Experiential learning is all about Learning by Doing!
Ready to take your skills to the next level by designing and building your own project prototype in SimGate™?
Let's get creative!
Expected Time to Complete Module: Approximately 60+mins*
*Time investment will vary based on:
1) the extent to which you choose to build your DIY project prototype
2) whether you have existing course content or design docs to source from
3) your level of engagement with the provided material and supplemental resources
4) your level of tool exploration, experimentation, and expertise.
Purpose
To highlight your learning, tool expertise, and understanding of experiential learning basics, you will create your own project prototype using the SimGate suite of tools.
In this hands-on module, you’ll:
Gain real-world experience using SimGate’s design and development tools.
Create a working prototype through an end-to-end build process.
Streamline design and development with a structured starting point and fit-for-purpose templates.
Customize key elements to align with your learning goals.
Unleash creativity and push beyond the basics.
Showcase your work with tangible evidence of your skills.
Step 1: Planning Your Project
Answer Foundational QuestionsBefore diving into any tools, take a moment to plan and prepare. A little upfront thinking goes a long way — making your design and development process smoother, more efficient, and ultimately more enjoyable.
These initial decisions shape everything that follows in your project’s design and development.
📣 Good news: ReX makes this easy! |
Who is your Learner? |
At Regis, we begin with the end in mind. In the Discovery phase, we prioritize understanding our learners—their world, daily challenges, and role-specific tradeoffs. This insight helps define clear learning objectives, such as targeted skills, knowledge, or mindset shifts.
So, you'll start by gathering answers to these key learner questions:
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What are your objectives? |
Along with answering key learner questions, you'll need foundational insights about your organization's learning objectives, metrics, and contextual topics. This information helps you make informed design decisions, craft relevant storylines, and develop content that addresses learner needs. It also ensures that feedback and scoring align with the desired outcomes.
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What type of Learning Experience will you create for your learners? |
Once you have answered the above questions, you can begin to define the best course format to meet the learners' needs. e.g. type of course design, delivery method, and duration.
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Your Initial Decisions Set the Foundation! |
Regardless of whether you plan to use ReX to help you or not, review the chart below for key questions and examples to prompt your thinking and ensure you create a cohesive experience.
Step 2: Create Your Project
Now it’s time to create your SimGate project so that you can weave the above details into a larger narrative and content that draws in your learners, creating a rich learning environment to practice and make decisions.
To accelerate your learning of the SimGate platform and your first DIY prototype creation, we suggest starting with a ReX Smart Template. This allows you to experience more of SimGate and leverage Regis's expertise as it will take a lot of the guesswork out of the equation and you can focus on learning the tools. That said, if you prefer to start directly building in Studio and already have a specific project in mind with content and HLD expectations, you are welcome to do that too!
Starting with a ReX Smart Template
After steps 1 & 2, you know who your learner is, the type of experience you are creating for them, the intended objectives, and what skills are being measured.
Have a different experience in mind? Take a look at this matrix to help you decide which template is right for you!
How does ReX help?
With ReX, you now have a co-author to help you tackle tasks like:
identify your target learner and craft their persona
craft learning objects
brainstorm topics, storylines, and scenarios
conduct industry research
summarize and reference internal documents
overall content preparation
create activity scenarios and answer choices
export content directly into Studio wireflow
...and more!
ReX also helps with all your Initial Decisions
The prerequisite prompts align with the planning and "Initial Decisions" discussed above! We believe these foundational questions are critical to answering before you dive into any project creation:
Who is the learner?
What are the intended skills, behaviors, or mindset shifts to practice and improve?
What are the objectives or outcomes?
What will they be measured on? (metrics/KPIs)
What are the basic topics/context?
What is the course format?
Need a refresher on how to create a new project with Smart Templates? Here are a few resourses to reference:
Starting in Studio
Take the Guesswork Out of Your High-Level Design Flow
Start visualizing and planning the high-level structure of your SimGate prototype with confidence. Below, you’ll find examples and ideas showing how Regis customizes design flows to fit a variety of learning goals and solution types.
💡 Explore each section below to see how different flow options can shape your learner experience and project outcomes.
Click each arrow below to expand the section
General Elements of a High-Level Design Flow
General Elements of a High-Level Design Flow
The flow of your High-Level Design will vary based on the type of experience you're creating, but generally includes these elements:
Here are other examples of what high-level designs might look like in the pre-development stage.
Storyline + High-Level Design Flow
Storyline + High-Level Design Flow
Your HLD flow must complement and support your storyline! Defining these elements will help you customize your wireflow:
How do these elements fit together? For example, a 1-round structure could follow a flow like this:
Content + High-Level Design Flow
Content + High-Level Design Flow
Writing effective content and scenarios is an art! We now have ReX, our co-author, to help expedite this process. Yet, it's still up to us humans to know "what good looks like" so that we can validate the content or edit as needed.
Here is an example of a simple scenario and its basic components:
It all must work together to create an immersive and cohesive, fit-for-purpose experiential learning program!
💡 While content writing is not the focus of learning SimGate tools, it is an important part of effective experiential design!
For an in-depth guide to scenario writing, check this out: Download the full Scenario Writing Design Guidebook!
Flow Samples by Learning Type
Flow Samples by Learning Type
Each Starter flow includes one or more rounds and a variety of activity templates, designed to support your desired learning experience.
These sample flows have been created for you to help new Creators:
Create experiential learning quickly so they fast-track design and prototyping to gain proficiency and agency.
Focus on learning SimGate functionality (not design) so they can experience the breadth of what is possible in the tool.
See examples of what good looks like.
KNOWLEDGE OR SKILL BUILDING ELEARNING FLOW
KNOWLEDGE OR SKILL BUILDING ELEARNING FLOW
Click the arrow to see the full wireflow!
MICRO-LEARNING FLOW
MICRO-LEARNING FLOW
Click the arrow to see the full wireflow!
SCENARIO BASED STARTER
SCENARIO BASED STARTER
Click the arrow to see the full wireflow!
Ready to begin? Think through the structural design of your project before diving into development — it’s the best way to ensure clarity, alignment, and impact from the start.
💡TIP: Creativity is encouraged! The flows are just examples to get your creative juices flowing. The exact structure, order, and activities you choose are up to you! Once you start building in Studio, you can swap out activities, add states, and rearrange as you see fit.
Now it’s time to weave the above details into a larger narrative and content that draws in your learners, creating a rich learning environment to practice and make decisions. Regardless of whether you plan to use ReX to help you or not, review the chart below for key questions and examples to prompt your thinking and ensure you create a cohesive experience.
Remember, you’ll want to integrate these core design elements into your projects intentionally: Framing, Flow, Feedback, and Feeling.
Step 3: Customize the key "building blocks" of your project!
In SimGate Studio, customize your project by editing activities, adding content, swapping around pages or templates, adding rounds, stylizing your theme, including avatars or videos, trying out the scoring model, and experimenting with feedback and branching!
This guidance is meant to accelerate your learning of the SimGate design process and provide you with templates to fast-track building a prototype. However, you can use any process you like to create learning experiences in SimGate Studio.
Prototype “Success criteria”
Before diving in, it's always helpful to have clear criteria defining the path to success so that you feel more in control of your learning journey!
Click the arrow to expand this section for additional guidance!
Click the arrow to expand this section for additional guidance!
Minimum Prototype Criteria
To help you focus your efforts, ensure you explore the full potential of SimGate and demonstrate basic tool proficiency, you'll want to meet the following criteria for your prototype (most of which is automatically included if you choose to use a ReX Smart Template):
Clearly communicate your vision and design intentions (It doesn’t need to be fully complete or highly detailed)
Display project structure through the wireframe format, activity choices, and branching (If you skip ReX Smart Templates, placeholder content in Studio is acceptable!)
Cover enough features and functionality to demonstrate proficiency with SimGate tools (e.g. a variety of components like addons, images, video, avatars, branching, outputs, scoring, etc.)
Include the following building blocks/pages:
Welcome Page
Slideshow Introduction to Course/Role/Goal/Setting
Interface Page (Profiles, Bio & Background etc)
3-4 Activities (Scenario, COA, Listbuilder, Video Response, or Conversation)
Reflection and/or Feedback Report
What Does Good Look Like?
Ensure these core design elements Framing, Flow, Feedback, and Feeling are effectively integrated into your project for maximum learner impact!
Open your project in Studio and start your customizations -
the sky is the limit!!
📋 If you used a starter template, you can follow the prompts within each page of the Starter Flow to help you:
start from a fully built, fit-for-purpose wireflow
create content aligned to the page or activity type
custom build activities with realistic challenges
personalize the experience with add-ons or avatars
go beyond the set-up structure to tailor your experience
🤖 If you used ReX, you'll have a lot of content to work with and can focus on the tool capabilities to:
level up engagement
personalize the experience
provide dynamic feedback
explore branching opportunities
practice custom building activities
📚 If you want to use pages from the Regis Page Sample Project, you can use this in combination with either approach to:
quickly create polished pages
add your unique touch to the layout or content
focus on advanced features like branching, scoring, or AI integrations
💡TIP: Want to create unique pages and elevate your designs?
💡TIP: Want to create unique pages and elevate your designs?
Follow these links to learn how to use our super versatile DIY Template, Page Builder.
Click the arrow to expand this section!
Final step: Sharing your Project
Why do I have to share my project prototype?
We ask you to share it with us to see and celebrate what you've created, begin to understand your vision, learning objectives, supporting storyline/content/activities, and how you implemented features to support those learning goals SO THAT we can support you in accomplishing YOUR goals with SimGate and design.
🌟 BONUS: Sharing with a Peer(s) is optional, but we highly encourage it! So much personal learning and a deeper understanding result from feedback :)
How do I share my project prototype with Regis and Peers?
To share with Regis: Generate a "Reviewer Link" - you may recall using this feature in Module 4!
💡 TIP Check out this post to see all the different ways you can share your SimGate projects throughout various design phases: How To: Sharing Your Project
Email your link to s[email protected] before the final session so that we can review.
Finish these sentences in the body of your email:
One thing that worked really well when creating my prototype was....
One thing that was really challenging when creating my prototype was....
I estimate (guesstimate!!) that it took me approximately _____ hours to complete my DIY project prototype.
~Roger Schank, leading researcher in cognitive learning
We can't wait to see what you have created!
We're truly curious about your experience, all feedback is welcome...Seriously! Good, Bad, and In-between - we eagerly want to improve this tool for you!
PLEASE reach out with your thoughts or when sharing your work! [email protected]
Thank you! Your feedback, insights, and suggestions are invaluable!
