Design of Learning Environment for a Story-centered Curriculum

Junko Nemoto
Kumamoto University, Japan
nemoto@kumamoto-u.ac.jp

Atsue Takeoka
Kyushu University, Japan
atakeoka@kumadai.jp

Akiko Takahashi
Kumamoto University, Japan
atakahashi@kumadai.jp

Yoshitaka Shibata
University of Occupational and Environmental
Health, Japanyshibata@med.uoeh-u.ac.jp

Katsuaki Suzuki
Kumamoto University, Japanksuzuki@kumamoto-u.ac.jp

Abstract: This paper describes three years (2009–2012) of our practice in the story-centered curriculum
project that we initiated in 2008, and, as part of a design-based research, how we revised it, retrospectively.
While improving the quality of the contents, reflection activity proved to be very valuable, because thelearners revealed that their knowledge of each course deepened and that their application skills increased,
which was the intent of the curriculum.

We found that we deliberately placed much value on reflectionactivities. To see the effectiveness of the reflection activity, we need to review the extent to which theactivity met our intent.

Comparing the quality of the reflections of past learners and reviewing thecorrelation between the timing of the reflection activities and the quality of the reflection, will be thepossible action to confirm our decision making to lead a proposal of the design principle.

Keywords: Story-centered curriculum, Reflection, Design-based researchINTRODUCTION
Curriculum Design with context (Story Centered Curriculum: SCC) is intended to improve learners
practical skill, and in this research, our aim is to elaborate knowledge about how we can construct of learning
environments to be put into practice. Proposed by R. C. Schank (2007), the SCC is one of the instructional design
theories derived from Goal-based scenarios (GBS) that provide architecture to the design of a curriculum with highscalability without losing the learning-by-doing nature of the GBS. Both the instructional design theory, GBS, andthe learning theory, Case-based reasoning (CBR), are behind of the SCC approach, which is a practical approach to
deepen skills knowledge to teach in a realistic story, developed by enhancing the scalability applied in acurriculum-level design.
The characteristic of this approach is to create a story under the assumption that skills and knowledge will
be used in a situation that practitioners use. Compared to the conventional approach, whose curriculum is acollectivity of independent courses, this approach enables instructors to combine several course contents and toprovide them as continuum through a story. Since our design and development of the program in 2008 (Nemoto etal.), we have offered the SCC learning environment at our graduate school. Rather than to redefine GBS, Our focus
has been to collect various kinds of ideas for instructional approaches for the design of the SCC, so that the SCC
approach will become a wide-range delivery approach.

IMPLEMENTION AND IMPROVEMENT CYCLE OF OUR SCC
The target of our SCC is a master’s curriculum in Instructional Systems in order to foster practicaleducational design through the online courses. The advantage of this approach is that the student can focus on one
assignment at a time. Instead of offering individual courses in isolation, the SCC unites multiple courses, usuallytaken concurrently within a given semester, by first introducing a story from a real-world situation common tomultiple courses, in which the target program would be expected to work as a professional. Within such an authentic
context, the students would act as if they were already in such a situation, but with assistance from faculty whenneeded.
We designed the SCC with 5 courses for the spring semester and 4 courses for the fall semester of the firstyear of the MS program in which courses are all from our department. The learners are expected to access a web
sited described about a story, which includes practical applications and commonalities in all courses mentioned
above and face the challenges that occur in the story. Each challenge the learner faces in the story is related to arelated one class assignment of a course, so that students work through the course assignments by predeterminedorder.
To create a storyline, we first set a expecting professional who graduated from our program and now
works in a corporation or another area; prepared a learning environment to enable the SCC to connect with a storyinformation with existing course materials. For instance, we developed “SCC HOME,” a portal website, to provide astory and to have our learners access each of the course materials directly related to the story. In addition, weprepared an “MTM Suboffice”, an “Intern Room”, and a “break room” to communicate with peers and instructors inorder to stimulate learning activities (Takahashi et al., 2013).
To make decisions to revise the program, we have continuously reflected on the results of each year fromvarious perspectives, such as context and support for the students, which are important resources. Table 1 shows thelist of revisions of the last three years based on students feedback, learning outcomes, informal interviews, and so on.
The challenge in the first two years of our SCC implementation was to incorporate into our program theconcept of GBS and the characteristics of the SCC. Restructuring the curriculum to provide it through a story and tocreate support systems were the main design activities (Nemoto, 2011). From the third year, on which this paper
focuses, our goal was to operate effectively as well as to obtain a higher degree of quality of the blending of a storyand exiting courses. Major revisions were made to enrich the context, create a seamless environment to utilize thestory and course contents, and to clarify the expected outcomes to the students, which in turn related to refine thestory-driven learning style. Another main issue we faced was the student reflection activities that intended to deepen
the learners’ understanding about the contents they learned and the skills they transferred into future practice. The
underlined sections in Table 1 emphasize the modifications related to the student reflection activities.
Three main points needed to be improved in the reflection activities: a) providing brief reflection activities
at short intervals to expect naturally-induced reflection(especially in the spring semester because there is a one-timestudent reflection), b) balancing reflection activities and students’ load, and c) relating the reason for this activity andtherefore promoting the value of the students' self-expression. We found that the reflection activities strongly related
to the goal of our practice and that the design of the reflection determined how successfully we conducted it.
To provide brief reflection activities, we offered tasks for students to reflect on their learning outcome andapplication into the practice of what the student learned and experienced. In the first two year, there was a one-timereflection at the end of the semester. We increased the number of opportunities to reflect by setting aside time at theend of all of the courses to reduce the students’ load as well as to secure the quality of the reflections.
To balance the reflection activities and the students’ load, we reserved time so that the learner could createa work plan and a progress report in the fall semester; the semester consisted of three stages, and the participants
were expected to submit a work plan and a progress report at each stage until 2011 cohort. The learner proceeded byfollowing his/her own planned schedule, which was different from the spring semester’s approach when the learner
was given a more detailed schedule to complete the tasks and assignment. Contrary to our expectations, they
proceeded to the next activity before they completed the reflection activity, which shows that the learners studied in
our SCC without understanding our intention about the reflection design. In 2012, we decided to change thereflection approach in the second semester; we set a time at the beginning of the semester to plan the whole semester,and expected that the learners would take more responsibility for their own learning plan in a practical manner.

Table 1. Summary of the Revisions (3 years)
Year

AspectSpring Semester

Fall Semester

Developmental • Developed by a team
team
OverallDesign• Provided our SCC as a course: “Integrated Curriculum Design” (ICD)• Moved sect. 4 of “Information and Communication Technology Learning Support Systems” (ICT) andsect. 1, 2, 4, and 5 of “Human Resource Development Business Management” (HRD) from spring tofall semester• Restructured curriculum: 3 weeks per courses (5 courses × 3 weeks = 15 weeks)

3rd• Succeeded in overall design of the 1st year

• Succeeded in overall design of 2nd year

Storyline• Changed story to fit a course modification of sect.
3 of “HRD,” sect. 1, 2, 4, and 5 of “ICT,” and“Introduction to e-Learning”• Succeeded in overall design of 2nd year (butdeleted sect. 3 of “HRD” and sect. 1, 2, 4, and 5of “ICT”)

Instructional• Added reflection activities as an MTM company• Set work planning and progress reporting as

Strategy

staff in an “ICD”• Moved assignment of “ICD” from “Introduction toe-Learning”

activities in the “ICD” course• Simplified format of work-plan and progress
report• Added new assignment: “Reflection andDevelopment of an SCC”

• Added new assignment: “Reflection andDevelopment of an SCC”

Year:FY2010

Operation• Combined two courses for an SCC student and a non-SCC student• Minor adjustments to operate as a course,
based on second year trial• Switched from 5 to 3 stages• Secured time for creation of work-planning andprogress-report• Changed “SCC HOME” design: expanded reflection
week

Developmental • Developed by a team for our SCC
teamOverallDesign• Changed the structure of the “ICD I and II” (divided story into experience and design practice)

Storyline• Minor adjustments based on 3rd year’s storyline

4thYear:• Succeeded in overall design of second year

• Changed mission (from development ofconsultation package to business support)
Instructional

FY
2011

• Succeeded in overall design of first year

Strategy• Revised assignments of “ICD” with

• Added exemplifications of work-planning andmission change• Added background information tounderstand storyline, such as animation,

progress-report• Added reason to review work-planning andprogress-report at every stage

a seating chart of MTM company, MTM
management structure, and a contentslistOperation• Succeeded in operational design of 3rd year

Table 1. Summary of the Revisions (3 years) (continued)
Developmental • Developed by a team for our SCC• Developed by a team for our SCC

teamOverall
Design• Minor adjustments based on 4th year
• Succeeded in overall design of first year

• Focused on activities at Institute for e-Learning
Development• Embedded a research course, “Special research I,” intostory• Had learners work on same team through thesemester

5thYear:FY2012

Storyline• Minor adjustments based on 3rdyear’s storyline• Added the story to the internship at “Institute fore-Learning development”• Changed missions: appended “research proposal” andInstructional
Strategy• Added new character in the story• Added interaction aspects in the• Added Manager Nakamura’s farewell (in a story)• Added intern information in cover story of fall

“proposal to Institute for e-Learning development”

Operation

curriculum, such as virtual community,
gave an award to person with outstanding
good results of assignment

semester• Changed scope of learning plans (per stage -> wholestages)• Sent reminders to the person who became
delayed in progress• Closed secretary's office• Added instructions to reflect work report and progress
report, per stage• Changed weekly message content from weekly advice• Added clear approach to write reflection

to three parts: “reflection of the final week,” “weeklyprocedure,” and “most recent event”• Adjusted deadline to fit an SCC and a
non-SCC student• Set reflection time at the beginning of fall semester(preparation week)• Switched design of “SCC HOME” from Gantt Chart tocalendar style• Added progress of elective courses at SCC HOME

To further the students’ self-expression as well as the importance of reflection, we gave them minimal
instructions for the reflection activity because we expected the learners to realize, by themselves, the importance ofreflection. There was a tendency for the learners to delay the planning and reflection, therefore, we explained thepurpose of reflection and its potential advantages.

CHALLENGES TO THE NEXT STAGE
We developed our SCC with a case at Carnegie Mellon University West Campus, and have modified it
every year based on our learners’ opinions and actions; the modifications enabled a more stable operation andreduced the load of implementation. But we still have the potential to improve our program with the contiguousrevisions. Our greatest challenge, in this study, is to identify the key senescence of our design and the lessons welearned, from which instructors’ viewpoint and to what extent.
One of the characteristics of using an SCC (GBS) is that the learners have opportunities to use theirknowledge and skills obtained in a story together rather than separately. This approach is a good fit for our targetaudience who is expected to work in a professional context. In addition, conducting reflection activities andproviding support to students to help them visualize the learning process, could be another advantage to employ anSCC. We intended, in our learning activity design, for students to reflect on their action activities (Schon, 1987), andas a result, we found that the reflection activity is the strong characteristic of our design. The reflection activity canbe added to the SCC activities, or we could say that the reflection activity is part of the SCC. This presentation showsthe changes in the reflection activity; in the future, we hope to propose, from this reflection trial, new support forlearning that enable the application in other practices with a clear viewpoint to lead the research outcome.
To see the effectiveness of the reflection activity, we need to review the extent to which the activity met
our intent. Comparing the quality of the reflections of past learners and reviewing the correlation between the timingof the reflection activities and the quality of the reflection, will be the possible action to confirm our decision making
to lead a proposal of the design principle.

Related Courses（Required SpringSemester）

Parents company

Paper-base text
development

trademark infringement
processing of a claim
Investment

Permission of use of animage data

Introduction to e-Learning

Subsidiary company

Investment

Instructional Design IIntellectual Property andPrivate Rights in theNetwork Society

Analysis of existing
Materials

My Company
affiliationcompetitor

Information andCommunication Technology
Learning Support Systems

conflict
New employee

Human Resource
Development Business
Management

Preparing a graphical content license
agreementcompetitor

technology survey for elearning use

planning to build
new department

Figure 1. Relationship with the existing course and the story (spring semester)

REFERENCES
Nemoto, J., Shibata, Y., & Suzuki, K. (2012). Design-based Research to Improve Learning Design and Learning Contents,
Educational technology research, 35(1&2), 125-134.
Schank, R. C., Bernab, T. R., & Macpherson, K. A. (1999). Learning by doing. In C. M. Reigeluth. (Ed.), Instructional-Design
Theories and Models: A New Paradigm of Instructional Theory Vol. II (pp. 161-182). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates. .
Schank, R. C. (2007). The Story-Centered Curriculum. eLearn Magazine: 47-1, Association for Computing Machinery.
Schon, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Takahashi, A., Isawa, M., Miyazaki, M., Takeoka, A., Shibata, Y., Nemoto, J., & Suzuki, K. (2013). Enhancing e-Learning
Environment with Added Features for Scenario Context and Progress Management of Multiple Courses -A Case of anOnline Graduate School, JSiSE Research Report 25 (5), 51-58 (in Japanese).