Think about Build first: does the opening make it feel safe to take part, before it tries to teach anything? A strong open usually does two things quickly: signals why this matters to them (Relate & Focus), and gets everyone contributing in some low-stakes way early on. If your current opening starts with content, try moving those two things earlier.

A useful test: for each piece of content, ask whether learners will actually use it during Deploy, or whether it’s there because it felt important to include. Content that’s never applied is usually the first thing worth cutting. List what they need to be able to do by the end, then check every piece of content against that list.

Look for the point where you’re explaining something they could instead work out, try, or discuss. A short paired discussion before you give the answer, or a quick low-stakes task that surfaces what they already know, both count as Deploy. It doesn’t need to be a big activity, even two minutes of learners doing something shifts the balance.

Start from your aims, not your content: anything that doesn’t serve what learners need to walk away with is a candidate to cut, however interesting it is. It’s often easier to cut an activity than a genuine explanation, so look first at anything added for interest rather than for outcome. Bring the specific session to Span above if you want help weighing it up.

Quiet often means it doesn’t feel safe to speak first, not that they’re uninterested, so it’s worth checking Build before assuming an Engagement problem. Lower the stakes: paired talk before whole-group sharing, or writing a thought down before being asked to say it aloud. Silence after a question is also normal, waiting a few extra seconds before rescuing it yourself often gets more than expected.

Structure tends to help more than pressure: a specific prompt, a clear time limit, and a defined way to share (pairs, then table, then whole group) all lower the barrier to speaking without singling anyone out. The goal is genuine choice about how they take part, not just whether.

Relevance usually needs to be made explicit, not left implicit: connect the topic directly to something learners already do, care about, or will face soon. A short “why this matters to you” framing at the start, grounded in their actual context rather than a generic one, does more work than most facilitators expect.

If learners can complete it correctly without genuinely thinking, it’s probably sitting at recall rather than application. Push it up a level by asking them to apply the idea to a new situation, compare two options and justify a choice, or spot what’s wrong with an example, rather than just reproduce what they were told.

This is the gap between Deploy and Grow: doing something isn’t the same as making sense of it. Build in a moment straight after the activity where learners explain what happened, why it worked or didn’t, and what they’d do differently, either to a partner or in writing, before you move on.

A few worth testing on any session: are you assuming the group already has prior knowledge you haven’t actually checked? Are you assuming your explanation is clear because it’s clear to you? Bring the specific session to Span above and it’ll push on the ones that matter for it.

Look for evidence, not agreement: learners nodding or saying yes tells you very little. Ask them to apply the idea to a new example, explain it in their own words, or predict what happens in a slightly different case, any of which will show you understanding rather than just compliance.

That question almost always gets a yes, whether or not it’s true. Try asking learners to do something with the idea instead: solve a quick variation, explain it to the person next to them, or write one sentence summarising it, then check what actually comes back.

Work back through the seven moves and ask, honestly, which ones you could point to evidence for, not just intention: did Build actually happen, or did you assume it did? Did Evaluate check understanding, or just completion? Bring the session to Span above for a proper look at where it was strong and where it’s worth a closer look next time.

A quick way to check: for each of the seven moves, can you point to a specific moment in your plan where it happens, not just where it’s implied? Elements without a concrete moment attached are usually the weak ones. Bring your plan to Span above for a proper look across all seven.

Deploy is learners doing something with the idea; Grow is them making sense of what happened when they did it. It’s easy to treat the activity itself as if it were the learning, when the real learning often happens in the reflection straight afterwards, so check whether your plan has a genuine Grow moment or just assumes one happens automatically.

That’s exactly the kind of thing Span is built for. Bring the actual session to it above, an outline, a plan, or just what you’re doing, and it’ll work through Build, Relate & Focus, Inform, Deploy, Grow, Evaluate and Signpost with you, only going deep on the ones that matter for your specific session.