Course Design Spotlights highlight innovative projects that members of the Teaching and Learning team work on with DCE faculty through the Teach Partnership program. This spotlight highlights a partnership with Perkins School for the Blind to design a branching scenario that allows learners to make choices and experience possible consequences in a low-stakes environment.
The Challenge
The subject matter experts at Perkins School for the Blind wanted learners in their Inclusive Talent Acquisition course to experience the challenge and discomfort of not knowing how best to act in the context of interviewing a visually impaired job candidate. They also wanted to give them a glimpse into what a visually impaired candidate might be thinking or feeling throughout the interview process. The goal of the experience was for learners to see that even well-intended interviewers can say and do things that alienate candidates, and to give learners the chance to practice specific interviewing techniques that they could use in the future. An automated online experience would let learners experience the scenario without burdening their visually impaired peers or job candidates with educating them.
The Design
To meet the goals outlined above, course designers created a carefully planned out branching scenario to allow learners to individually participate in a role-playing experience. Using stylishly drawn illustrations, learners act as a hiring manager interviewing a well-qualified visually impaired candidate for a customer service telephone representative position. Once the scene is set graphically, learners must make several choices about how to interview and interact with the candidate. Each choice leads the learner down a unique path, with illustrations and new choices dependent on earlier answers.
The options for the choices are based on real experiences of visually impaired job applicants and are all decisions that a well-meaning interviewer might make. The drawings allow the learner to experience the body language and internal thoughts of the interviewee in response to decisions and to see the ultimate consequences of the choices. Learners are invited to try the scenario multiple times to experience the results of different choices. A short reflection assignment at the end allows for learners to consider their own experiences through the lens of the scenario.
The Partnership
The course designer and visual artist worked together with a subject matter expert to develop the script, characters, and visual style. Each branching question corresponded to specific learning objectives created for the scenario. Focus group participants experienced and commented on a prototype version to help refine the design. The prototype was created with non-final script and sketches using Qualtrics to implement branching. The final version is implemented as a SCORM object and can be embedded into a Canvas page.
Interested?
Book a consultation with a course designer to see if a branching scenario is a good idea for your course and if it’s a match, apply for a Design Partnership. Most branching scenarios require a minimum of 3 months to design and produce, so interested candidates should apply a minimum of one semester before the scenario would be used in their course.
The Finished Product
View the Branching Scenario in your browser