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What’s New
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
Photosynth – a reason to say, “Wow!”
New tool may transform the way we look at digital images
Photos – back then
I was just thinking about all the photos my family took during the 70’s, 80’s, and early 90’s. These printed photos (doubles, of course, because Happy Harry’s drugstore offered free doubles) sit in shoe boxes, stacked neatly in a closet. Despite my mother’s careful labeling with a felt-tip pen so that we’d “always remember,” not one of these photos has been viewed in the last 15 years. All that posing and smiling and say-cheesing at the beach and the school and the picnic, and all we’re left with is duplicate copies of fading faces in a closeted box. Hmnn.
Digital photos – an improvement
We all know how the availability of digital photography to the everyday citizen has changed our worlds. It seems everyone nowadays has their flickr set or ofoto album. But still (sorry for the pun), these images often just sit in our digital collections, even with our careful tagging and sorting.
Photosynth – a breakthrough
Fast forward a step further now, where Microsoft rolls out Photosynth. And get ready to say, “Wow” again. I thought about trying to distill this fascinating new tool into some witty script, but realized that the Photosynth picture says far more than just a thousand words… Check out this video, where Mr. Blaise Aguera y Arcas leads a dazzling demo of Photosynth, software that could transform the way we look at digital images. Using still photos culled from the Web, Photosynth builds breathtaking dreamscapes and lets us navigate them.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_demos_photosynth.html
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
Susan E. Hendrich 