Designing Effective Branching Scenarios for Corporate Training

| 2 Min Read

Branching scenarios are all about giving your learners the space to practise decision-making in a risk-free environment. By placing your learners in a role that encourages them to implement what they have learnt, they are able to understand the consequences of their actions and carry this understanding into similar situations that may occur in the real world. When designing branching scenarios for your learners, it is essential that you consider your company goals. What is the purpose of the learning, and what skills do you hope your learners will gain throughout the learning experience?

When designing corporate training, you must understand the company and its goals in order to create an effective learning program. Corporate training will follow a very different set of rules than that of a university course or a skill development course. In this article, we will look at how you can ensure your course and its branching scenarios are fit for corporate training.

 

 Ask questions 

The nature of branching scenarios is to encourage your learners to take their own path through the content, so you want to ensure that all your different paths lead to the desired result. To do this, begin by setting learning goals; what do you want your learners to achieve by the end of the training? What information do my learners need to absorb to develop desired skills?

Being specific here is crucial if you want your learning to be effective. Observing your learner's current skills and knowledge gaps will guide how you develop your branching scenarios from decision-making paths to the storyline.

 

Map it out

Much like anything you go to design, having a clear outline of what you are creating will keep you organised and on task. With branching scenarios, there are many decisions and consequences to consider that are easy to lose sight of when designing.

Having a map of your possible scenarios and what situations or decisions your learner may encounter through their branching scenarios will ensure smooth learning delivery. To do so, branch out different decision paths that your learner may take and then lead these to secondary paths and so on. This outline doesn't have to be your final decision but will give you a good idea of where you are heading. 

Taking this outline to your team to discuss the details will help you build realistic branching scenarios. Your Subject Matter Expert will help you create repercussions based on learner behaviour to ensure your branching scenarios are realistic to the corporate world.

 

Make a storyboard

You want your learners to be encapsulated by the learning, to feel as if their decisions make a difference. You should frame the activity with a story to give the decision context when developing branching scenarios. Without its surrounding context, the branching scenario becomes a series of choices that lack any relevance.

Corporate learners must understand how their learning ties into the real world. A storyboard allows you to build this context of a real-world problem that they may encounter while enabling you to visualise all your branches.  

 

Select an authoring tool 

The right eLearning authoring tool will either make or break your course. Before transforming this plan into a full-fledged course, you want to carefully consider what you have mapped out and what you hope to achieve. Ideally, your chosen authoring tool should include templates, themes, and external media that you can incorporate into your branching scenarios.

eLearning authoring tools are abundant, all offering something different or game-changing to your design process. Guroo.pro is an authoring tool made for designers for easy, effective learning design.

 

Test it out

The best way to ensure your branches fit seamlessly together and reach desired outcomes is to try the learning out for yourself. You could also have someone else work through it before launching the course. Keep an eye out for grammatical errors, glitches, and elements that may not fit, as well as any scenarios that may not link together naturally.

 

Whether you're designing training sessions or just-in-time learning, incorporating custom branching scenarios that fit your company's needs will lead to truly impactful learning. So, why not start today for free with guroo.pro?

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