When Your Kid Comes Out as Trans or Nonbinary (xAPI-enabled)
Tools Used
Articulate Storyline 360, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Canva, Powerpoint, and Miro.
Targeted Learners
Parents who want to explore gender diversity or to learn how to respond shall their kid comes out as transgender and/or nonbinary.
Learning Goals
After completing this course, the learner will demonstrate knowledge about gender diversity-related terms and the skills of listening and affirmation when responding to their child coming out as trans.
Design Ideas
It can be challenging for parents to respond when their kid comes out as transgender and/or nonbinary. Some major challenges come from the fact that parents do not always have the vocabulary to talk about gender diversity and that we live in a society where gender diversity is not considered as norm.
In designing this training, I want my learners to feel that their different levels of knowledge and openness are acknowledged. At the same time, I want them to develop the skills of listening to and affirming their child when they come out as well as to know that they can find a community of support.
To achieve these objectives, I designed 4 learning modules to empower my learners:
1. Get to Know Yourself
These self-assessments help the learner understand their choices of pronouns, their levels of knowledge, and their levels of openness. Customized feedback is provided to meet learners at where they are!
2. Build Your Color Palette
A click-and-reveal game that helps the learner build a gender diversity vocabulary, including terms such as "transgender,""non-binary,""FTM," "AMAB," etc.
3. Weave a Net of Support－4 Scenarios
The 4 scenarios enable the learner to develop the skills of listening and affirmation. Each choice is followed by informative feedback. The completion of each scenario is followed by an expanding net of support.
4. Find a Community
This is an optional learning activity. It reminds learners that parents, too, need a community of support. The module addresses some pressing concerns of parents whose child comes out as trans
Design Process
Given that this project involves a broad topic and multi-modal learning, the design process is more complicated. There are five major steps: 1) Action Mapping, 2) Storyboarding, 3) Functional Prototyping, and 4) Visual Mockups.
1. Action Mapping
Many factors contribute to parents' inability to respond with support when their kid comes out as trans or nonbinary. I highlighted that inability to respond as a performance problem and identify the environmental, societal, and knowledge factors that lead to the problem. Using Cathy Moore's concept of "action mapping," I identified the primary actions required to improve the performance: the actions of listening and affirmation.
2. Storyboarding
Storyboading was critical to the success of this project, which aimed at offering definitions of gender diversity related terms and at providing customized feedback for the learner. The definitions, self-assessments, scenarios and feedback all required easily accessible but carefully crafted writing.
Storyboard-When Your Kid Comes out as Trans.pdf3. Functional Prototyping
The multi-modal nature of this project means that I had to coordinate varied kinds of animations, triggers, and variables to deliver a smooth, engaging learning experience. Therefore, I began the development process with functional prototyping to make sure I could achieve customized effects.
4. Visual Mock-Ups
After action mapping, storyboarding, functional prototyping, and visual mock-ups, here comes my favorite part! As you can see, the visual mock-ups are very colorful, but the color combinations are overall soothing. I wanted the colorful visual design to reflect the gender diversity-related topics and practice activities.
5. xAPI Implementation
This gender diversity training project is xAPI-enabled. xAPI, or the Experience API, is an eLearning specification that allows learning content and learning management systems to speak to each other, specifically in the form of collecting learning experience data.
I implemented xAPI to collect the data of user information and various activity types, including:
Learner's name.
Learner's attempts in each scenario.
Learner's course and slide duration.
Learner's browser focus.
To implement xAPI in this course, I began by writing an xAPI statement from scratch using JSON (JavaScript Object Notation). I then set up triggers in my Articulate Storyline course file to execute JavaScript, which allows the course to send xAPI statements to a Learning Record Store (LRS).
Setting-up Code, functions, and xAPI statements written in the form of JSON.
xAPI statements stored in an LRS.
By tracking learners' attempts in each scenario, their course and slide duration, and browser focus, I am able to work with data and identity some pain points throughout the course. For example:
Scenario Attempts: How many attempts does the learner make to get to the right answer in a certain scenario? What additional help can I provide to help them learn and succeed?
Slide Duration: How much time does the learner spend on, say, the slide of gender diversity terms? Do they take time to understand the definitions of the terms or do they simply click through them?
Browser Focus: Does the learner open a new window and lose the browser focus during the course? Does the learner open a new window because they lose interest in the course or because they are looking for external resources?
Final Product
This visually engaging training includes multiple learning activities, such as self-assessments, a click-and-reveal game, scenarios, and an optional Q&A. Additionally, the course is enabled by xAPI, gathering learning activity data for future improvements.
Through these learning modules, the training engages with both learners' critical thinking and self-understanding. The training meets learners at where they are while helping them practice the skills of listening to and affirming their trans or nonbinary kid.
Below are a few more highlights of the course!
