Understanding Learners' and Educators' Potentials

How to Navigate the WP2 Toolkit – From Tools to Personas

The WP2 of the Diverse Courses project aims to support inclusive and human-centred training design through a structured path of documentation, experimentation and practical guidance. Each document produced within WP2 is interconnected and contributes to a progressive and coherent workflow, from the identification of existing good practices to the creation of actionable learner and educator Personas.

A Coherent Path: From Inspiration to Application

The journey begins with WP2.1 – The Collection of Good Practices, where each partner gathered and described at least three existing methods, tools, or procedures that help profile learners and educators. These practices were selected based on their effectiveness in collecting useful data on participants’ needs, skills, attitudes, and learning barriers. The practices spanned a variety of fields—from digital readiness to gender inclusivity—and came from real educational experiences in different national contexts.

Building upon this foundation, partners moved to WP2.3 – The Piloting of Profiling Tools, where the good practices were not simply reported, but actively tested in diverse adult education courses. Each partner selected relevant practices from the collection and adapted them into profiling tools tailored to their specific target group. The results of this experimentation phase were documented, with insights into barriers, successes, and lessons learned.

These experiences were then synthesised in WP2.10 – The Manual: Diversity Course Mapping Tool. This comprehensive resource documents not only the experimentation of WP2.3, but also illustrates the conceptual and pedagogical reasons for using profiling tools. The Manual presents how the piloted tools were used in real educational settings, their impact, and how they support a better understanding of diversity in the classroom. It also connects these tools to the next phase: the construction of Personas.

Finally, WP2.12 – The Personas Tutorial: A Step-by-Step Guide translates all previous experiences into an actionable method. It explains how to collect, analyse, and cluster data from learners and educators to generate rich, narrative-based Personas. These semi-fictional characters embody real learner types and help educators design more responsive, empathetic, and effective learning environments.

List of Available Tools for Profiling & Persona Development

Below is a categorised selection of tools from the A2.3 Collection of Course Mapping Tools, as referenced in the Manual and Tutorial. These tools are designed for two main purposes:

Tools for Profiling Learners

Tools for Profiling Educators

Tools for Developing Personas

These tools serve both the data input and transformation process for building Personas. They should be used in combination with the Personas Tutorial.

• Initial Questionnaires (demographic + motivation)
• Semi-structured Interviews (included in many tool annexes)
• Focus Groups and Observation Grids
• Google Form Templates (for SEN and Classroom Profilers)
• Clustering Templates (in the Personas Tutorial)
• Context Canvas (mapping institutional and social constraints)

_{Personas and Pairs: The Game}

The game Personas and Pairs is a simple matching game in which players pair different persona definitions with descriptions of their key characteristics. Each persona characteristic shows a unique background and learning style. The aim is to think about diversity in education and how different needs can be supported.