HCD.20:5.1 - Twenty-four future diagnosticians

Use the constructed product in HCD.28. Participants can calculate an indicator but need to choose between rival explanations. The proposed shared contribution is comparison of reasons that one explanation supports and another cannot yet explain. The common diagnosis is useful during practice; each participant’s later model selection remains a separate target.

The initial proposal gives each participant two three-minute contributions and reserves six minutes for reconciliation. Thus 6k + 6 ≤ 30 permits at most four participants before any separate subject help. Four is a necessary capacity bound, not a completed feasible arrangement or an optimum. If six minutes of qualified help must follow the initial explanations and precede the later reasoning, four people need 36 active minutes. The construction below preserves both rounds and reconciliation instead of hiding that assistance inside an already occupied interval.

Compare three real options:

For 24 participants, six four-person groups each require a six-minute subject-help visit. One mentor cannot supply their 36 direct minutes inside a thirty-minute booking. Two mentors supply enough total time, but simultaneous group starts would still put all six requests at the same moment. Confirm three different starts with the participants: G1/G2 at 10:50, G3/G4 at 11:00 and G5/G6 at 11:10. Each person’s entry work and first judgement finish before their own group’s start. Nobody has to attend the whole cohort window as waiting time.

Each first round gives all four people three minutes to expose their evidence and what it supports or leaves open. The shared notes and qualified case reference then supply the mentor’s inputs. The six-minute visit includes inspecting the group’s bounded question and responding to it; it does not replace the learner’s model choice. In the second round, each person challenges or answers a consequential question about another contribution. The final six minutes reconcile the supported common conclusion.

Both mentors are booked from 11:00 to 11:30. Each gives three visits, with four minutes between visits and two minutes before the first and after the last. The rooms and case materials are prepared in advance; the gaps cover the actual move or connection and a brief reset. A site requiring longer travel or more help needs different bookings before the offer is made. The last group finishes at 11:46 and completes its ten-minute personal changed case by 11:56. A missing visit or excess question remains a supply gap; nominal spare time is not evidence that it was answered.

Retain first-response checking in all variants. Eight minutes per participant remains 192 minutes even when the group result is excellent. In HCD.28’s completed example, inspecting each correction adds four minutes per person, or 96 further minutes; that work also remains personal. Use actual first attempts, correction needs and help requests to refine these planning assumptions. A faster mentor or an apparently quiet group is not evidence of unchanged learning quality.

Complete the pair option on the same task and twenty-four-person cohort. Each partner initially explains two of the four evidence contributions in three minutes. Six further minutes let both question the grounds. The mentor can now use the visible evidence and question. After the six-minute visit, each partner has another three minutes to explain the connection between the other’s evidence and the rival accounts. Six minutes of reconciliation complete the thirty-minute pair activity. Thus the pair retains two personal contributions each, questioning, qualified help and a common result; dividing four calculations is insufficient.

Three prepared mentors are booked from 11:00 to 11:30. M1 serves P1/P4/P7/P10, M2 serves P2/P5/P8/P11, and M3 serves P3/P6/P9/P12. Confirm the four pair starts below. Each mentor has two minutes to move or reconnect between visits; the first room and material must already be ready at 11:00.

The twelve visits use 72 direct minutes inside 90 booked mentor-minutes. The later starts change the cohort’s elapsed window, not each pair’s thirty active minutes. If only two mentors are available, book them for 10:30–11:30: in each half-hour they each serve three pairs at minute 0, 8 and 16. Each pair starts twelve minutes before its visit and finishes eighteen minutes after the visit begins. The last pair therefore finishes at 11:34, followed by its ten-minute personal response by 11:44. This obtains the same twelve visits in 120 booked minutes with an earlier first start and lower simultaneous staffing; both availability and the longer provider booking must be confirmed.

For the three-mentor option, retain HCD.28’s first-response and correction checks and its preparation branch. Make the planning allowances explicit:

The extra fixed hour estimates pair-specific evidence distribution and mentor preparation. The coordination and recovery allowances include confirming the different starts; they are estimates to test, not measured consequences of pairing. The two-mentor pair alternative adds thirty booked minutes, bringing its first-cohort provider allocation to 19.4 hours.

Pairs retain a ninety-minute core: 36 learner-hours for 24 people, plus two hours for the six preparation branches. Twelve possible recovery interventions at fifteen learner-minutes add three hours, giving 41 active learner-hours at full reserve use. The four-person route adds six active minutes per person for its separate help, so its corresponding allowance is 42.65 hours. Both preserve HCD.28’s two-day feedback sequence and noon submission of personal responses.

On these allowances the three-mentor pair option costs 2.3 more provider-hours but 99 fewer active learner-minutes than four-person groups. The differing reasons, personal contributions and simultaneous staffing still matter; no option has established equal educational outcomes merely by fitting its clock. Select a construction for its required contribution and obtainable capacity. A later observation can support a changed recovery allowance or reveal an unpractised judgement. Recompare using that evidence.