Process

I created the learning experience by defining the learning outcome and objectives, designing and organizing the experience, creating a text storyboard in Twine, creating visual mockups with Adobe Illustrator, and developing an interactive prototype. After receiving and incorporating feedback on the interactive prototype, I developed the end product in Articulate Storyline 360.

Learning Outcome and Objectives

To determine my learning objectives, I relied on Bloom’s taxonomy. First, I defined my terminal learning objective: After learning about intercultural differences relevant to workplace collaboration, managers will apply this knowledge to make effective and interculturally empathetic decisions in the workplace.

Then, after reviewing literature on cultural differences that affect collaboration, I defined three enabling objectives to guide my organization and the creation of scenarios: After learning about intercultural differences relevant to workplace collaboration, instructors will be able to make decisions that display knowledge of and empathy towards 1) monochronic and polychronic orientations to time, 2) low and high power distance perspectives, and 3) individualist and collectivist perspectives.

Design and Organization

I reviewed literature on cultural differences relevant to workplace collaboration and then selected and compiled information that addressed my learning objectives. I relied on sources such as the articles “From Intercultural Awareness to Intercultural Empathy” by Honglin Zhu (2011) and “Monochronic vs. Polychonic Cultures: What are the Differences?” by VP Legacies.

I decided to organize the learning experience as a semi-branching scenario. Learners would be immediately dropped into a real-life context, where they have just become branch manager for a fictional soft drinks company. During the experience, they would go through three different scenarios, each corresponding to one of the target cultural differences. I chose a story-based scenario approach because it allows learners to learn by doing. Information is presented within the context of each scenario and in response to actions taken by the learner — either as advice from the previous branch manager following a mistake or in the form of real-life consequences to decisions made by the learner. This approach is more engaging than traditional “information dump” approaches, which don’t provide learners with any “mental hooks” to back the content.

In each of the three scenarios, learners would first be faced with a situation in which they were provided with two seemingly reasonable yet incorrect options (e.g., one option reflecting an individualist mindset and one reflecting a collectivist mindset). Depending on which option they choose, they would then receive feedback in the form of a real-life consequence and an option to find out “What happened?” from the previous branch manager. The purpose of this first decision point would be to experience and learn through common mistakes so that the new information is then presented within a meaningful context.

After learning about the target cultural difference from the previous manager, they would be faced with another similar situation where they are encouraged to apply their new knowledge and intercultural empathy to find a solution that addresses the needs of employees from all cultural backgrounds. This time, there would be four options, and they could not move forward until they selected the correct one. Each option would again be accompanied by feedback in the form of a real-life consequence. The purpose of the second decision point would be to practice applying their knowledge to make empathetic decisions in the workplace. This structure would be repeated for each of the three cultural topics.