17 blog posts, one high-level design document, and one storyboard with scripts later, I can honestly say that I’ve finally learned to focus on the journey rather than the destination.
You know the saying, ‘do it afraid?’That was how I did this course. Shaking in my shoes, not knowing how I would get through it, but here I am.
The pretense of knowledge is our greatest vice because it prevents us from getting any better.
Ryan Holiday – Author, Ego is the enemy
I am going to summarize a little bit of what I’ve learned during these past weeks of learning Storyboarding and Scenario-based eLearning Design. First, I’m reflecting on three of my most significant takeaways from this course that I will continue to reflect on going forward.
Reverse Engineering Creates Endless Possibilities for Instructional Designers.
I don’t know if I would have been able to accomplish everything, I’ve done in this course without having the shoulders of giants to stand on. I learned to storyboard and build branching scenarios by reverse-engineering the projects of other Instructional Designers.
Whenever I have to do something new, I will first find a few different models or examples to learn from. You can learn and do a lot of piggybacking off the work of others. I reverse engineered three great eLearning examples before I embarked on creating my design, and I plan to incorporate reverse engineering as part of my creative process.
Iteration is Your New Best Friend
eLearning Design is going to be iterative. You are going to go through cycles of writing, revising, editing, producing, incorporating feedback again and again until you are sick and tired of the document or design then you are going to do it again. You will experience project fatigue, and you will doubt yourself and your design and wonder what you are doing in this field. You might think you are done, but then you get new analysis data as you design, and then, you discover that new analysis data has become available as you design and develop, so what do you do? You begin a new iteration cycle. That’s right!
You may get better at iterating with experience, but this is your new life. So, please sit back, light some candles, make some tea, wear a comfortable t-shirt, then return to your desk and embrace it. The design process is iterative.
I switched between tasks on my list during the design of this project, so I didn’t deplete my creative energies with project fatigue.
You Will Need to Constrain the Learning Environment
Branching scenarios can grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and, you get the point.
So can the decisions and choices the learners make. You can’t include every single outcome in every single way that a learner will experience it in the workplace in your scenario. And besides, you won’t even have the budget for it. You are going to need to constrain real-world situations and answers in your scenario. This is why it is paramount that instructional designers learn the best ways to elicit expert knowledge from subject matter experts so as to design scenarios that are relevant and as true to the learner’s workplace situations as possible.
I try to remember when scripting that ‘less is more.’
Put every word in your scenario on trial for its life. Let only relevant aspects of your scenario stay put.
Using Instructional Design Strategies
First, I’ve learned that the techniques for instruction and the techniques for guidance are different. There was a time during the last ten weeks when my brain refused to acknowledge this truth. Never again!
I found a new favorite instructional design strategy – Examples. I know what examples are. They are when you explain something like a noun is the name of a person, animal, place, or thing, and then you add, E.g., Amanda, dog, cat, and so on.
Well, it gets more interesting in scenario-based eLearning Design.
I learned that examples are underutilized instructional design strategies, so I decided to incorporate this powerful learning aid in my design. I carefully considered they would be accessed in my design, and I decide to make them available by a recommendation for learners depending on their performance in the scenario.
My favorite guidance technique for this design was providing coaching for the learner. The coaches commented on choices made throughout a bad path and sparingly on a good or okay path. I used the pull approach for the most path.
Within the course, the learners get to complete three worksheets. And the design I chose for grading the worksheets had the learners compare their responses with a coach’s responses.
Overcoming Obstacles
Some obstacles I encountered while building my final project were
Project Fatigue
To manage this, I deviated from my original planned workflow. I rotated from storyboard to scripts to design documents and back continuously anytime I got too tired of working on one of them.
Keeping track of the Slides
To manage this, I used two screens so I could work on one and refer to the other screen instead of always switching through tabs and windows on one screen.
Overall, I was excited to find that my understanding of the course text and material increased as I worked on my own scenario design. Prior, I couldn’t really decode a lot of what I was reading. It was hard to connect the dots in areas beyond my frame of reference.
I wasn’t surprised to find that the design I was working on took residence in my head. I couldn’t get it out till it was done. Truly, I could be doing the dishes, and the characters would start talking to me! To get them out of my head, I took notes in a book or on my phone, whichever one was closest to me, and that helped a bit.
In the future, one area I want to really improve on is in doing deep work. I worked a lot on eliminating distractions so I could focus on this course. Try building a branching scenario with a distracted brain. It is a recipe for disaster. I think I would have done more faster if I were more focused.
It is one thing to eliminate distractions, and it is another thing to have your mind focused on concentrating. You can take away external distractions, but internal distractions are another matter. So from now on, I plan to start weaning my mind off the excessive stimulations it has grown accustomed to. Stay tuned to find out how that goes in a future blog post.
Today, I say goodbye to this course and my coursemates but not to scenario-based eLearning Design. I feel relieved, and I can truly say that for yesterday and today, I have done my best. I don’t know about tomorrow, but for today, I’ve given my everything. So, for now, Like a lawyer who has stated her case, I am going to say, ‘the defense rests.’
