“Instructional Design” is a bit of an amorphous term. I often have to give people an example of the kind of work I do when I tell them that I’m an Instructional Designer/Curriculum Developer. I usually open my explanation by asking if they ever did the “Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich” activity in school. Most people are familiar with this exercise. The objective is to teach kids about the importance of writing detail-oriented instructions, which means that if a student says to “put the peanut butter on the bread” without first instructing the teacher to open the jar of peanut butter and package of bread, the teacher will simply place the entire jar of peanut butter on top of the package of bread. Most students remember this activity because it’s a little absurd, pretty humorous, and makes an important point about the value of step-by-step instructions.
I tell people that I’m the person who makes sure readers know to open up the jar of peanut butter and package of bread. In fact, just to prove a point about how many small details can emerge out of a simple process, I once created a guide to PB&J that broke itself out into 15 different steps.
Because this exercise was just created for fun, I followed my own favorite design aesthetics and made a training inspired by the simple hallmarks of lofi artwork. A big thank you to Matthew Lopez for the background. This training is meant to show off my skills with Articulate Storyline 360, and utilizes a variety of triggers, variables, and animations. It also provides a pre-test, showcasing both my adult learning knowledge as well as my ability to create non-graded questions. To see the full eLearning, please download its HTML file in the section below. I hope you enjoy. For any feedback or questions, feel free to send me an email.
