Instructional Value of Storytelling - Sloan-C

STORIES
The Instructional Value of Storytelling
Dr. Patricia McGee (UTSA)
Sloan-C Conference
San Francisco, CA
6.18.2009

Who are we?

Educator
Technical staff
Instructional Designer
Developer
Other

Learning across life through stories

Cultural identity
Personal narrative
Knowledge management
Collective consciousness
Lifelong learning

Digital Storytelling
… the practice of combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component.
EDUCAUSE 7 things you need to know

Digital Pedagogies
… those instructional frameworks that are used specifically within technology-mediated learning settings.

Connectivism
Gaming
Virtual/immersive
Informal learning

Community of Practice
“… a process of social learning that occurs when people who have a common interest in some subject or problem collaborate over an extended period to share ideas, find solutions, and build innovations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_practice

Storytelling as..

How can we make sure learning happens?

How instruction typically gets attention

There will be a test!

Facts
Procedures
Principles
Strategies
Critical thinking
Problem solving
Creative thinking

Stories in the real world tell us…

What to do + why to do it
What is valued
Often informal yet enculturated
Measurement of what is known
Indicator of what knowledge means
Conveyor of authority structure

Story as…
scenario
problem

Publication Model of Community

Portfolio Model of Community

Structure and Design
What works

What we know about stories …

7 elements of storytelling
The Center for Digital Storytelling

Design Frameworks
Learner

Citizen Journalism
How-to teaching others
Persuasion
Puzzle

Designer

Inquiry
Learner as Expert/ SME
Debate
Mystery

Journalistic Storytelling

Is a digital story ever done?
Re-telling and learning

Re-telling
Parable
Legend
Fable

Re-telling?
Different archetypes?

Archetypal plots
(Pearson, 1998)

Design Frameworks
Learner

Self-reflection
Journalism
Creative Writing
Multiple POVs

Pedagogy

Peer feedback/interviewing
Peer reviews
Connected storytelling

Does it matter how a story is told?
Process and intention

Telling a fable
(Snowden, 2004)

Story structure frameworks
Histrionic
Digressive
Polytrophic
Teleological

Jennifer Poo

Dialogic storytelling
Burbules (1983)

O’Neill, 2002
HIGH Need Fulfillment
TIME
A
R
C
S
LOW
Color
HIGH
Color
Keller, 1999
LOW Need Fulfillment

Interactive storytelling

?

Just because we use a method
Doesn’t mean we are telling an effective story or that students are learning

Telling + teaching
ENGAGEMENTof the listener/learner through multiple means
PREPARATION of the listener/learner for future learning

Things Smallby Cynthia Dassler

Co-narration

Learners telling stories

Novices
Focus on discrete details
Capture empirical information
Focus on the use of formulas and previously learned strategies
Operate at lower levels of thinking
Caveat: Learners are not novices at everything

Experts
Have deep and complex memory of information
Have situational and applied frameworks to quickly retrieve knowledge
‘See’ the underlying theory, models, and principle
Focus on understanding the problems
Caveat: Teachers are not experts at everything

Mental Function and Skill Level: Five Stage Model
Workplace experience
(Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1980, p. 15)

SOLO Taxonomy
Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes

Many tools operate at novice level
Heroes among us
THIRST

HURRIERModel of Listening
TRANSFER

Process of Digital Processing
TRANSFER

Social Media
keitaishousetsu– cell phone novels
Twitter
Blogs
Phones
iPods
Games
Facebook
Skype
YouTube
Meetup
Flickr
Ustream
The Sims

Design Frameworks
Learner
Portfolio
Cases
Debate
Problem Solving
Portfolio
Pedagogy
Peer/Expert critique
Cooperation
Collaboration
Distributed intelligence
Games

Engage

MIT Museum w/o Walls

Critical Reflection
(Brookfield 1987, 1991, 1995)

Critical Reflection

Connectedness
Wisdom
Understanding principles
Knowledge
Understanding patterns
Information
Understanding relations
Understanding
Data
(Bellinger, Castro & Mills, 2004)

Building Community