Whiteboard Paint: The Perfect Complement to Scenario-Based Learning

Whiteboard paint applied to classroom walls takes scenario-based learning to new levels of value and excitement for students and teachers alike. Scenario-based learning (SBL) has been shown to be a powerful tool for aiding knowledge retention in learners of all grade levels. As a result, it helps to overcome one of the greatest challenges educators face today: getting students to permanently remember the facts and skills they have acquired in the classroom for use in later life.

That’s why SBL has attracted the attention of teachers around the world. It’s a dynamic strategy that employs interactive scenarios in the classroom setting. When engaged in a scenario, learners navigate through a thought-provoking storyline that helps them develop the critical thinking and problem-solving abilities needed in various professions. As such, SBL stimulates many cognitive processes through which students acquire knowledge and transferable skills.

In this blog post, we’ll look at ways you can use whiteboard painted walls in conjunction with SBL to enhance your teaching and help your students assimilate and retain lesson content.

I. Benefits of scenario-based learning

SBL offers many benefits that go beyond those of traditional classroom instruction.

A. Provides experiences that students can relate to personally

SBL exposes learners to meaningful real-life situations they can identify with on a personal level. It’s also a novel, enjoyable, and exciting way for students to uncover and absorb new facts and concepts. Indeed, a recent study found that students’ engagement and satisfaction levels were 90% while doing scenario-based learning.

B. Provides instant feedback on students’ decisions

During an SBL session, students choose among various options based on their understanding of a subject and their analytical skills. As the scenario unfolds, the activity offers instantaneous responses according to learners’ choices. Questions about the students’ observations or tests are posed during the scenario whenever they present a significant observation or result. This gives the students an opportunity to reflect. The teacher then gives the correct interpretation to reinforce the learning process.

C. Helps students learn from their mistakes

Moreover, since students get instant feedback on their actions and choices during an SBL session, they learn from their mistakes. These immediate responses help them to make wiser decisions when faced with similar situations in the future, either in social environments or on the job.

Consequently, students become more inspired to continue their educational journey, as they see the value of their schooling for use in later life. This is especially beneficial for teachers and learners, as giving a positive answer to the question “What’s in it for me?” is a great way to heighten enthusiasm.

D. Real-Life scenarios help engage students in their own education

Scenarios from the real world can better explain concepts and information to learners than conventional lectures by a teacher. This fact makes SBL both active and immersive. In effect, the SBL approach is quite different from traditional teaching, where students are passive observers. During conventional reflexive teaching, learners absorb information from their instructor without getting directly engaged in their lessons.

E. SBL sessions are excellent adjuncts to existing course content

Scenarios can be beneficial on their own, but you can also use SBL as part of a larger lesson assignment. In fact, integrating SBL into the existing curriculum is ideal. For example, after finishing a scenario you could ask your learners to provide written reflections and appraisals about their performances as they relate to content currently being covered in class. For this purpose, whiteboard painted walls can be highly effective tools. Students can post their views on designated parts of the whiteboard walls so that other class members can easily see them and make comments or suggestions.

II. In-person vs. online scenario-based learning

Scenario-based learning can be used effectively in both online and face-to-face teaching. The only difference lies in how the approach is implemented in your program of study.

In traditional face-to-face instruction, scenario-based learning is typically conveyed via in-person simulations, role-playing exercises, or interactive group activities. In these approaches, your learners physically interact with the scenario.

By contrast, in online teaching, you can deliver SBL through a variety of digital platforms or tools. This means your learners needn’t go to a physical location to engage in their scenarios. Choosing between online or offline scenario-based learning depends mainly on the nature of your school’s policies and teaching resources.

III. Planning the scenario-based learning experience

To plan for an SBL session, create a storyline or storyboard that reveals how your scenario will work out. You can do so by sketching out the story on your whiteboard painted wall. This will help your students pre-visualize the scenario as a narrative that progresses along different paths. That being the case, the immense, open surfaces of whiteboard walls are ideal places on which to draw up countless ideas and images related to diverse courses of action and their potential outcomes.

With their handy, open-ended surfaces, whiteboard walls lend themselves to being used for easy mapping out of these initial illustrations, especially when a group of students is involved.

A. Creating a storyline

An interactive scenario typically requires some script. At the very least, this should involve an introduction that outlines the task at hand, an overall environment to explore in order to perform the task, and an endpoint or conclusion. To engage and capture students’ interest, scenarios should contain elements of drama. You can also incorporate humor where it’s appropriate.

B. Including objects

Your scenario’s setting can be populated with objects like imaginary or real locations, physical items, characters, and actions. Exploring these objects provides accurate or inaccurate information that the students must evaluate and possibly decide on. The objects may have pre-requisite properties that determine when they’re available in the scenario. In other words, they may only be available once a particular task is accomplished or conversely, they may become unavailable at some later point. Exploring these objects may also result in a time or monetary penalty.

C. Preserving the scenario’s framework

Once the mapping out process is complete, a framework or scaffold exists to create a draft scenario. This framework can be preserved in photos taken directly from your whiteboard painted walls, or sketched out using mapping software such as Microsoft Visio.

D. Generating role-playing and problem-solving scenarios

In planning a scenario-based lesson, divide your class into small groups. Then, pose a real-world problem or scenario on one of your whiteboard walls (e.g., “What would you do if so-and-so occurred?”). Then, have the students write down their solutions or steps to address the situation on designated parts of the whiteboard painted wall. While doing so, the learners ought to discuss and compare their responses.

In creating fact-based or fictional interactive scenarios or cases, students should thoroughly explore a problem, event, or issue. This process helps them refine their skills in problem-solving, decision-making, data interpretation, and observation for later use in real-world settings.

Software is available to help with originating and delivering these kinds of learning tasks, but one of the most challenging jobs for teachers is the planning and storyboarding of the scenarios themselves.

Interactive scenarios are based on contexts, often involve dramatic elements, and may require students to follow a script. Ideally, scenarios should also link back to the learning objectives of a specific lesson. Especially in goal-based scenarios, students are asked to form hypotheses and test them to solve a problem. For this purpose, the scope and limits of what learners can do within the scenario need to be thoroughly thought out beforehand.

Teachers can achieve this by using their whiteboard painted walls to post the initial questions that must be addressed before a scenario begins. They can engage in whiteboard wall brainstorming and create table-based schemas for developing scenario format and content.

Along with their function as planning tools, walls coated with whiteboard paint can also be helpful in communicating the structure and content of a scenario to class members during its development. In addition, they allow for the archiving of scenarios in easy-to-access photos you take with your cell phone. Then, afterward, you can use the content in various online authoring tools and other delivery modes, like face-to-face scenario walkthroughs and tutorials.

Summary

Article Name

Whiteboard Paint for Scenario-Based Learning

Description

Discover how whiteboard paint enhances scenario-based learning by fostering creativity, collaboration, and dynamic problem-solving strategies.

Author

Susan Anspach

Publisher Name

ReMARKable Whiteboard Paint

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