Feedback in scenarios: Let them think!

29 January 2013 By 28 Comments

You’re at the county fair. Your kids are off watching the pig race, and you’re starving. There are only two food carts nearby. One sells deep-fried pork skins from a pot of bubbling grease, and the other sells sushi from a styrofoam cooler. You decide to buy the sushi.

As you hand over your money, a disembodied voice suddenly booms from the clouds above. “Incorrect!” it intones. “Unrefrigerated sushi can harbor zygodread, which can cause severe vomiting. You should never assume that a cooler at a county fair contains ice. It’s always safer to buy hot food that’s cooked in your presence, such as the pork skins. Try again.”

You’ve just met The Omniscient One. It’s the personality-free know-it-all that drones through most elearning. When it intrudes into decision-making scenarios, it sucks the life out of our stories and the brains out of our learners.

“I know everything, and you have no brain”

The Omniscient One (the OO to its friends) is a big fan of telling feedback, because it knows everything. It not only tells us whether it approves of our choice, it also explains exactly how we have sinned and what we must do to atone. Like the folks in your legal department, it believes that no adult can be trusted to draw even the simplest conclusion on his or her own.

An alternative: show the result

In the real world, we’d remember the sushi lesson best if we ate the sushi and then spent three very unpleasant days. In elearning, you could call this showing feedback because, well, the elearning shows (or at least describes) the results. The feedback isn’t a pronouncement from on high but is instead something like this: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Scenario design Tagged With: , , ,

Scenarios: What are they good for?

2 May 2012 By 30 Comments

“Why do you want to use scenarios?” your client asks. “Why can’t we use the quizzes that we’ve always used?”

Sometimes the best way to convince a client is to show them through examples. Present one of their quiz questions three ways, so the client can see for themselves the deeper thought required by a scenario-style question.

Here’s an example. What kind of thinking is required by each type of question?

1. Quiz question

Which of the following is the most secure way to carry sensitive data?

    A. On a laptop

    B. On a USB drive chained to your wrist

    C. On a CD titled “The Chipmunks Sing Disco Duck”

Feedback for incorrect answer: Incorrect. Try again.

2. Mini-scenario with correct/incorrect feedback

Bob wants to work on the salary data at home. He has a long commute on a train. How should he carry the data with him?

    A. On his laptop

    B. On a USB drive chained to his wrist

    C. On a CD titled “The Chipmunks Sing Disco Duck”

Feedback for incorrect answer: Incorrect. Try again.

3. Mini-scenario with “showing” feedback

Bob wants to work on the salary data at home. He has a long commute on a train. How should he carry the data with him?

    A. On his laptop

    B. On a USB drive chained to his wrist

    C. On a CD titled “The Chipmunks Sing Disco Duck”

Feedback for A: Bob falls asleep during the commute, and a thief steals his laptop and sells the data. Try again.

Feedback for B: Bob falls asleep during the commute. A thief sits next to him, plugs his USB drive into his laptop while Bob is unconscious, and later sells the data. Try again.

Feedback for C: Bob falls asleep during the commute, and a thief steals all his belongings. The thief breaks the CD into pieces in disgust and no one ever sees the data. This is the best choice.

Version 1, the quiz question, asks learners to regurgitate a fact with no context.

Version 2 puts the facts into a realistic context but directly tells the learner when they’ve made an incorrect choice. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Scenario design Tagged With: ,

How to create a memorable mini-scenario

12 October 2011 By 21 Comments

Often we’re told, “Put this information into a course.” But what happens if we put the information into a job aid instead, and then design mini-scenarios that help learners use the job aid?

This approach not only keeps boring blather out of our elearning, it can also make our activities more memorable. Here’s how it could work.

Example

Let’s say we’re designing a course on needle safety for a hospital. A common approach would be to display some slides of information about dos and don’ts, and then to present a generic fact check, like, “What’s the best way to dispose of a used needle?”

Instead, we’ll plunge our learners directly into an activity that somewhat simulates real life and that includes real-life job aids. So here’s the first thing learners see in this module.
Magda has pricked herself with a needle that she just removed from a patient's artery. What should she do?

We’re tempting the learner to respond without thinking, but we’ve also given them access to more information. For example, the learner could click the first thumbnail to see the safety poster that appears in every examining room and that explains what to do with a needlestick injury.

But our sample learner thinks, “Everyone knows you pour Betadine on that kind of wound,” and they choose that without looking at any other information.

Here’s the feedback we give them. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Elearning examples, Instructional design, Scenario design Tagged With: , ,

Do they just know it, or can they USE it?

28 September 2011 By 29 Comments

It’s easy and tempting to write activities that test whether learners know something. How can we make learners use their knowledge as well?

You might be familiar with Bloom’s Taxonomy. Its current form identifies six categories of intellectual performance, from remembering to creating.

macheteTo make the taxonomy easier to apply, I grabbed my Unsubtle Machete of Oversimplification and in a few whacks reduced the categories to just two:

  • Know activities ask learners to retrieve and maybe categorize or explain information.
  • Use activities ask learners to apply information to realistic situations.

Often, a “use” activity includes a test of whether the learner “knows” something — you get two activities in one!

Example

Your learners create widgets. To speak with their coworkers, they need to know some technical terms. One term is “transmogrification,” which means modifying a widget so it will work at high altitudes. What can we do to help learners master this term and the related concept?

Know activity: Drag the term to its definition — drag “transmogrify” to “modify a widget so it will function at high altitudes”

Use activity:

Your client wants to use their widget at 2800 meters above sea level. What modification do you need to make to the widget?

  1. Transmogrify it
  2. Redorbinate it
  3. Neoplyordinize it
  4. No modification needed

The “use” activity tests whether the learner can apply their knowledge of transmogrification in a realistic situation, not in an abstract definition activity. At the same time, it answers three “know” questions for us. It tells us whether the learner knows that: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Elearning examples, Instructional design Tagged With: , , ,

Scenarios: the good, the bad, and the preachy

28 February 2011 By 9 Comments

Decision-making scenarios work best when they require realistic decisions and avoid preaching. Let’s look at some examples.

Not a real on-the-job decision

Carla, a sales person, is meeting with Amit, a new customer. She shows him a megawidget.

“You’ll love this megawidget,” Carla says.

“I don’t want a megawidget,” Amit says. “I came in here for a microwidget.”

What is this an example of?

  1. Product Boundary Issues
  2. Customer Misvetting
  3. Courageous Upselling

What’s wrong with this scenario?

We’re not asking the learner to make a challenging decision like the ones they make on the job. We’re checking the learner’s short-term memory: Can they still recognize “Customer Misvetting,” which we defined three screens ago?

We’ve disguised a quiz question as a scenario. It’s better than a generic quiz question, but it doesn’t require the kind of thinking that learners need to do on the job.

Also, the question tests only whether the learner can apply the right label to a problem. It doesn’t test whether the learner can correct the problem.

A better question would ask what Carla should do, with the correct choice being the type of action that will correct a case of “Customer Misvetting.” Then we’d be testing the learner’s ability to recognize the problem and their ability to solve it.

A real decision

How is the following scenario different? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Scenario design, Writing tips Tagged With: , ,

How to design elearning that’s memorable and budget-friendly

19 May 2010 By 19 Comments

Need to make an impact on a budget? You might find some ideas in this presentation.

It shows five decisions you can make that will help you save money and create more memorable elearning. It’s split into five short videos for easy idea-snacking and to meet the restrictions of YouTube.

Highlights include a matrix that helps you decide if training will solve the problem (part 2) and an example of a storyboard that emphasizes activities, not information (part 5).

Here’s the first part.

These links go to YouTube:

Part 1

  • Super-quick overview of action mapping
  • “Awareness” and “tracking” aren’t good reasons to create a course

Part 2

  • Handy matrix to help you answer, “Why aren’t people doing what we need them to do?”
  • Will a course really solve the problem?
  • Example of a multiple-choice question and feedback that simulate the real world

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Instructional design, Scenario design Tagged With: , , , , ,

How the IRS learned to find you online

22 March 2010 By 5 Comments

When employees of the US Internal Revenue Service need to find out what taxpayers are doing, they look online. How would you train them to dig deep into the web without violating privacy laws?

David Anderson has linked to the script of an online course that the IRS uses to train its employees. It was released during a Freedom of Information Act case and posted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). As David points out, the script uses the common tell-then-test approach.

What could they have done differently?

Here’s the script, thanks to the EFF. You’ll see that it’s clearly written and organized, which is great.

Like most elearning, it presents a lot of information and then quickly tests our understanding of that info. It also uses some interesting examples from real life.

The course is a perfectly capable information presentation. But since my tax dollars helped pay for it, I can’t help wishing they had done it differently. So let’s give the IRS some friendly suggestions.

What would happen if we changed the objectives?

The IRS course has these objectives: [Read more...]

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Why you want to use scenarios in your elearning

24 November 2009 By 44 Comments

Imagine that you’re in a competition to overhaul an information-heavy course so it creates a real change in the world. What changes would you make? Check out this story-based presentation to see what one fictional company did.

How to save the world with elearning scenarios
View more presentations from Cathy Moore

If some type is too small, click the “full” icon in the player and you’ll get the big-screen version.

The presentation is an adaptation of a talk I’ve been giving at the Australian Flexible Learning Framework conferences. It’s designed to help people break free of the traditional information-first approach to instructional design.

One of the challenges with using the approach described in the presentation is that it usually requires more design time. Since many clients don’t actually measure the effectiveness of their materials and just want information put online quickly, it can be hard to argue for immersive scenarios. Have you successfully used scenarios? Did you have to convince stakeholders to let you use them?

Filed Under: Featured scenarios, Instructional design, Scenario design Tagged With: , , , , ,

Can your learners wing it?

31 July 2008 By 14 Comments

Musicians at a jamYou’re standing in the Daniel Boone National Forest wearing 97 chiggers and a banjo. You’re surrounded by old-time musicians, and they’re playing this tune:

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(“Natchez Under the Hill” as played by The Fatted Calf String Band)

You want to play along. But you’ve never heard the tune in your life. What do you do?

If you answered, “Pull out my copy of 10,273 American Old-Time Tunes and read from the book,” you would be very, very wrong.

To join the jam, you need to be able to play by ear–you need to be able to wing it. You need to adapt the rules you’ve learned from other old-time tunes to this new situation.

To transfer their learning to their jobs, your learners need to be able to wing it, too. They need to apply the rules they learn from your courses to new situations that you could never foresee.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to teach people to wing it. It’s easiest to just tell them what to do, but what we need to do is to teach them how to think.

What’s wrong with telling them what to do? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Instructional design, Writing tips Tagged With: ,

How to fit the entire world in a multiple-choice question

21 March 2008 By 17 Comments

Makeover logoCan’t afford a full-fledged simulation? You can still recreate the learner’s world in your materials, even if your only tool is the lowly multiple-choice question.

Let’s say you’re writing materials for people who create custom pet hedgehogs using genetic engineering. You might be tempted to write a question like the one below.

Before

It’s a good idea to include parrot genes in a custom hedgehog.

  1. True
  2. False (correct)

How could you make this question more realistically reflect the learner’s world?

First ask yourself, “Why does the learner need to know this fact?”

Then write a question that tests both the learner’s knowledge of the fact and their ability to apply it in the real world. “What if…” questions come in handy for this.

After label [Read more...]

Filed Under: Elearning examples, Instructional design, Writing tips Tagged With: , ,
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