Effective Communication: De-escalating a Problem

This concept project was created to solve a soft-skills shortfall among new teachers due to inexperience. New teachers are prepared to meet the needs of students, however, may not posses the experience required to communicate with the parents/guardians.

Audience: New Teachers

Responsibilities: Instructional Design, eLearning Design, Graphic Design

Tools: Jamboard, Mindmeister, PowerPoint, Google Docs, Articulate Storyline

The Problem

Conceptually, the school district had a rating of 60% on a Survey sent out to parents/guardians for communication to resolve issues. Through analysis, there had been a reduction in veteran teachers and an influx of first year teachers in the same year. The primary comments on the survey indicated the parents/guardians did not have a positive relationship with their child's teacher. Since new teacher college training focused on instruction, it did not provide the soft-skills necessary to communicate with parents and keep them satisfied. Further impacting the school district was a law that was passed that affected public school funding. Parents, if unsatisfied with public education, could use vouchers towards private schools, diverting significant funds from the school district. As a result, in service training was recommended to increase the survey rating for communication to resolve issues to 80%.

The Solution

Recognizing there was a skill gap for soft-skills and insufficient experience for first year teachers, a scenario based training would provide immediate results. Since there are hundreds of schools in a very large school district, and limited time and lack of substitute teachers, an eLearning training made the most sense. Due to the limited time teachers have outside of instruction, short eLearning scenarios would provide an on-going experiential training.

My Process

I began with the ADDIE process as my foundation and worked through various iterations of the project. Although this was a concept project, I followed the concepts presented in Cathy Moore's book, Map It". I created an Action Map, followed by a training blueprint ,which I transformed into a text based storyboard. Next, I developed the design elements and created a prototype on Articulate Storyline. I incorporated multiple iterations of feedback from the IDOL community and first year teachers before producing the final product.

Action Mapping

I used Mindmeister to create an action map. Conceptually, this would have resulted from meeting with the SME's to outline the business objective and the positive and negative actions to support the business goal.

Training Blueprint

I created a training blueprint to develop scenarios that supported the objectives of the course.

Text Based Storyboard

Once I mapped out the learning objectives, I created a realistic scenario based learning environment so the learner could practice the skills. The learner is presented with a problem and is taken through a situation with a series of questions to answer to resolve the problem. A de-escalation meter helps the learner to visually monitor their progress. The learner is provided a mentor to help with the decision making and is also provided feedback for the correct and incorrect responses. In addition, the learner is presented with possible outcomes for the decisions made.

Visual Mockups

Since this was a concept project, I chose a style guide, ensuring consistency throughout the project. I created slide masters for the question and feedback formats, and I used characters from Articulate Storyline. There were three main backgrounds that were similar in style and color scheme. I adjusted the backgrounds to ensure the user was focused on the text, and used minimal background objects, so as not to distract the user from the main purpose of the training.

Experience the Full Project

I enlisted several testers before completing development of the project. Testers were asked to review the design, transitions, content, functionality, usability and interactions. Once I reviewed and implemented the feedback, I published the project. It was an incredible learning experience in both Instructional Design and Articulate Storyline.

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