Teach and learn · teaching draft 0.1
A ready-to-adapt 50-minute lesson on evidence, costs, counterfactuals and the people who can shape a decision.
No advance reading is needed. Print or share the case and worksheet, offer pens and an optional calculator, and put this map where everyone can use it: givers → signals → channels → work → outcomes. Leave room for feedback to change a decision.
Offer quiet reading, spoken or written responses, large print and the option to pass. Use assigned perspectives so no one needs to disclose a personal belief, financial situation or experience of receiving help. The proposed timing can be adapted by the educator.
| Minutes | Facilitator action | Learner output |
|---|---|---|
| 0–4 (4 min) | Welcome and the right to pass. Introduce the fictional setting without asking for personal giving examples. | One question the lesson should help answer. |
| 4–9 (5 min) | Teach givers → signals → channels → work → outcomes and the input, output and outcome definitions. | A blank five-stage map with the definitions labeled. |
| 9–14 (5 min) | Read the case card aloud or quietly. Check “same 30 people” and “cash costs only.” | W1: case facts in the map; recorded and unmeasured items marked. |
| 14–24 (10 min) | Calculate W2 and W3 in pairs or individually. Offer fractions, the worked table or a calculator. | Cash-cost ratios, pass rates and an explicitly labeled observed change. |
| 24–31 (7 min) | Reveal counterfactual cards A and B. Ask whether they are new data or assumptions. | W4 and W5: conditional calculations and a repaired headline. |
| 31–38 (7 min) | Introduce descriptive depth. Compare assigned welfare and rights/justice questions. | W6: one fair disagreement and a tentative activity description. |
| 38–45 (7 min) | Ask who can change the work after hearing feedback. | W7: an accessible route to disagree, an owner role and a revision rule. |
| 45–50 (5 min) | Use the exit prompt and share a worked limitation. Return worksheets to learners. | W8: an output, a measured outcome, an unresolved claim and a next evidence need. |
Every detail is invented
All details are fictional. Riverbend is an invented town. A community project wants adults who choose to attend to find usable journey information. Its workshops aim to help people plan future journeys. It has not measured whether people reach appointments, find work or experience better wellbeing.
| Item | Record |
|---|---|
| Recorded cash spent | $600, including space, printed materials and facilitation |
| Workshops held | 6 |
| People at each workshop | 5 |
| Unique attendees | 30; each attended exactly one workshop |
| People completing both checks | The same 30 attendees |
| Passed the check before the workshop | 12 of 30 |
| Passed the check one week afterward | 21 of 30 |
Assumption · not evidence
Suppose 18 of these same 30 people would have passed the later check without the workshops, perhaps through other practice or information. This is an imagined alternative, not an observed comparison group. Calculate what follows only if the assumption were true.
Assumption · not evidence
Suppose 21 of these same 30 people would have passed the later check without the workshops. This is another imagined alternative, not an observed comparison group. The case gives no basis for choosing A or B as correct.
The case provides no basis for choosing either card as the correct comparison. Neither identifies the impact of a particular donor’s gift or a real charity.
Student worksheet
Work alone or with a partner. Use words, a diagram or an explanation aloud. A learner can keep the sheet without adding a name or submitting anything online.
W1
Use the Riverbend case to complete givers → signals → channels → work → outcomes. Write “unknown” where the case does not tell you something.
W2
Calculate the recorded cash costs. Keep the units visible.
W3
Use the same 30 people for the before and later denominators.
W4
Treat both counterfactual cards as assumptions, not additional observations.
W5
An invented report says: “Nine people benefited because of our workshops, proving that the project worked.” Rewrite it in two sentences. Keep the observed result and say what the records do not establish.
W6
The workshops aim to prevent future missed journeys. Describe the intended mechanism and compare two assigned perspectives. You need not disclose your own beliefs.
W7
Design a fictional route to disagree and a decision that could change. No private story is needed.
W8
Write one output, one measured outcome and one sentence beginning “We still cannot conclude…”. Add the next piece of evidence or feedback you would seek.
These are fictional activity descriptions. Each level may be needed; a higher number is not a better moral grade or proof of effectiveness. The six proposed sources—story, coordination, vision, attention, status and gatekeepers—remain hypotheses about the system.
0 · Relief
Help someone plan a journey they must make today.
1 · Repair
Help restore route-planning skills after a disruption.
2 · Prevention
Teach route planning to try to prevent future missed journeys.
3 · Structure
Change a transport authority’s timetable-access policy.
4 · Source
Try to change whose knowledge institutions respect across transport, education and public services. That proposed connection needs evidence.
Facilitator notes · openly available
Check arithmetic and claim labels. Different decisions can be well reasoned when evidence, values and limits are clear. Classroom performance does not establish charitable impact, retained learning or professional competence.
Unknown giver → unknown signal → unknown funding channel → six workshops → later check results is a sound map. Missing stages are findings; do not invent a funder.
$600 is an input. Six workshops and 30 unique attendees are outputs: 6 × 5 = 30, with no duplicate attendance here. Twenty-one later passes describe a measured proximal outcome on this check; the before/after change is nine more passes.
More successful real journeys is not measured. The check is a proxy, not established evidence of practical travel, employment or wellbeing.
$600 ÷ 6 = $100 per workshop. $600 ÷ 30 = $20 per unique attendee.
These ratios describe recorded cash cost for delivered work. They are neither full economic costs nor impact estimates. Unpaid preparation time is missing.
12 ÷ 30 = 40% before. 21 ÷ 30 = 70% later. There are nine more people passing and an increase of 30 percentage points.
A relative increase, if calculated, is (21 − 12) ÷ 12 = 75%. It is a different description of the same pattern, not a causal effect.
The records contain no counterfactual comparison. Practice on the check, other information and selection into attendance are possible explanations to investigate, not established explanations in this fictional case.
Under card A, 21 − 18 = 3 conditional additional passes. $600 ÷ 3 = $200 in recorded cash cost per additional pass, if that counterfactual assumption were true.
Under card B, 21 − 21 = 0. Division by zero is undefined, so there is no numerical cost-per-additional-pass ratio. This does not mean the project cost nothing or had no other benefit or harm.
Both cards are imagined assumptions. Do not choose A because its answer looks useful. A suitable contemporaneous comparison or an ethically appropriate randomized design could help with a particular causal question.
Any design still needs comparable conditions, credible follow-up and a measure of the ability of interest. Random assignment does not automatically validate the check or transfer a result to another setting. Learners are not asked to experiment on real people.
Among the same 30 fictional attendees, passes on a route-planning check rose from 12 to 21 one week after the workshops. Without a credible counterfactual comparison or a validated practical outcome, these records do not establish how much the workshops caused or whether real journeys improved.
Do not call $600 ÷ 9, approximately $66.67, cost per causally additional outcome. Nine is the raw before/after increase, not an identified effect. Correct classroom arithmetic does not establish measured charitable impact.
Prevention, level 2, could describe the stated aim of avoiding future missed journeys. Repair could fit if an activity restored lost skills. Neither description establishes success. Immediate help could be relief, while changing an access rule could be structure. No source-level change is established here.
A welfare question asks what additional practical improvement this might create compared with an alternative use of resources. A rights/justice question asks who cannot access the invitation and who can change that barrier.
One defensible step is to improve invitation accessibility and let a fictional participant panel help revise the format. Another is to retain immediate help while planning a better comparison. Both remain open to challenge. The check result does not settle duties, fair access, care or decision authority.
Represent lenses fairly without stereotyping a tradition or asking a learner to speak for it. A higher depth number earns no extra moral or assessment credit.
Offer optional anonymous comments or accessible written and spoken feedback without asking about personal journeys. A session-coordinator role reviews themes; an invented participant panel could choose between accessible invitation formats.
Report the decision and reasons back through accessible channels. Consultation, responding and shared authority differ: a survey alone grants no decision power.
Example predeclared rule: before another workshop, pause registration if invitations and materials remain available only in small print. Revise them with the panel, check the alternative formats and explain the change. This is a process safeguard, not a demonstrated impact threshold.
In a longer seminar, specify a measure, comparison, review date and revision rule. Retain an unclear or unfavorable result instead of changing the measure to claim success. The invented table supplies no statistical certainty.
Output: six workshops. Measured outcome: 21 of 30 passed the later check. We still cannot conclude how much the workshops caused or whether real journeys improved. I would seek a credible comparison and feedback on who could not access the invitation.
The exit prompt checks reasoning shown in this activity. It does not establish retained learning, later giving behavior or benefits to people served.