Maya's SMART Goal Challenge
This module follows Maya, a museum educator designing an educational activity for an upcoming hieroglyphics exhibit. Her task is to use the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timebound) goal framework to articulate the key characteristics of students’ participation that she aims to facilitate during the activity.
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Audience - Educators, Educational Designers
Responsibilities - Instructional Design, Visual Design, eLearning Development, Storyboarding, Prototyping
Tools used - Articulate Storyline 360, Midjourney, Adobe Photoshop, Google Docs, Canvas LMS
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The Performance Need
In the undergraduate courses that I teach, my students extensively study theories of teaching and learning. However, students and practitioners alike often struggle to effectively translate their educational expertise into practical design skills (e.g., lesson planning, activity design, etc.).
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Despite their strong conceptual understandings, educators often produce educational designs that misalign with their desired impact. This highlights the performance need for educators to derive strong impact goals to guide the design process.
The Learning Solution
My solution was an interactive eLearning module allowing my students to craft participatory goals alongside Maya, a museum educator. Throughout the module, learners sequentially apply each element of the SMART goal framework to translate their theoretical knowledge and context-specific information into a powerful educational impact goal to inform Maya's educational design.
Process
Text-based Storyboard and Visual Mockup
Given the fairly straightforward learning objective, I opted out from an action-mapping approach and jumped straight into a text-based storyboard to structure the module and draft Maya's dialogue.
Meanwhile, I used Midjourney to develop the module's graphic illustrations. I used this for the module's background illustrations and to experiment with Maya's character design.
Once I settled on a character design that I liked, I used Midjourney's image variation parameters to capture the range of emotional expressions that I wanted Maya to exhibit. I then used Photoshop to make final edits (e.g., adjusting color levels, converting to transparent backgrounds, correcting for inconsistencies or AI weirdness).
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From here, I developed a visual mockup using Figma.
Design Features
Authentic scenario-based experience - To encourage transfer, I sought to provide a vivid descriptive and visual account of the setting. This allows learners to practice using the SMART goal framework within the unique constraints of a particular context of application.
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Engaging Storytelling - I opted for a protagonist-driven, dialogue-based narrative format that emulates real-world collaboration. Maya’s conversational dialogue and personable character design make her an engaging protagonist that learners can identify with. Throughout the module, Maya’s demeanor changes, evoking an emotional response as learners encounter the consequences of their decisions.
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Interactive elements - Learners interact with Maya by selecting phrases that best reflect a given element of the SMART goal framework. Additionally, to gain learners' attention at the start of the module, I incorporate the following:
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click-to-reveal interactions for learners to stimulate recall of prior knowledge, and
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a click-and-drag interaction to assess learners' understanding of prior concepts in relation to the module's learning objective.
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