Who is the audience and what do we know about them?: Certified nursing assistants in a lifelong health facility who work closely with residents suffering from dementia. From an informal survey, we know these workers feel rushed due to under-staffing. Therefore, it’s important our audience recognize the training as something that can save them time and simplify their tasks. This is because it is extremely difficult to work with a resident when their dementia alters their mental and emotional state to confusion and anger. When this happens, the healthcare worker will often be forced to leave the resident alone so they can calm down; this means the CNA be able to finish their tasks in a timely manner.
What are the skills and knowledge we hope to cover?: Goal: The learning experience focuses on the knowledge of what triggers negative interactions with these residents and the skill of communicating in a way that limits stress and confusion. The measurable goal for this project is to decrease negative interactions with dementia residents by 20%. I created an action map using Mindmeister for the observable actions associated with achieving this goal.
What are the best methods for delivering the learning content?: An e-learning opportunity focused on role-playing is well-suited to reviewing some of these skills as it will show the learner the result of negative versus positive care choices. When a learner can experience how much the techniques have an effect on the resident, the importance of these micro-interactions becomes increasingly clear. This is also the most cost-effective way to add this training to an existing program that's already stretched for time and resources.
How did I collect the data to create an authentic and effective learning experience?: I interviewed someone who works in this field to collect data for this project. This was a fun experience because I was able to ask questions that would paint a picture for a realistic interpretation of what it’s like to work in lifelong health. You can listen in on the interview in the video below! You will notice in the video that I am building details of the experience and the knowledge/skills we need to review through my questions. You might also realize that my notes are more organized in the final action map, after I organized the details of the interview.
Visual Design
Contrast: Each text box’s color scheme is developed with contrast in mind so that it’s easy to read and draws the user’s attention to the content. The font, Lato, is simple and straightforward. It’s rounded edges have also been described as warm and friendly, making the text inviting. For question stems, I added weight to the font to draw the learner’s attention there first, before the choices.
Alignment: I also focused on the alignment of each text box; notice how the text stays centered even when visual elements, like icons, are incorporated within that text box. All of the key content and visuals are also incorporated within a border around the scene. Canva made alignment that much easier with guides, you can see where I have illustrated those guides in purple.
Proximity: Proximity of the question stems and choices also emphasized the relationship between each of those boxes. I created white space within my buttons by creating custom text box buttons, rather than those supplied by Storyline, which made the text in each button much easier to read and the content in text boxes more accessible. The shadows under each button were a style choice, but also helped develop space between each choice.
Repetition: There’s consistency in where content is delivered, always to the left or right. Also, in how and where to interact and move forward, buttons are always placed inside or directly below text and the colors, font, and style are consistent. This makes for clear user interface where the focus is on the content and experience, rather than on how to navigate.
Balance: By choosing my Vyond scenes carefully and customizing the layout of each, I was also able to create balance between the characters in each scene and the layers of texts and content. You can see where I utilize camera angles in Vyond to put the focus on the character, but also have space on the right side of the scene to overlay content when the camera zooms back out. I also carefully crafted the text in each box to create balance in the lines, not leaving any one word hanging on a line by itself and carefully choosing my words so the answer choices were all about the same length.
What elements of the experience required more effort in visual design?: One thing that proved rather challenging was the photo that comes together throughout the experience. To create the photo, I had to stage it in Vyond first. Then, I needed to find a frame that fit the style of my scene and change its color palette. Finally, I utilized a mask and some creative placement to break the photo into four pieces that could come together. I could have just cropped the image into four squares, but I felt the visual of the torn edges really drove home the symbolism of a fractured memory that became clear with better care.
Storyboard
Learning Theory
Knowles and Experiential Learning:According to Knowles and basic Andragogy, “[Adults] find the most relevance from task-oriented learning that aligns with their own realities.” This is why I used an action map and focused the interview on realistic consequences of desirable and undesirable actions. Both the storyline experience and the suggested in-person instruction were developed with experiential learning in mind, specifically role-playing, to recreate positive and negative experiences with dementia. Setting an objective early on in the experience and reviewing skills and knowledge after each choice are also best practices for adult learning. (wgu.edu)
Mentorship and Transformational Learning: The character, Rita, serves as a mentor for the experience. Through her mentorship, the learner is able to seek guidance and feel more confident throughout the experience. By providing feedback for each situation, the learner is asked to reframe their assumptions surrounding why a resident reacts with hostility. A CNA, for example, might see anger as an unfair reaction to their help and without understanding the cause, they will struggle to build a positive rapport with the resident. This change in perspective is a facet of transformational learning. (phoenix.edu)
Gamification of Learning: This is something I use often, as you can see in “communicating with parents,” where learners earn badges. In this experience, each correct choice earns a missing photo piece. By the end of the training, the completed image is revealed and the learner has helped the resident recover a pleasant memory. This helps instill intrinsic motivation for completing each task.
Intake Form
Evaluation
xAPI:Using experience API, I can track everything from how long a learner spends in the training to how often they select a wrong answer or mentor advice. By tracking which learners struggle inside the experience, I can target observations of certain CNA's and provide further remediation through instructor-led training or mentorship. Check out some of my JavaScript and how I triggered it in storyline to gather participant names and emails below. Thanks to xAPI, I can collect detailed information without a Learning Management System.
Learning Record Store: I used Veracity Learning as my LRS. Here, I will receive the information gathered in Storyline to be able to assess the effectiveness of the experience. Some data I would collect would be the number of times a wrong answer is chosen, how often a mentor button was used, and the duration a learner spent on question slides. This will help me assess which learners were rushing and/or struggling during the experience. It can also help reveal which parts of the experience were unclear in a trial run, so I can re-iterate my design during development.
Alternative Evaluation: Alternative methods of evaluation would be to include quick surveys for CNA's when they clock out to evaluate whether or not working with residents with dementia has negatively impacted their job satisfaction and productivity. In addition, staff could report when medication was used as a last resort to assist residents with dementia, as the techniques in the experience should limit this practice when applied. Finally, analysis of which staff member interactions result in negative interactions and/or the use of medication would help identify which staff members need follow-up remediation in the form in-person mentoring and/or what aspects of the module could be improved to address weaknesses identified in the analysis.
Assessing ROI: The company is trying to decrease negative interactions to reduce turnover of quality CNA's, who complete training programs under a strict deadline and often aren't prepared to care for dementia residents, leading to stress and burn-out. This training module will be a cost effective way to duplicate stressful situations in a safe environment and improve the training program while minimizing the cost of instructors and time in the in-person program. By collecting data regarding which CNA's struggle inside the learning experience, the facility can target individuals for remediation and additional support, with the end goal being to foster better working environments and reduce turn-over.
Gamified Training
Audience: A game-based review of phishing techniques for companies looking to test employees on fraudulent emails.
Features: This project features my ability to utilize the tools in Rise to create job-aids and e-learning experiences that are based more on facts and knowledge than soft skills. This project also showcases my ability to take complex or technical information, such as the details on nutrition, and reframe it to be more accessible.
What I Would Add or Change: I would like to add an "FAQ" page about the vegan diet as well as an infographic for new vegans to reference, showing the amount of protein in plant-based foods.
Scenario-Based Learning
Audience: New and seasoned CNA's working with residents who suffer from dementia.
Tools Used: Articulate Storyline, Canva, xAPI and JavaScript
Features: This projects features my use of Vyond to create interactive content, including looping backgrounds as well as my ability to execute JavaScript through triggers in Storyline.
What I Would Add or Change: I would have loved to have added more branching to the point that the CNA had to leave the resident alone and not complete their task in a worst-case scenario.
Interactive Screencast
Audience: This would be featured in a module for entrepreneurs who want to utilize Google Analytics for their email campaigns, but aren't familiar with data and analytics. For this training, I simplified the language and the details given in the Google-issued training to make it easier for my audience to understand and use. I also focused on a specific task, tracking email traffic, to simplify this for an audience that needs short, specific steps.
Extending the Module: This module could be extended as part of an introduction to analytics course for business owners who need small-scale analytics applications or for students. To extend the module, I would provide more videos, scenarios, and guides for identified objectives and a sandbox for learners to safely test application of these skills inside a mock of the platform.
Technology Used: I used AI speech to text technology as well as animations in Vyond. I also created the projector screen background using Figma by Adobe, designing it to the specific ratio of the tutorial video. I used Quicktime on Mac Os to record my screen demo of Google Analytics, embedding it on the custom image background inside of Vyond. Finally, I used Captivate to create an interactive video with buttons to pause the video for each step.
Job Aide: Utilizing a QR Code generator and Canva, I designed a job aide to quickly create new email campaign URL's matching the style of the demo.
Module for E-Learning
Audience: This is one module intended for an e-learning curriculum introducing a non-technical audience to IT careers, such as a cloud infrastructure technician. Because the audience has no prior experience or knowledge in the field of IT, it was important to use examples, analogies, and images totranslate these extremely technical concepts into relatable scenarios and give learners a strong foundation on which to build their knowledge. The objective is for learners to build a strong knowlege of each concept before applying that knowledge in the modules to follow.
Format and Curriculum Placement: This would be an e-learning module followed by more modules extending the learners' knowledge into cloud infrastructure scenarios regarding whether it's in a business's best interest to scale up or out. This module includes a video, interactive activity for self assessment, and a final question to test learner knowledge before moving to the next module.
Video Best Practices: Each slide in the video remains on screen for no more than 20 seconds as learners stay engaged in screen for typically 15-30 seconds. To enhance engagement, I also used a mix of images, video, and animations of slide elements, being careful to only include dynamic movement that supported the content rather than distracting from it. Starting a presentation with a human face has been proven to increase engagement, which was a driving factor behind using Synthesia to publish the video.
Software Applications: I utilized Synthesia to publish the video. I chose this in interest of time, as it was easy and efficient to test out different iterations of the script and time the other media to the script. I also created my own video using Canva, to support my specific analogy. Finally, I used Figma by Adobe to create specific images to illustrate some of the concept definitions.
ILT/vILT
Description: This is a training which can be held in-person or virtually. The topic is handling sales objections over the phone.
Audience: This is an onboarding training for a new sales team and a company that experiences high turn-over rates.
Best Practices: In this training, I engage the learners throughout, with polls, surveys, social learning, and scenario-based practice. Notice how in the scenario practice, learners have support through hints and explanation of each choice. As per best practices in vILT, learners are asked to engage every 4 minutes and slides are being added to remind learners of the importance of the training with data.
Job Aide and Process: While developing this training, I placed emphasis on the skills of clarifying and acknowledging, objections as well as using the feel/felt/found model of proposing solutions. I also designed a job aide which allows participants with sentence frames and details about the company. This way, new salespeople can handle objections with confidence before they've become fluent in all of the content (which will come with experience). Finally, the job aide will be designed to collect information from salespeople about new objections. By collecting feedback, we can use specific examples in future trainings and continue to grow as a salesteam, sharing and supporting one another.
Differentiation and Assessment: There are built-in options for assessing learner progress and differentiating for onboarding salespeople as well. For example, learners will take a poll after the first scenario and the faciliator can decide whether to move on or discuss and offer another supported scenario before building onto the technique of handling sales objections.
A Case for Ongoing Training: Including a mix of new and experienced salespeople in this training can help foster a collaborative and supportive culture within the sales team. By encouraging team members to learn from each other and work together to overcome objections, we can create a more cohesive and effective sales organization. It also provides experienced salespeople an opportunity to continue to develop and perfect their skills. Collecting feedback via the job aide as to what kinds of objections the sales team is experiencing will help us add to the training and let it grow with learners and their experiences.
Differentiation for Experienced Learners: This is meant as an onboarding training, but could easily be differentiated so salespeople could take it again and build their skills. To do this, I would offer a differientiated student guide that dives deeper into certain topics, like the mirror technique, and asks more experienced learners to share with the new recruits.
Technologies Used: Google Slides, Vevox, Zoom, ChatGPT
Facilitator Guide: In the facilitator guide, trainers will have everything they need to rehearse and run the session, including script, facilitation notes, notes on differentiation and assessing learners, and tutorials for related technology.
What's Coming: As I finish this portfolio piece, you can expect to see videos implemented for examples using Lectora, scenarios for social learning utilizing ChatGPT prompts, and a final assessment of learner knowledge to end the session.
Participant Guide: The participant guide will feature questions for reflection, references for guided practice, and an index of "quick links" so learners can jump between slides and activities as needed.
Testimonials
Yarn Learning
Services: I offer contract work as a part of , LLC. I would love to help you with any projects that feature converting ILT courses to e-learning, developing scenario-based learning modules (especially for sales and/or customer service training), or scenario-based software training.
Educator
Role Summary: In this role, I developed original curriculum with dated textbooks based on social learning, project-based learning, and modular learning. I also administered presentations, led discussions, maintainted data analysis, and facilitated one-on-one and small group sessions. In addition, I led sessions on standards alignment and trainings on cloud-based software, LMS implmentation, and video creation.
Skills Summary: Curriculum development, Lesson Plan Writing, Objectives Alignment, Formative/Summmative Assessment Creation, Data Analysis, Technical Writing, Adult Learning Theory, Kirkpatrick's Model of Evaluation, Video and Audio Creation, Visual Design/Visual Aids, Communication, Collaboration.
