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Leaders walk a proposed homework-and-AI-tutor initiative through the lives of ten fictional families, map every barrier they hit, and turn the map into policy.
"Every student has a device" is where most equity conversations end, and where the real digital divide begins. It runs through home connectivity, shared devices, accessibility, home languages, caregivers' schedules, trust, and now the cost of AI tools, where free and paid tiers can give different students very different help. In this session, teams take a fictional district's plan to move homework online and add an AI tutor, then walk it through ten family profiles. Every barrier goes on a wall map, and the map becomes the draft of an equitable-access policy with evidence to watch.
Hook
Everyone reads Handout A. Ask: "On a scale of one to five, how equitable is this plan?" People hold up fingers. Ask a few people at each end to explain. Say: "Let's test it the only way that matters: through the lives of the families who'll live with it."
Facilitator noteThe plan is written to sound thoughtful. It includes devices for all and a free AI tier. Early scores are usually 3 or 4.
Explore
Teams divide the ten family cards. For each family, a team member reads the card aloud and the team asks: "Tuesday night, 7 p.m., homework is due at 11:59. What happens?" Every barrier goes on a yellow sticky note in the right column of the wall map, with the family's card number. One family can hit several barriers.
Facilitator noteKeep teams from solving too early. The goal of this step is to see the barriers clearly. Solutions come next.
Debrief
Everyone steps back and reads the whole wall. Ask: "Which column is fullest? Which barrier did the plan's device promise not touch at all? Which families hit the most barriers, and what do they have in common?" Then ask about the AI tutor's free and paid tiers: "If the paid tier gives better help, who gets better help?"
Facilitator noteA common realization: the families with the most barriers are also the least likely to show up in an online survey about the plan. The data you'd normally use would hide them.
Create
Each team takes two or three columns. For each barrier, the team decides: can a policy or systemic strategy remove it (green sticky), or does it need individual outreach (pink sticky)? Then teams complete Handout C: the barrier, who it affects, current practice, a policy or strategy, and the evidence we'll watch to know whether it worked.
Facilitator notePush for evidence beyond usage. "Homework completion rates by whether the student has home internet" tells you more than "number of hotspots distributed."
Apply
Each team rewrites the plan's three most important sentences on chart paper. Teams share in a quick round: read the old sentence, read the new one, name the family card that changed it. Include at least one change about the AI tutor: cost, data privacy, language, or whether it is required.
Facilitator noteWatch for revisions that add alternatives rather than exceptions. "Assignments can be completed on paper or offline" is stronger than "students may request an exception."
Transfer
Each person names one real initiative on their campus and the one family profile from today that it might leave out. On an index card, they write one question to add to their next planning meeting, such as "How will this work for a student sharing a phone with two siblings?"
Facilitator noteThis is question 4 of the leaders' five-question check: Who might be left out? Encourage people to add it to every agenda.
Designed to run entirely on paper: the plan, the family cards, sticky notes on a wall map, and a printed organizer. The physical wall map is the point. Seeing a column fill with sticky notes makes the scale of a barrier visible in a way a list doesn't.
In a virtual session, build the seven-column wall on a shared digital whiteboard and give each team a color. Share family cards as a slide deck, one family per slide. Teams complete Handout C in a shared document. If you have your district's own access survey data, display it after the Debrief and ask which families from today would likely be missing from it.
Does it need a screen? This one is better unplugged. The empathy work of walking a plan through a family's evening, and the visual impact of a crowded wall map, both land more strongly in the room. A digital whiteboard is a good substitute for remote groups, not an improvement.
What you should be able to see or collect if it worked.
Teams walk a homework-and-AI-tutor plan through family profiles to find access barriers, so every student can use the tools a lesson requires.
Before your next technology decision, bring three family profiles from today to the planning meeting and walk the plan through them. Add "Who might be left out?" as a standing agenda item, and choose one measure from Handout C to begin tracking this semester.
