09 March 2011

1. Instructional Design for e-Learning Workshop Presentation to MedBiquitous Annual Conference Presented by Nina Deibler * 09 March 2011

2. Workshop Objectives • Design engaging and interactive e-learning • What are the challenges? • What learning strategies work? • What techniques will make it faster and easier to achieve? • Describe best practices for creating reusable e-learning • What exactly constitutes reusable e-learning? • What considerations do you need to make for reusable content? • How should you structure your content? • How does the visual design impact learners’ experiences?

3. The Challenges

4. The Challenges • Avoiding negative stereotypes about e-learning • Making learning engaging, interactive, and impactful even when the subject matter is mundane • What other challenges have you faced with e-learning?

5. The Challenges: Negative Stereotypes • Common symptoms • Page-turners • Excessive text • Lack of interaction • Most frequent uses • Compliance • Orientation/new hire • Inexperienced designers • Overcoming the challenge • Move to higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy • Use new learning strategies

6. The Challenges: Mundane Subject Matter • Common symptoms • Dry/boring topics • Lack of perceived relevance • Most frequent uses • Compliance training • Regulatory training • Overcoming the challenge • Use new learning strategies

7. Overcoming the Challenges

8. Use Higher Levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy • Write objective behaviors at higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy • Strive to replicate real world, on-the-job tasking for learners • Avoid “recognize” when they actually have to “apply” • Change objectives like “define,” “discuss,” and “explain” to “calculate,” “diagnose” and “perform”

9. Sample of Behaviors in Bloom’s Taxonomy

10. Use Different Learning Strategies • Avoid plain old “narrative text” page turners and try • Problem Solving • Scenarios • Storytelling • Simulations/Games • Use these strategies to automatically create engagement and interaction so that learners • Make decisions • Think through actions • Relate to others in similar situations • Replicate real-world situations/tools/systems

11. Narrative Text (“Typical” e-Learning)

12. Problem Solving • Forces learners to think through a situation • Relies on expert models • Provides expert feedback

13. Examples: Problem Solving • You order an X-ray for a soft mass on a 15 year-old male’s ankle resulting from a soccer injury. The x-ray is inconclusive and the mass is hardening. What is your next step? • You see a co-worker take powerful medication from the drug cabinet and slip it into his coat pocket. What should you do? • A blood test indicates an elevated white cell count in an otherwise healthy 52-year-old female. What could be causing this? • You forgot your password and need to access an online patient records system immediately. A colleague offers to let you use her password. What should you do?

14. Strategy: Scenarios • Present realistic job-related situations • May guide learners through an expert path with feedback • May allow learners to make mistakes and experience consequences • Remember “Choose Your Own Adventure” books • May be a single scenario or a series of scenarios that build into a story • May also be used as a form of problem solving • Work very well for “soft-skills” subject matter

15. Examples: Scenarios (1) SCREEN 1: A 19-year-old woman appears at the pharmacy window with a bottle of Percocet from a prescription you filled the previous day. The prescription is in her name, and you remember filling it and verifying the count. She shows you the contents of the bottle and it contains two different pill types. The woman asks that the prescription be corrected so she can get the remainder of her Percocet. When you tell the woman you remember verifying the prescription she becomes agitated. You should: • Involve the pharmacy manager immediately • Report her to the police • Check the pharmacy logs to see if this has happened before • “Choose Your Own Adventure” style (1)

16. Examples: Scenarios (2) • “Choose Your Own Adventure” style (2) • SCREEN 2: The pharmacy manager approaches the woman and shakes her hand. She tells the woman that she will personally check the system to verify that all protocols were followed. The woman becomes more agitated. You should… • Example

17. Examples: Scenarios • Expert feedback style • A 19-year-old woman appears at the pharmacy window with a bottle of Percocet from a prescription you filled the previous day. The prescription is in her name, and you remember filling it and verifying the count. She shows you the contents of the bottle and it contains two different pill types. The woman asks that the prescription be corrected so she can get the remainder of her Percocet. When you tell the woman you remember verifying the prescription she becomes agitated. You should: • Involve the pharmacy manager immediately • Report her to the police • Check the pharmacy logs to see if this has happened before EXPERT FEEDBACK: While calling the police may seem like the appropriate action to take when someone seems to be scheming to acquire narcotics, the best course of action would have been to involve the pharmacy manager immediately.

18. Strategy: Storytelling (1) • Uses engaging and compelling stories to immersive learners in • Scenarios where they play an active role and solve problems as their learning progresses • On-going stories where they can impact the outcome through their thoughts and actions as they learn • Models, examples, and situations that demonstrate cause and effect relationships and make them want to take action • Goals • Touch the hearts of your learners • Place them in a position where events profoundly impact them • Take some action to change how they do things • Avoid or repeat the outcome of the story

19. Strategy: Storytelling (2) • Stories do not need to be long, but they do need • Beginning – middle – ending • Protagonist (good guy) and antagonist (bad guy or obstacle) • Descriptions of people in the stories • Goals (what protagonist is trying to surmount) • Timeline (distant past, recent past, present, future…) • Location where the story takes place (pharmacy, operating room, patient exam room, nurses station…) • Focus on details that move story along and create vivid images • Make outcome positive or negative; people can learn from their mistakes and the mistakes of others From: Harvard Business School Publishing Company. (2003) Storytelling that Moves People: A Conversation with Screenwriting Coach Robert McKee

20. Strategy: Storytelling (3) • To tell better stories, ask SMEs questions about THEIR stories like • What will need to happen to “make things right” for the protagonist (the “good guy” or “hero”) of the story? • What obstacles (antagonists) prevent the protagonist from obtaining their goal or objective? • What can the protagonist do to overcome these obstacles? • Is this story believable, even though it’s true? • Example From: Harvard Business School Publishing Company. (2003) Storytelling that Moves People: A Conversation with Screenwriting Coach Robert McKee

21. Suggestions for Story Writing (1) • Start with a dramatic opening or a heroic deed. Few listeners can resist a story with a good beginning. • The best teaching stories are usually true. Try to verify your facts. • Expand on the anecdote and develop it into an extended story. But keep it succinct and short, something you could tell in two or three minutes. • Try to have your story illustrate one theme or idea. • Have your story unfold according to events, not explanations, descriptions, or summations. • Keep plot details simple and easy to remember. From: Stone, R. Story Workbook IDEAS www.integrityarts.com

22. Suggestions for Story Writing (2) • Remember that a character is best revealed through his or her actions. Also, use real names. • Remember that the story itself is the important thing—let events speak for themselves. • Give the anecdote an ending that satisfies the listener’s sense of justice. • Give it a good title. • Project the image like a film in your imagination. • Share the story with a friend or colleague and evaluate what worked and why. What didn’t work? Why? • Refine the story based on these evaluations. From: Stone, R. Story Workbook IDEAS www.integrityarts.com

23. Simulations/Games • Replicate an actual experience, activity, or environment • Goal is for learners to see it (in a demonstration), practice it (with step-by-step guidance), and do it (exactly as they would in the real world) • Examples of content types in which simulations work well include: • Software training (complete an action, create/save a file) • System operations (operate panels, switches, gears) • Visual recognition applications/systems (identify items, recognize images) • Soft skills training (leadership, management, problem solving, ethics) • Should always have consequences • Positive: promotions, earning points, and advancing to new levels • Negative: losing points, failure to advance, or a downward spiral during a scenario in a simulation • Example 1Example 2Example 3

24. Simulations/Games Pros Cons Can be timely and costly to produce Require more time to program May require unique skills for your team • Replicate real-world activities in a safe environment • Servers won’t crash • Software doesn’t “hang up” • No one is injured

25. ACTIVITY Think about a situation in your workplace where you had to make a difficult decision that impacted other people. What kind of message can you send from this story? Working with a partner, ask your partner the questions on the Storytelling Questionnaire. (10 minutes) Using your answers from Storytelling Questionnaire, create a 2 minute story from the situation you discussed. (10 minutes) Review the story you created with your partner. (10 minutes) Optional: Share your stories with the class. (20 minutes)

26. TIPS: Trying New Strategies • Start slowly if new strategies seem intimidating • Try a few simple expert-based scenarios as knowledge checks or assessment items before attempting a “Choose Your Own Adventure” style scenario/story that is threaded through the content • Integrate a story within the instruction to reinforce key points • Story tells part of the instruction and serves as examples • Instruction reinforces key concepts and points, rather than story • Try “demonstration animations” followed by simulations in a knowledge check before trying to do a full-scale simulation in instruction • Bounce ideas off of colleagues or have a brain-storming session to make stories better, shorter, and believable

27. Keys to Making Reusable e-Learning

28. Reuse Categories • Redeploy • Running the same content, without modification, in multiple LMSs • Rearrange • Reordering the same content for new uses or new contexts • Repurpose • Using the same piece of content in new contexts or in different ways • Rewrite • Taking relevant materials and changing the examples, imagery, or writing style, or removing irrelevant information Reused from “ADL Guidelines for Creating Reusable Content with SCORM 2004” available at www.ADLNet.gov

29. Reuse Categories Example - Courses Reused from “ADL Guidelines for Creating Reusable Content with SCORM 2004” available at www.ADLNet.gov

30. Reuse Categories Example - Asset Radioactive materials are packaged in durable materials, so the release of radiation would probably only occur in very severe accidents. Use extreme caution when entering an area where you see this placard. Radioactive equipment may be in active use. Never load, transport, or store Class 7 and Class 1.1 materials in the same transport vehicle or storage facility while in transit. Reused from “ADL Guidelines for Creating Reusable Content with SCORM 2004” available at www.ADLNet.gov

31. Design Considerations for Reusability (1) • How will you optimize the potential for your content to be redeployed, rearranged, repurposed, and rewritten? • Will your content objects cover a single learning objective or multiple learning objectives? • Will your content objects include an assessment or will the assessment be a separate content object? • How will you divide, structure, chunk, and sequence the content objects? • What media types will you incorporate in the e-learning? • What organizational policies and practices do you have to comply with (Ex: Section 508) Reused from “ADL Guidelines for Creating Reusable Content with SCORM 2004” available at www.ADLNet.gov

32. Design Considerations for Reusability (2) • What navigation options will be provided inside the content object versus the standard navigation options provided by a typical LMS? • What colors and layouts will work best in the target LMS and in other LMSs? • Will templates and cascading style sheets (CSS) facilitate rearranging, repurposing, and rewriting the content? Reused from “ADL Guidelines for Creating Reusable Content with SCORM 2004” available at www.ADLNet.gov

33. Navigation Element Considerations • Web-based training introduces the potential to have numerous navigational elements • Controls should perform the same from one screen to another Reused from ADL Visual Design webinar available at www.ADLNet.gov

34. Other Navigation Elements • Use a pop-up window to provide learners with auxiliary resources, such as a PDF • Never use a popupwindow for imagesor information that arecritical for learners’understanding of thecontent Reused from ADL Visual Design webinar available at www.ADLNet.gov

35. Enabling Reusability in Content Objects • Determine what information is required for formal reporting • Define data collection and tracking requirements • Create content structure/flow chart and rules for sequencing • Design smaller SCOs to enable • Tracking and sequencing at a more detailed level • Greater flexibility in • Redeploying • Rearranging • Repurposing • Rewriting Reused from “ADL Guidelines for Creating Reusable Content with SCORM 2004” available at www.ADLNet.gov

36. TIPS: Designing Context-neutral Content (1) • Avoid numbers that refer to a specific location • Call lesson “Facility Overview” not “Lesson 3” • Avoid references to previous course material or put them in separate objects that can be swapped out or deleted • Move statements like “In the previous lesson, you learned…” in a separate object • Remove contextual information from the background of media assets • Show a piece of equipment without extraneous items in the background that may make it apply only to that context • Avoid contextual information or put it into separate object that can be swapped out or deleted • Repurpose course to replace the “Recognizing meningitis” object with “Recognizing meningitis in children” Reused from “ADL Guidelines for Creating Reusable Content with SCORM 2004” available at www.ADLNet.gov

37. TIPS: Designing Context-neutral Content (2) • Use sequencing to deliver appropriate context-specific SCOs to the learner • Use sequencing to deliver the “Recognizing meningitis in children” object instead of “Recognizing meningitis” based on a user profile specifying the type of physician • Avoid references to specific features or names of your organization or environment • “PHP is an effective way to create web applications” not “The Acme IT Department uses PHP to create web applications because it is so effective” • Avoid file naming conventions that use numbers • Use “XSLT-TransformingXML.html” not“M4L5.html” Reused from “ADL Guidelines for Creating Reusable Content with SCORM 2004” available at www.ADLNet.gov

38. REUSABILITY DISCUSSION

39. TIPS: Standardize (1) • Create a style guide and stick to it (essential in team environment) • Enables “freedom from choice” for designers and developers • No more debates about button color and font size • Provides an “authoritative source” for quality assurance personnel • Guarantees writing style, navigation elements, and screen layouts work together • Allows flexibility for some visual elements • Puts focus back on INSTRUCTIONAL design • The time invested in creating a style guide will pay for itself after a couple of projects

40. TIPS: Standardize (2) • Use templates • Serve as a pattern or model for screen layout • Provide common content, structural, and navigational elements • Save development time by reducing focus on common elements • Provide some degree of flexibility and customizability • Facilitate reuse across projects • Everything is located in the same area (navigation, content, images, etc.) • Easy to change look and feel

41. Visual Design Considerations for Reusability

42. Visual Design and Instructional Effectiveness • Learners are more receptive to e-learning that is visually pleasing and learner-friendly • Provides cues to what parts of the content are important • Creates interest • User anxiety and confusion will impact learning • Different, beautiful, and original isn’t better if it undermines learning and reusability • Never sacrifice usability for visual impact. Account for • Navigation ease • Download time • Proper design can facilitate Section 508 accessibility and internationalization

43. Visual Design and Instructional Effectiveness • Aesthetics should not interfere with • Keeping users focused on content • Learner comfort • Effects of poor visual design • Distracts user’s attention • Makes text difficult to read and graphics ineffective • Causes users to access or learn the wrong information • Confuses learners about their progress • Makes learning activities too bothersome to complete

44. Visual Design Framework (1) • Who is your target audience? • What is the impression you want to convey? • Importance of correct performance of tasks? • Positive attitude towards the subject matter? • What are repeating elements or themes? • What are the physical and fiscal limits to your design? • Screen real estate • Media (static vs. dynamic) • Producing original media vs. acquiring found media

45. Visual Design Framework (2) • The more robust the design, the more reusable • Adhering to universal design principles • Means better chance of visual consistency with other content • Makes your content more desirable for reuse • Requires consistent use of “standardizing elements” • Style Guide • Templates • Cascading style sheets (CSS) • Widely-accepted fonts • Adequate spacing • Proper alignment of screen elements • More

46. TIPS: Strong Visual Designs • Make extensive use of “white” or “empty” space • Are left-aligned with proper margins between edges and other elements • Balance the placement of information on the page • Use an invisible grid to align various elements with each other • Place related items close together • Repeat common elements • Descriptive boxes, styles, formats, treatments • Use symbols whose meaning cannot be questioned

47. Types of Media Elements • Static graphics • Photographs • Line drawings • Colored drawings or illustrations • Motion graphics • Video • Animation

48. Key Design Principles for Media • Composition • Placement of objects in the graphic • Foreground or background • Single object or multiple objects • Style • Illustrations, photos, animations • Colors, lines, and patterns used in the graphic

49. Composition • Ensure that key object(s) are prominent by • Including only one object • Placing the critical object in the foreground • Ensure that key object is large enough to be seen and understood What do you see?

50. Composition Examples This composition is effective if the purpose is to show how a coffee cup is used. The cup is in the foreground and has just enough context, a close-up of the woman’s face, to show how the cup is used. A full body view of the woman would distract viewers from the intended context. This composition is effective if the purpose is to understand the features of a coffee cup — its shape, parts, materials and color. The cup is the only object. It has a simple, solid background color, and the features of the cup are easily distinguishable. Since there is no context for the cup, this graphic could be reused in many different contexts.