Instructional Design

Although much of the work I've designed and created comes into the category of Digital or E-learning, I have also studied the principles of Instructional Design and applied these in real world scenarios to support learning to develop knowledge, skills and behaviours.

Here's an example of a course I produced using Articulate Storyline.

Overview

Context: This course was designed following discussions with my SENCo after an audit on the quality of the reporting process for members of break time and lunch time staff.

Course Content: It was agreed that we would create a blended learning experience where staff had a face-to-face session with the SENCo which could then be applied and reinforced through an e-learning experince.

Learning Objectives:

For staff to understand the threshold for reporting things they had seen or heard in the playground.
To be able to clearly follow the process and timeline for reporting.
To understand how to adapt the language required when reporting so it is factual, not emotional or opinionated.

Tools used:

Articulate Storyline
Google Suite
Google Classroom

Action Mapping

To start with I met with my SENCo, who was my Subject Matter Expert (SME) in this instance, as she had been completing an audit on the reporting process. She shared her findings and we compared this to best practice expectations. We action mapped our objective, issues and goals so we were clear on the scope of the project. It was decided that we would track the impact through a follow up face-to-face reflection with staff to check their understanding and by monitoring the reporting taking place after the training to focus on the timing, frequency and language used compared to that collected in the audit.

Text-Based Storyboard

I then created a storyboard to plan all our objectives into a cohesive narrative.

As the playground was the main focus for development, I set each scenario in the playground so the staff could directly relate to the experience.

Several scenarios had been identified, so I was conscious of not putting too much of a congnative overload on these particular members of staff. Therefore, I decided to select three playground scenarios, each with three key possible courses of action related to our audit findings. The member of staff would have to decide if it was a good course of action or not and there would be a message after each choice to explain possible implication of that choice.

This meant that they were not faced with a 'correct or incorrect' situation, thus potentially having a negative impact on their confidence. Instead, they would be required to explore every outcome and could see the impact different choice could have.

After completing the first scenario, learners were automatically redirected to the next scenario.

This plan was shared with the SENCo and other safeguarding staff to ensure it reflected our goals and the reality of the audit findings whilst also being very conscious that it was learner focused as it was being created for lunchtime staff, not teachers, many of whom were part time and often had limited English.

Interactive Version

To complete the interactive version, I used Articulate Storyline, working from the storyboard. The full version included a title screen, introduction referencing the previous face-to-face session, a link to the first scenario and a reflection page at the end.

I included smooth transitions for each element and sound effects to maintain learner immersion. I used images of our actual school grounds where possible to make it more real and utilised a friendly avitar for the choices so the staff would not feel so worried about the training as it is not something many of them are usually invovled in that is so important. We wanted them to be at ease so they could take on as much information as possible.

I tested and shared the first scenario example with the team then made some minor adjustments and applied the same principles to complete the project.

It was delivered via our school Google Classroom MLS and the feedback from staff was very positive. They said that the blended learning approach allowed them to return to the information that they had taken on during the face to face and apply it in a comfortable scenario.

Impact and Reflections

We saw a direct impact from this in relation to the frequency and timing of reporting from staff. It also highlighted a larger issue about staff understanding of the online reporting system that was available to them which lead to another piece of targted training.

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