Identifying and Engaging Students at Risk of Early Withdrawal

A scenario-based eLearning experience solving a business problem for a hypothetical company, IEP Schools. Directors of Center Operations are given a three-step process for reducing Early Withdrawals, and then must navigate student interactions to achieve a successful outcome. 

You can experience the full project, or continue reading to see the detailed project write-up.

The initial design phase began by identifying a business problem: Student Early Withdrawals, or EWs, which occur when a student enrolls for a given amount of time — say, 16 weeks of study — but leaves early, cancelling some portion of their initial booking. 

With this problem selected, I developed an action map using the online platform Miro (see left), where I identified several actions Directors of Center Operations (DCOs) could take to reduce the number of annual EWs. 

For each action, I listed one or more forms of practice which would help DCOs bridge this performance gap. I determined that eLearning would be an appropriate modality for a subset of these actions and, from there, I selected closely related actions that would dovetail together in a single eLearning module. 

These actions were highlighted on the action map and, where appropriate, appended with what information would be needed in the module.

In its final form, the action map contained a key performance index, selected actions needed to reach this KPI, task-supporting practice activities, and critical information chunks. 

Finally, I created a three-phase process to tie all selected competency outcomes: IRE, for Identify, Rapport, and Engage. 

Because IEP Schools is a hypothetical company, I created a brand kit to establish a consistent look and feel for the eLearning module. I selected a color scheme, and created a simple logo in Adobe Illustrator. I also used Illustrator to modify the sourced character graphics to create a range of emotions for each character. 

In Adobe XD, I assembled these graphics — as well as the typeface standards, button concepts, and assorted supplemental graphics — into a sample branding kit (see top left).

I also assembled several layout templates for the hypothetical client to review. I used these templates to experiment with different layouts and element combinations. This was a dynamic process in which I also iterated the outline as new layouts prompted new ideas for interaction types.

These layout prototypes were later built in Articulate Storyline during full development.