The design of this course takes the ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Develop, Implementation, and Evaluation) approach to course design to allow for sign off from stakeholders at key moments in the design stage. The Development phase incorporates aspects of Michael Allenʼs version of ADDIE, SAM, to allow for an iterative approach. In this case, I acted as the subject matter expert on active listening and empathy skills and undertook further research regarding effective strategies in these areas of skill. Learning aims and outcomes were matched against Bloom's Taxonomy.

I then created a wireframe for the course as a whole, and created a screen plan and storyboard for the module on active listening and empathy techniques. Using ChatGPT as a co-pilot, I drafted scripts for the scenario-based aspects of the active listening and empathy module, including sample scenario-based assessment questions. These scenarios were important because they helped to practise situations relevant to their role, leading to better engagement with the course materials. I then created a visual prototype, followed by the finished module on Active Listening and Empathy skills in Articulate Storyline 360. This authoring tool was chosen to allow for maximum potential to build interactive elements into the course.

I wanted the project to engage learners through visual design, and I felt strongly that original character creation would help with this, to avoid early switch off from learners who can feel fatigued if presented with the same stock characters over and over within their training. Therefore, I used AI image generators in Flora.ai to create characters with a cartoon feel to fit in with the fun image of The Velvet Bean brand. I iterated my prompts in order to avoid gender biases as far as possible and provided a reference for future image generation when I found a style that I felt would work. When characters needed to be combined in different settings, Nanobanana was prompted to effect this.

After publishing this elearning course, I received initial feedback indicating that the learner flow and instructional design plan (including the wireframe, screenplan and storyboard) made logical sense in relation to the performance problem and learning aims identified. The next steps would involve running a pilot to gain further feedback from key stakeholders and iterate the design before publishing to a wider cohort.

It is clear that AI can be a powerful tool, particularly in the creation of original characters to foster further engagement in training materials. One of the most powerful uses of AI in generation of these images is through specific prompting to allow for more original, diverse and inclusive characters to be used in training materials, however prompts have to be crafted carefully to avoid inherent AI racial and gender biases. 

The last phase of the ADDIE model, detailed evaluation, is beyond the scope of this project, but it is a crucial, sometimes neglected aspect of training. I would like to apply the Kirkpatrick Model and the four levels of Evaluation: Reaction, Learning, Behaviour, Results, to see how the course could be further iterated and to plan course materials with this evaluation model in mind from the start.