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Message Channel Decision Tree

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About This MicroSim

Clubs get this wrong in both directions. Urgent messages go out by email and are read the next morning, after the session everyone missed. Schedule changes go out by group chat and are unfindable three weeks later when a family needs the date.

Two questions sort it. Does this need action within the hour? If yes, the group messaging app, because it reaches phones now. Does someone need to find this again later? If yes, email, because it is searchable.

The third outcome is the honest one. Plenty of club messages are neither urgent nor archival -- a friendly note, a photo, a thank-you. For those the tree says so rather than inventing a rule, and mentor judgment and family preference decide.

Worth naming for the group: the two questions are independent. A message can be both urgent and archival, in which case it goes to the chat and the email -- the tree gives the first channel, not the only one.

How to Use

  • Hover a node to preview it; click to pin the details.
  • Follow the two decision diamonds in order: urgency first, then whether a searchable record is needed.

Lesson Plan

Bloom level: Evaluate (L5) -- determine

Learning objective: Given a message's urgency and audience, the learner determines which communication channel is appropriate.

Before the sim (5 min). Ask how the club announced its last room change, and whether everyone found out in time.

With the sim (10 min). Walk both diamonds. Then propose messages and have the group route each one aloud: "session cancelled, starts in two hours", "next term's dates", "great work at the showcase last night."

After the sim (15 min). Write the club's channel rule as two sentences and put it where mentors will see it.

Check for understanding. Ask: "The venue moved next week's session to a different room. Which channel?" Both -- chat because people need to know, email because they will need to look it up. Recognising that the two questions are independent is the evaluation this objective asks for.

Embedding This MicroSim

Paste this into any page of the book, adjusting the relative path to docs/sims/ for the page's depth:

<iframe src="../../sims/message-channel-decision-tree/main.html" width="100%" height="662" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Specification

The full specification below is extracted from Chapter 24: Tracking Student Data and Managing Club Communication.

Type: workflow
**sim-id:** message-channel-decision-tree<br/>
**Library:** Mermaid<br/>
**Status:** Specified
**Template:** https://github.com/dmccreary/token-efficiency/tree/main/docs/sims/conversation-message-structure

Purpose: Help a mentor decide, for a specific message, whether email or the group messaging app is the right channel.

Bloom Taxonomy: Evaluate (L5)
Bloom Taxonomy Verb: determine

Learning objective: Given a message's urgency and audience, the learner determines which communication channel is appropriate.

Steps (decision tree):
1. Start: "New Message to Send" -- click reveals "Any outgoing message a mentor needs to send to families or mentors."
2. Decision: "Needs Action Within the Hour?" -- click reveals "A same-day room change or a running-late notice both count as urgent."
3a. Branch "Yes" leads to "Send via Group Messaging App" -- click reveals "Reaches families checking their phones in real time; not meant to be a permanent record."
3b. Branch "No" leads to Decision: "Needs a Searchable Written Record?" -- click reveals "A schedule change, a newsletter, or anything a family might need to reference weeks later."
4a. Branch "Yes" leads to "Send via Email" -- click reveals "Easily searched later; appropriate for anything semi-official."
4b. Branch "No" leads to "Either Channel Works" -- click reveals "For a low-stakes, non-urgent note, mentor judgment and family preference can decide."

Interactivity requirement (satisfied): every node has a Mermaid `click` directive tied to an infobox showing its revealed text.

Color coding: Purple for decision diamonds, green for the group-messaging-app outcome, blue for the email outcome, gray for the "either channel" outcome.

Implementation: Mermaid flowchart (`graph TD`) rendered in main.html with `click NodeId call showInfo("NodeId")` directives for every node.

References