OPWL 537: Instructional Design

Designing interactive and engaging learning materials for Bukit Elephant Park's multi-national guests

I. Background

The primary goal of OPWL 537 is to create evidence and theory-based learning experiences for real-world clients while working within a group setting. I was fortunate enough to work with Bukit Elephant Park, an elephant sanctuary in Phuket, Thailand, home to six Asian elephants (as of early 2023) and their caretakers, called mahouts. This park is unique in all the best ways- its primary goal is to provide a safe refuge to previously abused elephants that have either worked in the logging or tourism industry (or sometimes both). Guests are invited to learn more about the elephant's stories and personalities through guided tours and interactions with the elephants through feeding and observation. Due to the strong concern about maintaining an ethical environment for the elephants, guests are not permitted to ride or bathe with the elephants. As this is a common practice among other elephant parks in Thailand, this rule can sometimes shock guests.

Image of Bukit Elephant Park, posted with permission

II. Needs Assessment and Analysis

Needs Assessment

Upon meeting with Fern, the marketing manager, our primary point of contact (POC), and the subject matter expert (SME) from the park, we understood the current performance problem surrounded guest safety. The park sees around 40 to 70 guests per day, primarily Thai locals and international travelers from China, Russia, and the UK. With such an eclectic grouping comes cultural differences that can affect guests' understanding of the park rules.

Bukit Elephant Park needed our assistance in creating learning materials that can adequately inform learners of various cultures that speak a multitude of different languages and are of different age groups (from small children to older adults) in a way that would not be perceived as "rude," according to Thai culture.

To begin both a systemic and systematic process, our group conducted four different types of analysis:

Training requirement analysis,
Learner analysis (including both guests and staff),
Environmental analysis and a
Task analysis.

Please use the drop-down menus below for an overview of each type of conducted analysis.

Training Requirement Analysis (TRA)

Through semi-structured interviews with our POC, Fern, we identified the knowledge, skills, and abilities that park staff and guests need to achieve the desired outcome: a safe and enjoyable tour experience.

The staff of Bukit Elephant Park has noticed that some guests lack situational knowledge, which could result in a serious accident. In addition, some guests, intentionally or unintentionally, do not listen to the guides and mahouts once they interact with the elephants. One particularly prevalent group consists of guests who want to take pictures and videos to post on their social media pages. Should a guest find themselves acting in a way that the elephant does not like (an action as simple as standing on the wrong side of one particular elephant), they can quickly find themselves in a very dangerous situation. Because the park prides itself on ethical practices, typical devices used to correct elephant behavior, called billhooks, are not carried by any staff members.

Throughout the tour, guests are provided various instructions by the tour guides and mahouts. Unfortunately, due to the park's limited budget, sometimes there is only one tour guide for 30+ people. Not wanting to scare the elephants, guides cannot raise their voices or carry microphones to loudly correct guests' behaviors outside. When multiple guests behave poorly, guides do not know how to correct their actions appropriately. Furthermore, because of the intricacies of Thai culture, mahouts do not feel comfortable correcting guests.

After conducting this TRA, it became apparent that learning materials should target guests' knowledge and attitudes, along with staff knowledge and skills.

Guest and Staff Learner Analysis (LA)

Guests:

Guests fall into three categories:

Category #1: Guests that can communicate and/or understand English, resulting in easy information processing and instruction recognition.
Category #2: Guests that experience language barriers and/or limited communication, resulting in limited or delayed information processing, with pattern recognition and non-verbal cues required to process information and instruction.
Category #3: Guests that arrive with small children, resulting in limited information processing of children and parents and limited instruction recognition.

Staff:

As English is not the guides' first language, clear communication can be a challenge, especially when considering the challenges previously mentioned, such as the environment where corrective instruction needs to occur. Language barriers are even more extensive for mahouts, as neither English nor Thai is any mahouts' native language, excluding the "head mahout" who does speak Thai and is often an on-the-spot translator for all other mahouts if they need to discuss guest behavior with the tour guides. Culturally, neither guides nor mahouts feel comfortable correcting guests, as they take pride in being accommodating and never want to seem rude to guests. In Thai culture, direct confrontation is frowned upon.

Environmental Analysis

This park is located in a semi-remote jungle. One space is used as a lobby where guests enter and wait for their tours to begin. Within this lobby, guests are provided with a tea service and are asked to watch an introductory video on the park. The rest of the guest experience is conducted outside, where guests stop at predetermined "stations" to meet the elephants. Guests are behind a wooden fence or out in the open with elephants, depending on the station. For the majority of the tour, guests walk from station to station. Stations are determined by open, thatched roof huts.

Pictures of the lobby, stations/huts, and feeding area are posted below, with permission from the park.

Task Analysis

After we completed each of the three previous types of analysis, two learning goals, using Blooms Taxonomy, were created:

Given that appropriate resources are accessible within the park, guests will follow all safety protocols at all times.

Given access to easy-to-use resources, mahouts and guides will be able to effectively communicate to guests when they behave improperly.

Four initial solutions were also created:

A self-paced animated training via a video and accompanying onsite training by a tour guide.
Multiple self-paced job aids via posters posted at each station.
Structured on-the-job training for mahouts in the form of small, easy-to-carry color-coded cards that they could raise if guests were behaving inappropriately (for example, they would hold up a red card if a guest was behaving incorrectly or a green card to indicate the elephant was comfortable with the guest) and guides in the form of scripts to use both before and during tours.
Self-paced learning in the form of a Pokémon-style card game to teach younger learners how to best interact with each elephant.

The need to be flexible: An important lesson learned

Even though we planned to create these four learning materials, after conveying this idea to our client, it was clear we needed to pivot away from the color-coded cards and the scripts.

Our client felt that introducing these items would stress the mahouts and guides too much. Specifically, she felt the mahouts would find the color-coded cards too rude to use and that they would refuse to use them. Fern additionally thought the script would be too much work for the guides to memorize and would take away from the enjoyable experience she wanted guests to have, as, ideally, the tour guides' only job should be to share the elephant's stories and direct guests from station to station.

Our primary goal was to create learning materials that would be useful and impactful, so we agreed to make a few changes and ultimately decided to exclude these items from our deliverables, concentrating instead on the animated video, station posters, and card game with instructions.

III. Unconventional Lesson Planning

Compared to other OPWL 537 class projects, ours was a bit unique. We did not create a traditional lesson plan for staff members but instead listened to our client's needs and worked on developing specific learning objects for guests to help meet performance goals. Rather than a lesson plan, we created a facilitation plan covering each learner experience, the facilitation and learner activities, and the methods (theories) and materials used to create each object.

Here is an abbreviated version of this facilitation plan.

IV. Final Client Deliverables

Pokémon-style cards

Creator: Alexis Bolick

*Please click the image to see all 19 cards in a new window

Tools used: Adobe Photoshop, Shutterstock

Card game instructions

Creator: Adam Minahan

*Please click the image to see this poster enlarged in a new window

Tools used: Canva

Animated video

Creators: Visuals - Adam Minahan; Script/Voiceover recording - Sam Wilson

*Please click the red start button to play this video; you can enlarge it within this page

Tools used: Vyond, Camtasia, Google Docs, Audacity

Station posters

Creator: Claudia Achilles

*Please click the image to see all ten posters in a new window

Tools used: Canva

Brief description:

This game consists of 19 cards I made using Adobe Photoshop, including six elephant personality cards containing information on elephant's likes/dislikes, ten action cards (both positive and negative actions), and three reward cards. This game is intended to take players no more than ten minutes to teach guests the "do's and don'ts" of how to interact with each elephant.

Brief description:

These instructions will be presented with the aforementioned card game. There is an assumption that a parent will be with younger guests to help them interpret the game rules; however, we have written the rules in a way that most learners should easily understand without parental guidance.

Brief description:

This four-minute video will play in the lobby while guests wait for their tour to start. Additionally, we advised the client to share this video with guests once they reserve their tours online. This video covers the basic safety instructions that guests should follow during the tours, with emphasis on listening to tour guides and mahouts to have the best experience possible.

Brief description:

These posters will be positioned at the respective station to serve as a reminder to guides to mention each safety concern to guests, as well as a reminder to guests on each elephant's specific likes/dislikes. If learners had previously looked at the Pokémon-style card game, this would be a reinforcement. However, if not, this is meant to reach any learners the cards did not.

V. Reflections

Taking OPWL 537 and working with Bukit Elephant Park has been an incredible experience. It has made me a stronger Instructional Designer, as I am confident all decisions made were both theory-backed and can be helpful in decreasing the performance gap related to improving guest safety. Along the way, I have learned soft and technical skills, as I am now more familiar with Thai culture, the challenges of creating instructional material, and Adobe Photoshop!

We, as a group, also found the experience of needing to alter learning material based on the SME preference to be incredibly valuable. Once we learned that our originally intended project deliverables would not work well culturally, we all were happy to immediately pivot and creatively collaborate on a deliverable that the client would actually use. Having this skill of flexibility will be a key contributor to creating relevant and meaningful material as we all continue with our individual professions.

Page updated

Report abuse