58 Appendix 2: Guidelines for designing learning scenarios

You can use the following guidelines to create a scenario for enquiry-based learning. This may include problem-based, challenge-based or other types of participatory learning. These approaches consider evidence-based principles for the design of learning scenarios.

The primary audience for these guidelines is educators. However, they may also be useful in situations where learners are encouraged to create their own learning scenarios.

Although you may be using an existing scenario e.g. a real-world news story or research case, you may still find the following guidance useful in developing your learning scenario effectively.

Consider the following factors when designing scenarios (Dolmans et al, 1997; Stanton, M. and McCaffrey, M., 2011; Azer et al., 2012).

Define clear learning outcomes and relate the scenario to these. Think about the core concepts that you want your participants to learn from this scenario.

Think about diverse learners and how you can be inclusive using a variety of media.

Your scenario needs to include a level of complexity. However, you should avoid making it too complex. Be authentic so that participants can:

• relate to the scenario,
• activate their existing knowledge,
• feel curious about the subject.

You should scaffold input progressively and avoid providing all the information necessary. Consider how participants will actively engage with the scenario.

Take the opportunity to collaborate with others. Provide your facilitators with the necessary information to review and evaluate the scenario.

Considering your answers to the following questions will help you identify the elements necessary to put together your scenario:

• What are the learning outcomes?
• What core concepts do you want your participants to engage with?
• What key three or four problems in the scenario do you want participants to explore? Oversimplified scenarios that are too easy to solve are ineffective – some complexity is necessary, but remember to avoid overdoing it.
• Be selective about what information you share with participants. Consider what key background information about the scenario is necessary.
• How are you going to present your scenario and what media are you going to use?
• How are you going to facilitate discussion between participants?
• How will you know what your participants have learned?

Remember that the scenario comes first when you are using problem-based learning (PBL). This serves as the trigger for learning.

Learners will work in small, facilitated groups. They will begin by exploring and brainstorming around the initial problem. This includes asking many different questions.

Abdrandt Dahlgren et al. (2001), in an empirical study with undergraduate students of an environmental science programme, found that students were asking specific types of questions:

• Encyclopaedic questions for more generic understanding and fact checking of specific phenomena.
• Meaning-oriented questions for conceptual understanding and problematisation of terms, concepts and phenomena.
• Relational questions for understanding links and consequences of phenomena.
• Value-oriented questions to evaluate consequences of phenomena.
• Solution-oriented questions to engage with the management of issues and phenomena, and search for solutions.

Depending on what your participants will be doing, some external input will be necessary. However, you should only provide this after they have begun working through the scenario themselves.

This intervention may be in the form of a workshop or information session about core concepts by subject specialists. The purpose of additional input should be to provide useful information to help participants develop their thinking and decision-making.

Using a PBL model to support collaborative enquiry may include the following steps for you and your participants:

• Participants will need to work together, assign specific roles, and be committed to each other and the task.
• The facilitator is there to support and step in if the group appears to have issues they can’t resolve on their own.
• The facilitator uses open questions and does not provide answers.
• The group will need to agree how they are going to share the outcome of their collaborative enquiry.
• The group can use a variety of media to capture the outcome. This may help bring the participants’ ideas alive; it can also be an inclusive way of enabling everyone to contribute and celebrate what they have learned together.

You can begin this process by using the information captured in the pre-scenario template. Consider the following factors when creating your scenario.

• Write and speak in the present tense.
• Use a story format that has a beginning, middle and end.
• Think about how you can engage learners emotionally.
• Consider your characters.
• Think carefully about the context of the scenario.
• Reflect on how you can bring your scenario alive and make it engaging.
• Consider if generative AI may help you.

When you have a completed draft of your scenario, share this with your peers and ask for feedback. You can also share the draft with learners.

Consider their suggestions carefully and use this to finalise your scenario. After using the scenario, reflect on how well it worked and how you can make improvements to make it more effective in the future.

Consider making your scenario available under an open licence and share via the storyboxHE website. Take the opportunity to explore the website’s collection of stories and consider if they would be useful and relevant to your scenario. You are welcome to adapt this material.

• Abrandt Dahlgren, M. and Öberg, G. (2001) Questioning to learn and learning to question: Structure and function of problem-based learning scenarios in environmental science education. Higher Education 41, 263–282 (2001).
• Azer S. A., Peterson R., Guerrero A. P. and Edgren G. (2012) Twelve tips for constructing problem-based learning cases. Med Teach. 2012; 34(5):361-7. https://doi.org/10.3109/0142159x.2011.613500.
• Dolmans, D.H.J.M., Snellen-Balendong, H., Wolfhagen, I.H.A.P. and van der Vleuten, C.P.M.
• (1997). Seven principles of effective case design for a problem-based curriculum, Medical Teacher 19(3), 185–189.
• Stanton, M. and McCaffrey, M. (2010) Designing authentic PBL problems in multidisciplinary groups. In: Barrett, T. and Moore, S. (Eds.) New approaches to Problem-Based Learning. Revitalising your practice in higher education. pp. 36- 49.