Introduction
As an instructional designer, I have continually sought to find effective, instructionally sound uses of video and multimedia, operating from the belief in what educational psychologist Richard Mayer (2009) describes as the “potential of multimedia to improve human understanding” (p. 280). Considerable research exists on how to best harness multimedia in the creation of meaningful learning experiences that prompt active cognitive engagement (Mayer, 2009; Cheng, 2009; Lau, 2013; Miller, 2014). Across the board, this research cautions against decorative or superfluous uses of multimedia, advocating instead for its deployment in learning experiences that “promote active cognitive processing in learners when they seem to be behaviorally inactive” (Mayer, 2009, p. 22). Throughout my tenure at OSU, I have sought to integrate video and multimedia in an immersive and generative fashion, steering the development of immersive, interactive, and purposefully designed learning activities and simulations. In all, I have spearheaded the development and creation of numerous interviews, interactive lectures, simulations, and video-based branching activities, designing each with the purpose of promoting active learning and building critical thinking skills. These productions have ranged from professionally produced tours and interviews overseen by Media Services to self-produced, DIY artifacts created in-house or at Digital Union. Despite their differences, each e-learning lesson and activity remains consistent with best practices. Beyond this, however, I have sought to instruct and empower faculty on the methods and practices needed to produce their own DIY multimedia content.
Regardless of the end product, I have functioned within our team as a producer of and advocate for innovative, forward-thinking utilizations of video and multimedia, evangelizing what Irene Cheng (2009) surmises as multimedia content’s “capability to improve performance by enhancing user satisfaction and engagement” (p. 16). Below are some notable multimedia artifacts produced during my tenure.
PUBAFRS 6060: King County Library Case
Instructor: Megan LePere-Schloop
Course Description: PUBAFRS 6060 (Managerial Leadership in Public and Nonprofit Organizations) is designed to expose students to management practices and analytical frameworks grounded in behavioral and social science research and tested by organizational leaders. These practices and frameworks will help students develop as supervisors and leaders in high-performing, successful public service organizations.
Assignment: The King County Library Case is an interactive video simulation adapted from a preexisting case study (“Improving Decision Making in the King County Library System”), which documents the various troubles encountered by a Seattle-based library system during a new policy implementation. This activity is structured around a series of fictionalized testimonials (scripted by myself and shot in Digital Union) from five KCL employees, who each operate from a different rung of the organizational hierarchy. Each employee shares their experiences about the KCL’s disastrous implementation of the Year 2000 Plan, particularly focusing on what one branch manager describes as the “video loan period debacle.” Students are tasked with reading the original case study, studying the organizational chart, reviewing the testimonials, and reflecting on what each video tells us about the KCL’s struggles with decision making and management. In the end, students must act as an outside consultant, making their final assessments of what went wrong and diagnosing the problem either as cultural or structural.
Rationale: This activity employs a nonlinear “Rashomon structure,” telling (and re-telling) its central narrative through a recursive series of myopic, one-sided testimonials. Each employee serves as an unreliable narrator, sharing their subjective and highly contradictory accounts of what went wrong during this disastrous policy implementation. Students are tasked with navigating through this tangled narrative tapestry in order to form a more holistic impression of what actually went wrong. This nontraditional structure places students in a more directly investigative role, making them more actively engaged with the process of detecting and determining what led up to (and what might have ultimately prevented) the ultimate unraveling of the Year 2000 Plan.
Professor LePere-Schloop and I developed this video-based simulation as a means of giving students the opportunity to employ and practice certain leadership skills: navigating and finding “truth” in contradictory, potentially self-serving narratives from employees; practicing empathy and emotional intelligence; and using critical thinking skills to resolve inter-organizational conflicts. Additionally, we sought to dramatize and make more immediate the managerial crisis described in this case study, rendering what might have been processed as a slew of abstractions when consumed passively into a dilemma with real-life stakes and consequences. Active engagement remained a key component to the development of this activity, particularly in regards to placing students within an investigative role rather than a passive one. By presenting the central conflict as a nonlinear morass of conflicting accounts, we aimed to make students active collaborators in the creation of a coherent and stable “re-telling” of events, asking them to infer, investigate, and make calculated assessments. Finally, this assignment also required students to review and interpret organizational documents to aid their understanding of potential crises in management.
Link: The King County Library Case
NRSPRCT 8600: Project Implementation Branching Activity
Instructor: Robin Rosselet
Course Description: NRSPRCT 8600 (Organizational Culture) offers students an analysis of the complex culture in healthcare and the impact on organizational structure, relationships, evaluation, and outcomes.
Assignment: The Project Implementation Branching Activity is a choice-based simulation designed to recreate for students the process of putting together a committee for a new hospital initiative. The student assumes the role of the Service Line Administrator of a large academic medical center, who has been tasked by the Chief Nurse with helping the Operating Room reduce supply costs and streamline their annual budget. Before starting the activity, students review the SLA’s proposed initiative and read profiles for each stakeholder. The meeting itself (which was shot in the main Mount Hall conference room) is dramatized with the help of numerous volunteer actors (including myself). The activity begins with the SLA conducting a preliminary meeting of the stakeholders, outlining a new plan to decrease the cost of supplies through a radical reconfiguring of the Electronic Medical Record. The SLA must then field questions from each stakeholder, addressing their particular reservations about the project while also coercing them into joining the committee. Students practice their negotiation and leadership skills through the selection of the best responses from a string of options, determining through their knowledge of the proposal and the specific needs of each stakeholder how best to bolster, convince, and inspire everyone in the meeting. Students reflect on and share the results of this activity in that week’s discussion board.
Rationale: This activity precedes and prepares students for the final project of this course: the Change Initiative Proposal and Presentation. It provides them with an interactive, gamified simulation of each stage of the change initiative process as it might exist within their professional lives: identifying stakeholders, drafting a proposal, initiating a meeting, sharing their findings in a short presentation, and forming a committee. It also models best practices for their own proposals, presentations, and follow-up Q&As, which constitute the bulk of what students work on for the rest of the semester. Students can practice and reflect upon their own leadership and negotiation skills in a low-stakes setting, in turn guiding them through their own proposals and presentations.
Much like the King County Library Case, this video-based branching activity requires students to practice empathy and emotional intelligence, particularly in terms of comprehending and navigating the unspoken needs and desires of their stakeholders. Robin Rosselet and I conceived of this activity as a simulation that places students within the sort of professional role students will have to take on in healthcare staff and management. It also tasks them with determining the best methods for meeting the conflicting needs of a wide variety of stakeholders across the hospital system, requiring them to read the verbal and nonverbal cues of each stakeholder and determine the consequences of their chosen responses and rhetorical strategies. The use of multimedia, in this particular activity, serves a dual function: fortifying active student engagement and rendering the activity more meaningful and authentic. To quote Michelle Miller (2019), this assignment provides students with an opportunity to “experience some aspect of real-world applications in a safe, inexpensive, and infinitely repeatable format” (p. 158). Through this multimedia component, students can hone and practice some of the “soft skills” required in their professional lives, making what could have been an abstract and impersonal series of interactions into something more engaging and interactive.
Link: Project Implementation Branching Activity
Reference List
- Cheng, I., Basu, A., & Goebel, R. (2009). Interactive multimedia for adaptive online education. IEEE Multimedia,16(1), 16-25.
- Lau, R., et al. (2013). Recent Development in Multimedia E-learning Technologies. New York, Springer.
- Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multimedia Learning (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- Miller, M. D. (2017). Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.