Our approach to learning
Jotter activities are short, interactive and built on how people actually learn, not on how content is usually delivered. This is the thinking behind every one.
Last reviewed: June 2026
What we believe
Learning happens when students do the thinking, not when they watch someone else do it. So a Jotter activity is never a passive read followed by a quiz. Every activity asks students to commit to an answer, a judgement or a decision, gives them feedback that moves them forward, and ends with an idea worth keeping. It is designed to be run with an academic in the room, not in place of one.
How every activity is designed
Each activity is built on the same evidence-based spine:
- Active, not passive. Students answer, sort, calculate, decide or write; the activity only moves through them.
- Retrieve before reveal. Students always commit to an answer before the model answer appears. Recalling and attempting, even getting it wrong first, builds far more durable understanding than being told (the "testing effect", and the value of productive struggle).
- Feed-forward feedback. Every answer gets more than right-or-wrong: it explains the principle and points to what to do next time. Feedback should tell you where you're going and how to get there, not just how you did.
- A clear learning journey. Activities are staged Connect → Core → Consolidate (hook into what students already know, do the main thinking, then apply and embed it), climbing from understanding to analysis and evaluation.
- Metacognition built in. Students rate how sure they are before they check, and finish by reflecting on what they'll take away and where they'd use it. Judging your own understanding is a skill, and it's one we deliberately practise.
- One idea to carry forward. Every activity ends on a single transferable "big idea": the thing worth remembering when the specific example has faded.
- Authentic context. Students work with realistic organisations and decisions, so the thinking transfers to the situations they'll actually meet.
Made for the room
The real learning often happens in the discussion afterwards, so Jotter is designed around it. As students work, the academic sees how the groups answered, how confident they were, and what they reflected, then teaches into the gaps. A group that was confident but wrong shows exactly where a misconception is hiding, which is far more useful than a bare score. This is assessment for learning: the activity surfaces thinking so it can be shaped, live.
Inclusive by design
Good pedagogy is inclusive pedagogy. Activities offer more than one way to respond, keep language clear, and are built to the same accessibility standard as the rest of the platform, so taking part doesn't depend on a particular device, ability or prior confidence. Students never need an account (activities run anonymously), so there's no barrier to joining in. See our accessibility statement for the detail.
Grounded in research
Our design draws on well-established findings from the science of learning (retrieval practice, spaced and active learning, worked examples, self-explanation and dual coding) alongside the literature on feedback (its job is to feed forward), assessment for learning, constructive alignment (outcomes, activity and feedback pulling in the same direction) and self-regulated learning. We use these as a working standard, not as decoration: each activity is checked against it.
Always improving
Every activity carries one clear learning point, questions that test it, a model answer that shows it, and a takeaway that generalises it. We review activities as the platform grows, and the feedback students leave at the end genuinely shapes what comes next. If you teach with Jotter and have a view on the pedagogy, we'd like to hear it: hello@jotter.education.