Challenge
The National Park Service (NPS) had a Search and Rescue (SAR) Technician II training pathway that required broad introduction to SAR concepts, communications, tools, and risk management before attendance at regional in-person trainings. The Intro to SAR training in the learning management system (LMS) showed poor completion rates and evaluations and people were not typically well-prepared for hands-on regional training. The imagery heavily favored a single park region and materials were not fully 508 compliant or accessible to low-bandwidth or public (volunteer) audiences on the new external LMS.
My Role
As Senior Instructional Designer with Visitor and Resource Protection training, I was to evaluate and recommend updates to this required training, then update it before early Spring on-boarding, loading it to the internal and new external LMS. A National SAR Coordinator (a first for the NPS) onboarded in the middle of the review and development process; I would need to orient him to the training plans and as a new subject matter expert in the middle of development.
Action(s)
I identified and resolved immediate completion issues with the internal LMS, then analyzed/presented evaluation data to recommend course revisions to the SAR Lead. (The LMS setup was complicated, with locked quizzes after each of 14 modules that must be passed to advance and reach the Final Exam. This cumbersome setup (29 different elements to launch!) deterred completion, and people had found a way to skip it to get their certificate.) I exported the Storyline-based (“click NEXT”) course to Articulate Review to enable stakeholder feedback and content updates while building a new course template in RISE. I built learning science “pre-thinking prompts” (Reality Checks) and scenario-based knowledge checks with ample resource links into a new 12-lesson course, ensuring that imagery represented the widest range of people, situations, and park sites throughout. I established 508 compliance and piloted the course (now a single SCORM launch from the LMS, vs 29), then setup course shells in internal and external LMSes and performance-focused evaluation questions to ensure actionable feedback.
Result(s)
Courses were successfully launched while the first National SAR Coordinator for NPS was onboarding; he was grateful to be able to start with a notable success. Stakeholders were excited to have a comprehensive, updated, and engaging introduction to SAR as a foundation to regional in-person training. This launched for the first time on internal and external (public) platforms at a critical time when in-person training was shut down, allowing people to start training or refresh despite the travel/training bans. They could continue to train for visitor safety and rescue regardless of park status.
Project Link(s): View the course