Instructional design
Writing effective scenario questions
Want to increase the quality of your assessment questions? Think stories!
Scenario-based evaluation questions help the learner to really think about the content, not just regurgitate facts or data. Check out this easy plan for constructing good scenario questions:
Hendrich’s ABCD Model for Constructing Effective Scenario Questions
· Actor/Audience – Who is in the situation? Who is involved?
· Behavior – What situation are they in? What are they trying to or unable to do?
· Condition – Under what circumstances or context is the actor behaving or hoping to behave?
· Dilemma/Decision – What decision must the actor make? What dilemma is s/he facing?
Examples of ABCD Question Stems
Below are some example questions which include Actor(s)/Audience (A), Behavior (B), Condition (C), and Dilemma/Decision(D). Note that the order of presentation of each component is not important.
- “Dr. Chang is considering prescribing a blood pressure medication for Jim, who has a comorbid liver disorder. What class of medications is Dr. Chang likely to choose?“
- “Meryl stopped taking her antidepressant, because she did not like the sexual side effects. What class of medications was Meryl likely taking?“
- “Ernesto has not found any success with two different SSRIs and is worried that he’ll never find relief. What might Dr. Cerilski tell him?“
Now it’s your turn…try writing an ABCD scenario question today!
Stayin’ Alive is savin’ lives?
Old Song Finds a New Purpose
In the Offbeat department, I am inspired by a disco song’s new-found purpose—saving lives:
Under most circumstances, it’s best to keep the beat of the Bee Gees song “Stayin’ Alive” out of your head, but heart specialists have come up with one good reason to remember: It could save someone’s life.
Turns out the 1977 disco hit has 103 beats per minute, a perfect number to maintain — and retain — the best rhythm for performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR.
A small study by University of Illinois College of Medicine researchers in Peoria has found that 10 doctors and five medical students who listened to the “Saturday Night Fever” tune while practicing CPR not only performed perfectly, they remembered the technique five weeks later. See the rest of the story at: http://blogs.usatoday.com/betterlife/
Shake your head if you want; it’s just plain cool to see that the BeeGees served a higher purpose after all.
How does the BeeGees’ CPR thing relate to leadership and training?
Here’s what this has to do with leadership and training. As leaders and trainers, we must find a way to tie new concepts to that which is familiar. Everyone knows the song. Not everyone knows how fast to compress when doing CPR. Add Barry Gibb and POOF, you can make a decent attempt at saving a life. Does it get more magical than that?
Ah – Ah – Ah – Ah…
Susan Hendrich
Free Microsoft eLearning Development Tool
Free Microsoft eLearning Development Tool
Microsoft has rolled out a FREE tool called LCDS. LCDS is an eLearning development tool that Microsoft is using to develop their multimedia driven eLearning. It can output to Flash, SilverLight, SCORM, HTML and more…
FREE DOWNLOAD: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/tools/lcds/default.mspx
About LCDS from Microsoft:
The Learning Content Development System, or LCDS, is a forms-based tool that anyone can use to create e-learning content. By using the LCDS, you can:
• Author rich, interactive content by completing the easy-to-use LCDS forms
• Preview your course at any stage of development
• Set up a course structure that you can easily rearrange at any time
Learning styles
Looking for information on learning style inventories?
After years of facilitating learning styles workshops, I offer you the following perspectives/ideas:
1. The Learning Styles Online inventory is good. The “Learning and techniques” section that they provide as feedback for the quiz results is solid, and the detailed combinations of style results are powerful.
2. The Hay Group has developed the robust “Kolb Learning Style Inventory,” based on David Kolb’s ground-breaking thinking, doing, experiencing, reflecting. The inventory and detailed individual and group feedback reports cost $15.00 per participant. This inventory is empirically validated and is widely used among corporate training groups. Check out the PowerPoint pdf they have on their information page.
3. A free quiz offered by AES does a very nice job of targeting participants’ learning styles and offering concrete action steps to help optimize learning.
4. VARK (Visual, Aural, Read/Write, Kinesthetic) is an often-used system that provides good feedback and tangible recommendations. A very detailed and more instructive feedback report is available for $28/participant. Whether you use VARK or not, the FAQ page (http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=faq) on the vark-learn site has some useful answers to common questions your participants may be asking.
One suggestion, regardless of the inventory you choose…
“Map out” participants’ results on a chart the whole class can see. People love to compare their own learning styles to that of their peers. This referential data provdes an answer to the eternal “how do I fit in to this human puzzle?” question. I have used PowerPoint slides to map out peoples scores as data points. You also can take a sheet of newsprint and draw a grid to map out scores using participants’ initials. It can be instructive for trainers to see any trends that a particular group might demonstrate.
I would be delighted to visit with you further about learning styles if you think it might be useful. Feel free to contact me at any time to discuss.
Take care, and happy learning!
Susan Hendrich
Susan E. Hendrich 