is a living document. Return here after completing Activity 4: Learner Experience Audit — what you learn about cognitive load and learning barriers may reveal learner realities you missed on this first pass.