Scenario writing is an important part of elearning for any instructional designer. But the important question is how to write a scenario.
Interactions are an important part of elearning. But scenarios are important because the learners connect to them.
A scenario makes the learner think. Its because it has role-playing in it. The learners make decisions depending upon the situation in the scenario, and learn whether it will have negative or positive outcomes. The learners learn through the course and feel more like a part of it.
It’s tough to write a good scenario.
It requires vivid imagination apart from knowledge of the content. This knowledge of the content can be gained when you have great communication with the subject matter expert. When you are writing a good scenario, a subject matter expert can be of a lot of help. You just need to pose correct questions to them. You will get a good understanding of the content from such experts. But one should incline to create stories to be a good elearning author.
There are some essential steps you need to follow to create a scenario story:
• What is the aim behind the scenario: This consists of understanding what you are trying to teach learners.
• When will the scenario story occur: It’s important to understand whether the scenario will introduce the learner to the course, or whether it will come when the course is about to finish. This will help you in getting a great understanding of the scenario’s objective.
• The place where the scenario is set: The job of an instructional designer is to understand what will be the environment of the scenario. So, for example, you can use a pizza shop when teaching learners how to divide a pizza into pieces. You must know what will be a part of this pizza shop.
• You also need to know the people in the scenario: You must be aware of the characters of the scenario. This will help you to write a good scenario story. For example, in a pizza shop, there will be a customer who is asking for 1 or 2 slices of a pizza. There will also be a shopkeeper selling the pizza and his assistant who will slice the pizza into slices.
• What will be the end of the scenario story: The scenario story can end positively with the learner himself providing the right solution. It can also end on a negative note when the user is taught a message about how things can go wrong when a bad decision is taken.
• How many questions will be there in the scenario: There can be questions in the scenario testing the user’s knowledge. For example in the pizza scenario, the user can be asked how much proportion do two slices of pizza form of the total in a 6-slice pizza.
You also need to decide what will be the voice in a story scenario. It can be first-person when any of the characters are talking or it can be a third person when the entire scenario is narrated. So, best of luck with scenario writing.