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Featured Project: How to Write Accessible Emails
Featured Project: How to Write Accessible Emails
Needs Analysis
Needs Analysis
Problem: I developed this mini-course for the iSpring Course Contest which had rules to include 12–20 slides, interactions, assets, and a quiz. I created a course about writing accessible emails because I’d recently received emails from several companies which were not accessible and wanted to solve this knowledge gap and improve performance.
Audience: Employees at companies who are beginners to digital accessibility
Tools: iSpring Suite, PowerPoint, and Canva
Learning Objectives
Learning Objectives
The presentation of learning objectives has been a hot topic in the industry. In Michael Allen’s Guide to e-Learning book, Allen states that “objectives are important for us as designers and attainable outcomes are valuable to learners, but listing such statements as these in bullet points at the start of a program is boring and ineffective…. Learners want to know in what way the material will be meaningful to them personally” (p. 136). Allen suggests one option is to immediately put the learner to work, and that’s exactly what I did!
Source: Allen, M. W. (2016). Michael Allen’s Guide to e‐Learning. DOI.
1. I first engaged the learners in an activity to identify inaccessible parts of an email. The resulting feedback showed people who were impacted by the inaccessibility and how they felt because of it. (The hot spot format was not accessible, so I used the traditional multiple choice format for accessibility).
View a larger email experience image.
2. I then demonstrated possible experiences of email recipients. This approach is intended to be relevant and relatable, thereby increasing learners’ empathy since “emotional stimuli enhance learning retention” (McGaugh, 2013).
Source: McGaugh, J.L. 2013. “Making Lasting Memories: Remembering the Significant,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110, Suppl 2: 10402–10407. Accessed online.
View a larger objectives image.
3. Finally I presented the learning objectives which were performance based in terms of what the learner would be able to do after completing the course. These were real-world tasks that learners could implement immediately when writing emails to colleagues or customers.
Content Planning & Development
Content Planning & Development
I used a backwards design approach to create an outline that aligned content, activities, and assessment to the learning objectives. On the Great British Bake Off, contestants strive to avoid “style over substance,” with their bakes, and I did the same thing with my planning course. I made sure that learning content took priority and was based on learning theories and principles to be effective. (I did not abandon style, though, and pride myself in still having a pleasing and consistent design aesthetic)! As a result, I determined that I did not need a bunch of fancy tools or videos—just screenshot images for instructional purposes and one audio file to demonstrate a screen reader voicing a long URL hyperlink.
I planned the course with with Universal Design for Learning principles in mind, along with Mayer’s Multimedia Principles. I considered cognitive load by separating complex content into digestible sections and simplifying the readability level with a casual, friendly tone. I alternated presenting information with activity "quizzes" to apply the skill.
Source: Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2016). E-Learning and the science of instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning. John Wiley & Sons.
Assessment Design
Assessment Design
I designed formative and summative assessments using the three accessible question types: multiple choice, multiple response, and essay. With Malcolm Knowles' Principles of Adult Learning in mind, I crafted the assessment questions in a practical scenario-based style so that Merrill's Five Principles of Instruction would be satisfied:
Planned the learning to be problem-centered and relevant to their job.
Activated prior knowledge with an initial pre-assessment.
Provided demonstration with step-by-step walkthroughs.
Designed practice activities for learners to apply concepts and receive feedback.
Encouraged integration of the learning by asking learners to send me an email.
Feedback included consistent characters with facial expressions corresponding to the result of learners’ actions along with text feedback that demonstrated how learners’ choices impacted the email recipients.
Iterative Development & Release
Iterative Development & Release
I followed an iterative process in planning, designing, developing, and testing the course. After the course development was complete and I had finished accessibility checks, I conducted an Alpha and Beta test with learners who met the audience demographic of being a beginner to digital accessibility. I monitored the learners' facial expressions during a think-aloud so I could ask clarifying questions about their experience and take notes on suggested improvements.
Some adjustments I made to the course based on the Alpha testing were:
Added a start button on the first slide for more intuitive navigation.
Re-phrased or rearranged a few sentences for clarity and accuracy.
Added brief instructions for how to review during a quiz.
Adjusted placement of text/images to indicate vertical scrolling within tabs.
Created an interactive call out for alt text on the email logo image.
After the Beta testing, I made these adjustments:
Removed "Passing Score" on quiz results to reduce confusion.
Removed "Review Quiz" buttons to reduce navigation confusion.
Added initial instructions for clarity with navigation within the player.
Revised some phrasing of content for logos and pathos.
Overall, learners in both the alpha and beta tests were able to successfully make the final email accessible!
Bilingual Toolbox E-Learning Project
Bilingual Toolbox E-Learning Project
Overview
Overview
This Bilingual Toolbox E-learning training was created to empower teachers at Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind (CSDB) to add bilingual instructional strategies to their educator "toolbox."
Audience: Faculty in the School for the Deaf
Tools: Articulate Storyline, Canva, Adobe Premiere Pro, Mind Meister, Articulate Rise
Responsibilities: Needs Analysis, Instructional Design & Development, Storyboarding, Evaluation Plan
Background
Background
A bilingual policy was passed at CSDB in 2022, and this E-Learning is in response to that — to equip teachers with bilingual strategies to implement in the classroom. Teachers' knowledge of bilingual strategies varied; therefore, the course was designed with a non-linear structure with choices for learning format.
Process
Process
I designed and developed this project with the following steps:
Established learning outcomes and goals.
Created a storyboard with learning activities and branching scenarios.
Designed the visual mockups and job aids.
Developed the interactive prototype for multiple rounds of feedback and revision from the Bilingual Professional Learning Community (PLC) team.
Scripted, recorded, and edited instructional video.
Finalized the project for publication.
Submitted forms and processes for evaluation of behavioral outcomes of learning.
Learning Goals
Learning Goals
The ultimate outcome of the training is for teachers to implement bilingual strategies in their instruction that result in student success and improved scores.
Make appropriate lesson plan decisions that consider the language learning development sequence with the BICS/CALP* framework .
Implement bilingual strategies based on Deaf students' language levels in American Sign Language (ASL) and English.
*BICS – Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills / CALP – Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency
Storyboarding
Storyboarding
I worked in Canva to develop a storyboard with text and images and to create the overall design aesthetic. Simplistic multiple choice questions evolved into complex branching scenarios which required more detailed advanced planning. I experimented to find the most efficient way to plan out each of the branching scenarios, including by hand, in Articulate Rise, and with Mind Meister.
MindMeister allowed me to plan for a true branching scenario with different paths based on answer correctness.
Job Aid & Video
Job Aid & Video
I created an infographic poster of the top 10 ASL/English bilingual strategies for teachers to refer to during and after the E-Learning course. The poster also served as a possible route of instruction or review for learners with more advanced knowledge of the strategies (as opposed to watching videos). Additionally, I created a diagram of the BICS/CALP quadrants with examples for Deaf students.
I collaborated with CSDB's ASL Specialist to modify a ChatGPT script for an instructional video about BICS/CALP which was translated into ASL. The custom diagram I designed was incorporated in the video using the Contiguity Principle. Volunteers from the Bilingual PLC team recorded the ASL translations in chunks, and I edited the video in Adobe Premiere Pro.
Bilingual Toolbox Infographic Job Aid.pdfInfographic Job Aid
BICS CALP.pdfBICS/CALP Diagram
Interactive Prototype
Interactive Prototype
During this iterative development phase of the Successive Approximation Model (SAM), I went through multiple rounds of designing and implementing the scenarios. From March to June, I met with the Bilingual PLC team every two weeks for feedback on what had been prototyped. I observed them interacting with the E-Learning course and made revisions to navigation for a better User Interface/User Experience (UI/UX). I set up variables and triggers in Storyline for learners to keep track of their progress and to ensure that they successfully finished each scenario before printing a custom completion certificate.
Examples of scenarios, flip cards, and lesson plan simulations.
Assessment
Assessment
In the E-Learning training scenarios, teachers are assessed on their application of bilingual strategies in the appropriate sequence. There is one scenario for each level: preschool, elementary, middle school, high school, and the transition program (Bridges to Life).
The Bilingual Toolbox course was created in Articulate Storyline and uses various assessment tools within scenarios and response activities. These built-in tools allow for designing creative, relevant scenarios that simulate tasks that teachers may encounter when planning and teaching lessons. The choices offered in these scenarios move beyond basic recall of definitions to higher level thinking on Bloom’s Taxonomy.
In order to receive a certificate of completion, teachers must arrive to the correct conclusion for each scenario. They have unlimited tries. Some scenarios allow teachers to go back to make corrections immediately after receiving negative feedback, while others are true branching scenarios that take teachers to the end before they can try again from the beginning.
Rubric.pdfEvaluation
Evaluation
As a part of the evaluation package, administrators will periodically review teachers’ lesson plans and observe their instruction to ensure bilingual strategies are being implemented well. This evaluates behavior changes at Level 3 of Kirkpatrick’s framework.
Administrators will provide feedback to teachers at set intervals after the training using a rubric, checklist, and observation form:
Before training – Teachers fill out a short self-reflection.
After 2 weeks – Evaluate bilingual strategies in lesson plans.
After 3 weeks – Teachers fill out a short self-reflection.
After 4 weeks – Observe bilingual strategies applied during instruction.
After 6 weeks – Evaluate lesson plans and observe in the classroom.
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