Recognition Unit: Educator facilitation

Your teaching material for the Recognition unit. (To learn the content yourself first, work through Designed to Hook You in My Learning. To preview what students do, open The Illusion Machine lab.)

Anchor the unit on the design lessons, then run The Illusion Machine as the class lab — students flip one bet between an honest screen and a casino-style screen, then name every manipulation. No betting; they analyze the screen.

Suggested pacing

| Day | Activity | | --- | --- | | 1 | Teach how products are engineered to hook you — project the Designed to Hook You study pages | | 2 | Run The Illusion Machine lab on the projector; flip to Casino Mode together and let students call out tricks live | | 3 | Recap the dark patterns; have students find one in a real app or ad for homework |

Run-the-lab tips

• Project Casino Mode full-screen — the over-the-top effects are the point. Use "Make it stop" to cut it.
• Pause on the "tell" step: the odds (−155, ~58%, −$6/week) are identical in both modes. Drive that home.

Debrief prompts

• Which trick would actually work on you? Be honest.
• "Most bet" vs "most likely to win" — what's the difference?
• When a screen is working this hard to get you to tap, what should that tell you?

This page is teacher-only teaching support — not shown to students.