In our course for LRNT526, our group (Shelley Dougan, Wendy Grymaloski, Sandra Norum and I) has been asked to select a digital learning technology and to critically analyze it.
We looked at Branching Scenario Simulations.
Branching scenario simulations use features such as still images or graphics, video, sound, and special effects (Bell et al., 2008), to give learners the opportunities to make choices, reflect, adjust, and therefore construct their own knowledge. They are a “Choose your own adventure” style game where students get to explore the right and wrong answers in a safe environment.
Branching Scenario Simulations can be very engaging which makes them an effective tool for teaching in the right context and for the right audience. The downside is the time needed for instructional designers to create them. While H5P has a good interface for creating Branching Scenario Simulations, there is still significant amount of time required to create the videos, edit and finalize the videos, and plan the flow of the questions. There is also consideration needed on how long the project will last before needing to be updated. Maintaining a Branching Scenario Simulation may also be time consuming if many videos need to be updated to ensure a consistent look and feel. Its effectiveness will depend on how many students will see and benefit from it, relative to other teaching methods. This tech may need to be reserved for the more difficult to understand topics where students struggle and need more practice to reinforce the required learning.
Another consideration is equity. Since Branching Scenario Simulations include multiple forms of media such as images and video, it is important to consider your class and students. Have an appropriate representation of gender, ethnicity, and social and cultural norms for your teaching context so your students can relate. If not, you may find you lose a connection with your students as they become disengaged due to an unrealistic and unbalanced representation of the community, making the experience less authentic and less effective.
In conclusion, Branching Scenario Simulations can be very engaging and effective, but there might be better (less time consuming) ways to teach the content given the discipline and topic.
References
Bell, B. S., Kanar, A. M., & Kozlowski, S. W. J. (2008). Current issues and future directions in simulation-based training in North America. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 19(8), 1416–1434. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585190802200173
Featured Image: “green trees on green grass field during daytime photo” by Beth MacDonald from Unsplash.
June 2, 2021
Patrick, I hadn’t heard of Branching Scenarios before your group presented them and I thank you for the introduction. I can definitely see that they might be quite time consuming to build and wonder if there would be an argument made for building scenarios as open learning tools rather than for a specific class. Are the topics that lend themselves to branching scenarios such that they require specificity beyond what would be reasonable when designing for open use?
June 2, 2021
Thanks David. Yes, they are a fair amount of work, but can be very effective – so there is the trade-off.
H5P is creating a open source hub of previous work that will soon be available. The idea is that you would be able to browse their site (https://h5p.org/oer-hub-coming) for existing materials and use as is (loyalty free). Until then, you might have to create your own if that is something you want to include as part of your instructional materials. As of right now, and because of the work required, it is possible the time required to create the content is a deterrent for people to want to share their completed branching scenarios and other H5P content, especially if they have not been specifically compensated for this extra work.
However, Brame (2016) suggests that videos (and presumably branching scenarios too, since they are often reliant on video content) are more effective when the material is created for “these students in this class” (p. 4). With that in mind, perhaps using generic content for some topics may not apply. Brame (2016) suggests to get better engagement from students to at the very least attempt to relate the content to the current set of students taking the course to “contextualize the relevance for that particular class” (p. 4).
On a person note, I have found that for software and database design, some of the open resources present the topics from the author(s) opinions and it comes with their own bias into the material. As an instructor teaching a course, I often find it hard to find materials that agree with my own values and opinions, and I know many other instructors struggle with this too. I guess the only way to know for sure you are teaching the right material to your students is to create it yourself!
References:
Brame, C. J. (2016). Effective educational videos: Principles and guidelines for maximizing student learning from video content. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 15(4), es6.
June 3, 2021
Fantastic reply, Patrick! That’s exactly what I was wondering and what had been circulating in my mind. It feels like the specificity required to make branching scenarios impactful means using other people’s creations might not work as well and, as I infer from your reply, would result in reduced engagement. I guess some resources just take some extra time to create. Now we need some resources for how to convince schools to give faculty extra time to develop resources.
June 7, 2021
Hi Patrick,
I will be working on an H5P grant project in the coming weeks and need to do a little reading in preparation. In your research, did you find any comprehensive papers overviewing the technology, its best practices, and implications of design?
I am super excited to dig into this technology since its level of interactivity is a step up from stand VBL technology.
Cheers,
Jonathan