The expert advice emphasised the pivotal role of emotions and player self-expression in crafting interactive narrative, along with the importance of designing believable characters and meaningful choices. A comprehensive heuristics framework to craft ISL was developed based on the insights from this phase. Through iterative prototyping and reflection, the heuristics framework was evaluated and refined, and subsequently applied to the recrafting of a virtual patient for compassion training

While no statistically significant differences for narrative transportation were found, the results from the playthrough data and open-ended questions demonstrated that incorporating emotional depth into virtual patient design significantly impacted learner engagement and empathy. Participants exhibited more compassionate care when interacting with the recrafted virtual patient, showing highly improved decision-making to promote patient outcomes.

BEM helps us shift our focus from learning to performance. Instead of just making sure people know stuff, we ensure they can actually do stuff.

BEM breaks down performance into six key factors. These are split into two categories: environmental supports and individual attributes or behavioural repertory. By looking at these factors, we can figure out what’s holding performance back and how to fix it.

<h2><strong>Our top 5 tips for PowerPoint presentations summarised</strong></h2> <ol> <li><strong><em> </em></strong><strong><em>Less is more</em></strong></li> </ol> <p>To optimise student engagement and comprehension, use minimal text per slide and present examples before explanations.<strong><em><br><br></em></strong></p> <ol start="2"> <li><strong> </strong><strong><em>Keep text with diagrams to a minimum</em></strong></li> </ol> <p>Minimising text on slides containing diagrams <a href="https://www.innerdrive.co.uk/blog/the-split-attention-effect/">focuses students' attention on the visuals</a>, facilitating better engagement and understanding of complex information.<br><br></p> <ol start="3"> <li><strong> </strong><strong><em>Focus on how you present information</em></strong></li> </ol> <p>Focus on delivery by breaking down content into key words, bullet points or simplified blocks to ensure student engagement and comprehension when presenting extensive information.<strong><em><br><br></em></strong></p> <ol start="4"> <li><strong> </strong><strong><em>Draw attention to key information</em></strong></li> </ol> <p>Vocally guide your students through the content of data-heavy slides to ensure focus on essential information and accommodate varied scanning habits.<strong><em><br><br></em></strong></p> <ol start="5"> <li><strong> </strong><strong><em>Use handouts</em></strong></li> </ol> <p>Providing handouts alongside PowerPoint presentations can significantly enhance your students' learning by emphasising key points and consolidating information, offering a more engaging and effective reference tool.</p>

First of all, you need <em>the expertise to judge an output</em>, and second you need <em>the discipline to exert the effort </em>required to assess an output.

<p>More thoughts to come on this, but for now, I think there are a few questions we should be asking:</p> <ul> <li>Does this person have the knowledge and expertise to judge this output?</li> <li>Is it reasonable to expect this person has the discipline to evaluate the outputs in detail?</li> <li>What is the risk if output errors are not caught?</li></ul>

Scenarios can be implemented in actual simulations (where the world is actively modeled, and the consequences are calculated), or in branching scenarios where the relationships are hard-coded in the consequences attached to a decision.

scenarios give us contextualized practice, which research shows leads to better retention and transfer. With the right choices, the scenario is engaging and provides meaningful practice, which leads to acquiring new abilities.

<div data-breakout="normal"><p class="-Zro6 -ZADH IjV6v AnCKd _57WYp" id="viewer-avnma"><span class="d0767"><span style="font-weight:700"><span>DAN: What makes learning through a simulation experience unique and meaningful?</span></span></span></p></div><div type="paragraph" data-hook="rcv-block26"></div><div data-breakout="normal"><p class="-Zro6 -ZADH IjV6v AnCKd _57WYp" id="viewer-d53db"><span class="d0767"><span style="font-weight:700"><span>CLARK</span></span><span>: As above, research says that contextualized practice (with feedback) is the best way to develop new abilities. They need to have a ’story’ setting: a context, then something happens that precipitates the need for a decision, and then the decision has consequences. That’s just a better-written multiple-choice question (please!), but if we drive the outcomes from a branching or simulation basis, this can lead to new decisions (they travel in packs!)</span></span></p></div>

Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) is a family of psychological research methods for uncovering and representing what people know and how they think. CTA extends traditional task analysis to tap into the mental processes that underlie observable behavior, and reveal the <a href="https://www.globalcognition.org/cognitive-skills/">cognitive skills</a> and strategies needed to effectively tackle challenging situations.

Instead, the idea of the critical decision method is to get experienced professionals to describe some of the toughest challenges they faced. By using carefully crafted probes, the CTA interviewer teases out how these people assessed situations and made decisions in critical moments of their experience.

Learning experience design (LX design or LXD) is the process of creating learning experiences that enable the learner to achieve the desired learning outcome in a human centered and goal oriented way. <br> - Niels Floor

Focusing on the whole experience, requires a more holistic design approach. For example, emotion plays a vital part in how we experience things. We all have memories that are strong because of how they made you feel. In education there tends to be a clear emphasis on cognition while emotion is hardly part of the conversation. In LXD emotion is carefully considered. Designing for emotion and cognition is key to creating a powerful learning experience.

Learning experience design is not a science. While learning science can support your design decisions, most insights into the quality and effectiveness of your design come from developing and testing prototypes.

This focus on the learner also applies to the learning outcome. In the definition of LXD at the start of this article a “desired learning outcome” is mentioned. A learning outcome is desirable when it is relevant, meaningful, and valuable to the learner.

The logical thing is to start with formulating the desired learning outcome. Every step that follows in the design process, including the choice in technology, should be geared towards reaching that outcome.

One way to go wrong is to have the choices that learners choose between to be statements, not choices of action. It’s easy to set up a scenario, particularly a mini-scenario with a story, but then ask learners to determine if something’s one of several ‘things’, such as categorizing the situation. It’s a nuance, but the choices should reflect what learners should do, e.g., with such a categorization. Do you then invoke practice X, or do action Y? Make sure you’re having learners make choices that do things, not just think things.

Next example: a training on "Cryogenic nitrogen and associated dangers". We started this training with an impactful image: An industry hall, exit door in the back and some materials obstructing the exit. All of a sudden, a cryogenic fog sets up, making it impossible to see the floor. Question to the learner was: Find your way out, without stumbling (and thus suffocating). Remember the materials? Remember you are dealing with nitrogen? Without explicitly listing learning objectives in the beginning of the e-Learning, we captured learners' attention, making them eager to learn more about other characteristics of nitrogen and the safety measures in such environments.

This study turns for guidance to the expertise of narrative designers for games, where storytelling for interactive narrative has a long history of testing, iterating and perfecting. A collection of proven techniques described by game narrative practitioners will inform creative writing efforts to craft prototypes to test the transferability of those techniques to interactive narratives in a healthcare education context.