Empower educators.Engage learners.

A unified platform that empowers educators to create a new hybrid learning experience that engages every learner.

By Digital Learning Capability Centre

Playbook • Activity • Tool

Keep learning in one place

Bring course materials and collaborative activities, including group discussions and group work, together in one place. Use the discussion and work from each activity as context for relevant AI support, without switching between different tools.

Create, run and monitor collaborative activities

Add collaborative activities to an existing lesson plan and turn it into a reusable playbook that combines materials and activities. Run the playbook across different classes, track each group's progress, and set how AI supports learners during each activity.

Upcoming

Turn learning activities into useful insights

Identify common learning challenges, participation levels, and activity results across courses. Use AI to summarise these findings and help improve course design, strengthen learning activities, and support educators.

Collaborative Learning and Activity Design

Collaborative learning is more than group work. It is a structured learning approach in which participants contribute their own thinking, explain their reasoning, consider different perspectives, and build on one another's ideas.

Effective collaborative learning activities usually include:

Think individually: Participants first consider the question or problem independently and develop their own initial response before hearing others' views.
Discuss together: Participants explain their reasoning, ask questions, compare perspectives, and build on one another's ideas.
Develop a shared response: The group brings its ideas together in a shared response that reflects key points, agreements, and different perspectives.
Review and apply: Participants reflect on what they learned and consider how it connects to their work or practice.

For adult and professional learning, use practical questions that connect with participants' experience. Depending on the learning goal, the shared response might be a recommendation, summary, prioritised list, comparison of perspectives, concept map, or proposed solution.

NodePAT supports a visible progression from individual thinking to group discussion and shared responses across remote, hybrid, and in-person learning environments. Participants can develop their own responses, discuss and compare their thinking with others, and work together to create a shared response. Educators introduce the activity, guide the discussion, review the participants' work, and help participants connect their learning to practice.

THINK–PAIR–SHARE

Think–Pair–Share supports individual preparation, peer explanation, and formative assessment. The individual stage reduces the risk that one person's response will shape everyone else's thinking too early. The pair or group stage allows participants to clarify and improve their ideas.

How it works

Activity type

Choose Think–Pair–Share activity.

Phase 1: Think

Give participants a clear question and sufficient quiet time to develop an individual concept map showing important ideas and connections in their own workspace.

Phase 2: Pair or group

Participants work with one partner or in a small group. They view their merged concept maps, explain their thinking, ask clarifying questions, and identify similarities and differences in the common workspace.

Phase 3: Share

Pairs or groups share their concept maps with the wider group. The facilitator compares responses, highlights patterns, and addresses misunderstandings.

PLACEMAT

Placemat usually involves groups of four, although it can be adapted for other group sizes. It supports both individual accountability and shared responsibility. During the individual phase, each participant records an initial response before the group discussion begins. During the group phase, participants compare their ideas, explain their reasoning, and work together to create a final shared response.

How it works

Activity type

Select the Two-Phase Model activity.

Phase 1: Individual response

Each participant records their own observations, examples, or recommended actions in their own workspace without group discussion.

Phase 2: Group response

Participants can view all contributions and choose which ones to compare as the groups expand. They explain responses, identify connections, and draft a synthesised group response in the common workspace. The group should be able to explain to the wider group how the shared response was developed from the individual contributions.

1-2-4-ALL

1–2–4–All is a discussion activity in which participants think individually, discuss their ideas in pairs, refine them in groups of four, and then share key points with the whole group. This structure reduces the likelihood that discussion will be dominated by the first or most confident speakers.

How it works

Activity type

Select the Two-Phase Model activity.

Phase 1: One

Participants reflect individually and record one or two ideas in response to a focused question.

Phase 2: Two, four, and all

Participants can view all contributions and choose which ones to compare as the groups expand. They first work in pairs to explain, compare, and develop their ideas. Two pairs then join to form a group of four and submit a refined idea in the common workspace. The group responses are displayed so that participants can identify common themes.

SNOWBALLING

Snowballing is useful when a complex response needs several rounds of testing and refinement. By moving from individual work to pairs and then to increasingly larger groups, participants encounter more evidence, perspectives, and possible objections. Each round improves the response by adding detail, applying criteria, resolving differences, or identifying risks. Snowballing is also known as a pyramid discussion because the groups grow at each stage.

How it works

Activity type

Select the Two-Phase Model activity.

Phase 1: Individual response

Participants reflect individually and record one or two ideas in response to a focused question.

Phase 2: Pairs and larger groups

Participants can view all contributions and choose which ones to compare as the groups expand. They begin in pairs, then form groups of four and, where appropriate, eight. At each stage, the group reviews earlier responses and submits a stronger revision by adding evidence, considering risks, applying criteria, or clarifying next steps.

All animations and visual effects are for illustrative purposes only. Actual UX/UI may differ.

How people use the platform

Learners

Join the same learning activities whether attending in person or remotely, contribute to group work, and get AI help without the need to provide the full activity context.

Educators

Spend less time checking every group and more time helping learners who are stuck. Reuse successful playbooks across different classes.

Training Organisations

Understand common learning challenges across courses to improve course design and support educators using insights from learning activities.

Experience our platform

1 1-hour online

Attend the NodePAT Introductory Workshop

Learn how to use the platform to run collaborative learning activities supported by AI.

2 3-hour in-person

Attend the NodePAT Advanced Workshop

Learn how to use the platform to deliver a full lesson tailored to your course.

3 Co-develop

Customise Learning Activities for Your Course

Work with us to co-develop customised learning activities based on your course objectives and teaching context.

4 Class support

Bring NodePAT into Your Class

Receive dedicated support to set up and run NodePAT in your first class.