I have heard of teachers who teach science concepts by telling stories using pictures, cartoons and multimedia. Teachers tell stories because kids like stories and they learn faster.
Not only kids, adults also like stories. We understand better through stories and storytelling.
The other day I was working on a short e-learning prototype. I thought of some strategies and then I quickly outlined the slides of the e-learning in a PowerPoint. I thought I had done a good job.
Later my friend suggested that I narrate the strategy I used in the e-learning prototype. We continued to discuss and then we took turns to narrate each slide of my prototype.
To my surprise I found a couple of logical pitfalls. I discovered that I start with a story , go on and on, the story breaks in between for sometime and then the story ends.
I didn’t discover this when I designed each slide of the prototype.
Well, story telling is an excellent exercise in Instructional Designing, in the sense that it tells you how logical and effective your prospective e-learning course is.
Have you ever tried narrating your Storyboard to someone?
This is similar to what a movie director does. A movie director always narrates the plot to the actors. The actors can very well read the movie script themselves. But then most movie directors make it a point to narrate their script because this is how the movie comes alive even before the actual work begins.
Here is what Prof Karl Kapp suggests to help Instructional Designers to become story tellers:
I think all Instructional Designers must be good storytellers because:
- Instructional Designers are supposed to be Creative
- The E-learning courses they design must engage the audience
Do you think Instructional Designers must be good story tellers? Please write in your views in the comments section.
Rupa,
Stories are the way our brains are hardwired to accept new information. That’s the way it’s been for thousands of years, and that will never change.
I want to tie story-telling into everything I do. But here’s the thing: I don’t know how to tell stories very well. This is a skill I’ve been wanting to improve for a very long time, but I haven’t really had the time to search for resources.
Read Dan Pink’s book, “The Whole New Mind“. He lists story-telling as the 2nd sense of the Six Senses of the coming Conceptual Age.
Thanks for the reference Jacob
You are right… not all can tell stories well. You have to work to gain this skill.
I try to use the story telling approach, too. A tool that I find helps me is Celtx, http://celtx.com/, a free scriptwriting program. It has a structure that keeps me on track.
Hi Rupa, yet another interesting post. But I would like to differ. I guess you can’t use story-telling technique across any and every elearning course that we design. Say for instance in an application training where the learners need to familiarise with certain tabs, buttons, and how to use the application- there we cannot fit in a story right? What do you think?
Hi Mousumi
I think you can weave a story around anything, if u are a good story teller
Stories are powerful because we all learn from example and empathy. Also, I disagree with Mousumi, at face value it seems that you can not teach people how to use applications with story… but could you not tell a ‘user’s’ story of how they used an application right, wrong or in a new or innovative way. I do agree that this isn’t the best way to teach all skills all the time, but it still is possible.