I see myself as specialising in end-to-end instructional design, with a particular focus on learning scenario creation. These are both discussed in the sections that follow.
End to end designer and developer
Description
While my role is now mostly focused on learning design, I am a person with a strong technical background. I am someone who loves experimenting with technologies and looking for ways to incorporate them to maximise learning. I have always been fascinated by the potential of technology on education and have harnessed the power of scenarios and storytelling in every course I design.
During my early career, I enjoyed being an end-to-end designer and developer. My role required me to do everything from scoping a course, to building it in Articulate storyline and then launching it on Moodle. I was also responsible for overseeing its deployment, resolving learner challenges and undertaking the task of maintenance, when the time for that came (e.g. when feedback was released, or the maintenance window opened). This experience has equipped me with a variety of development skills that include image manipulation, video editing, digital course development, HTML and CSS, illustration, and animation. So, when asked to answer the question ‘What is your specialism?’ my instant answer will always be that:
“I am an end-to-end designer and developer, as I can take ownership of a project, work with SMEs to design it and then build it all, including graphics and videos.”
You can see some examples that I designed and developed listed below.
- GDPR staff awareness e-learning (sample extract)
- PCI DSS e-learning staff awareness (sample extract)
- Cyber and Information Security e-learning staff awareness (mini game as knowledge check)
- Animation for an online course (part of a bigger course)
- Maintenance for schools – digital course
- Software training video (part of a bigger course)
Reflection
The experience I have had as an end-to-end designer and developer has been crucial in my professional journey. The first-hand knowledge of developing content has enabled me to foresee challenges when designing and adjust the content accordingly. This is a skill that has proven to be invaluable and has enabled me to work faster, smarter, and more collaboratively with my colleagues.
Because I understand the limitations of certain tools, like Storyline, Moodle and H5P for example, I am able to storyboard content in a way that fits these requirements. This has a knock-on effect on the quality of the learning we put together. When most development challenges have been thought of and resolved, it leaves more room for creativity and refinements that enhance the learning experience.
On the downside, my expertise can sometimes be limiting for the project team. Previously, I used to build H5P mock-ups to support my vision. I saw these as proof of concept for our developers to unpack and further develop. This is something I did with a lot of success in places like Omniplex and Cambridge Education Group.
However, in the context of Cambridge Online Education, I realised that some of the developers felt limited by this approach, which stripped them of the opportunity to re-think the interaction and how to present content. This helped me realise the need for other people’s self-development and since then I have been trying to not let my expertise overshadow the development process. Instead of telling my colleagues how I want things to be designed, I now invite them in a collaborative conversation, asking them what they think would work best for my aims. I feel that this has empowered my colleagues, and I can see them trying new ways to develop both the content and themselves. Most importantly, though, it helped me learn more things from my team and find new ways to get things done.
Design focus: scenario-based learning
Description
My current role as a learning designer at CAO starts with meeting the SMEs and doing a needs analysis. I rely on market research and insights from the SME to understand what the learning gap is and who the learners might be. With the audience defined, I ask questions that help us understand what the people should be able to do to overcome the learning gap. I guide the SMEs to describe these actions and we work to define them as learning objective statements (LOs), which use Bloom’s taxonomy and SMART verbs.
From that, my role is to act like a consultant, guiding the SMEs to structure a series of modules that are balanced in terms of content, stemming from the course LOs. With that in place, I then support them in creating the content for each of these modules and I storyboard it for digital consumption. A big part of my role is re-imagining this content into a series of videos, images, and interactions. The part of design that I specialise in is scenarios and storytelling.
Coming from a teaching background, I recognise and respect the power of storytelling for learning. I also spent a significant part of my career within the Learning and Development industry, where scenarios are extensively used. So this has naturally led me to specialise in scenario development, and in particular interactive branching.. I design scenarios in every opportunity that arises, sometimes also blending it with game mechanics to increase engagement. Across my portfolio, I can find multiple examples of scenario usage and some are linked in the following section
Reflection
I use scenario based learning extensively in my work, because it is an active learning strategy that gets learners to think, promoting practical problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Over the course of my career, I have seen how my designs and in particular the scenarios have helped learners practice new knowledge in a safe environment. From my early days I have developed scenarios for multiple purposes, such as:
- designing and developing GDPR simulations
- creating bespoke courses based on creative concepts
- using scenarios in videos
- using branching scenarios in course content
- developing quiz items as mini-scenarios
All of these elements have helped learning ‘stick,’ as learners get an opportunity to learn within a story, practice safely and receive constructive feedback.
One of the challenges I often face with scenarios, is how to make them authentic enough. In some cases, I can overcome this with the input of SMEs, but in other cases it leaves an area for improvement which I would definitely like to refine and enhance in the future. When it comes to writing authentic scenarios, these are three key questions I ask myself:
- What do learners need to do? What is the situation?
- What meaningful decisions are there to make?
- What are some common mistakes and consequences?
- What does it look like when they get it right?
- What is the worst thing that can happen if they get it wrong?
These questions then help me create a series of scenes with the challenge, main choices, and consequences. I have found that the best scenarios that I created, provide a glimpse into the inner world, in other words, what is happening inside the main character’s head, what they feel or memories of pre-existing advice they might have received. I believe that this approach resonates well with learners and the experiences they might be having in their daily life, when challenged.
However, when timelines are tight and contact with the SMEs is not frequent, it is difficult to craft examples like that. During those times, it is also challenging to persuade the wider team why we need additional time and resource to create an elaborate branching scenario. To overcome this challenge, going forward, I would love to template my approach and refine it with my team. I am hoping that this can help us design and develop scenario-based learning at a faster scale, delivering more practice opportunities for our learners.
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