|
Storytelling is the recounting of events. More than a mere repetition of facts or a moment-
by-moment accounting of an event, storytelling provides a perspective on the
events. Each story consists of a story teller (the vantage from which the story is told),
characters (people who participate in the incident, as described by the story teller),
plot (a description of one or more related incidents, usually in detail), and commentary
from the story teller (that gives readers the story teller’s view about the events
and helps readers interpret the incidents).
In classroom learning, storytelling is a commonly used teaching technique. Instructors
verbally illustrate concepts by telling stories about the ways that people
have applied the concepts in real life. In some cases, the stories come from the instructor’s
own experience. In other cases, the stories are ones that the instructor has
read in the literature or heard about from colleagues. Learners enjoy these stories because
they make abstract concepts concrete. They also enjoy stories because they’re
entertaining. Stories liven up a classroom lecture. In fact, some of the most popular
classroom trainers are master storytellers. Indeed, many creative training techniques
workshops teach corporate trainers how to integrate stories into their teaching.
Storytelling also has a significant
role to play in needs assessment, design, and formative evaluation. In needs assessment,
storytelling techniques prove useful in eliciting content from experts in ways
that might not be possible with other techniques. For example, a technique called day
in the life helps instructional designers understand how learners apply content by following
their use of the content over a period of time, such as a day. In design, stories
can be used to describe the content and learners in a three-dimensional way. For example,
one design technique is to develop personas of intended users of the learning
program (also called archetypes [Cooper, 1999] or character sketches). Because instructional
designers rarely have the opportunity to meet with potential learners before piloting
a learning program (and in many instances, not until the learning program is
formally launched), the more three-dimensional description of learners provided by
a persona significantly increases designers’ understanding of learners and their use of
the material. In formative evaluation, storytelling techniques can be used to provide
authentic testing situations, such as test scenarios.
Closely related to the concept of storytelling as a needs assessment, design, and
formative evaluation technique is the broader concept of contextually based design, a
process by which someone becomes familiar with the entire situation in which people
use a product (in this case, learning) and designs the product so that it fits nicely
within that environment, as well as with the users’ motivations at the time he or she
uses the product.
The Benefits of Storytelling and Contextually
Based Design Techniques
In addition to those already stated, storytelling and contextually based design provide
a variety of benefits as both design and teaching techniques. As a design technique,
storytelling provides these benefits:
• More complete information. Consider the two versions of the description of a
new product in Examle 1 and 2. The version in Example 1 takes a factual
approach, providing lists of tasks that the software performs and demographics
of the intended users. The version in Example 2 takes a contextually
based approach and adapts storytelling techniques. It includes brief
“stories” about the ways that people might use the software and character
sketches of three intended users. Certainly the amount of detail in the version
using storytelling techniques is more complete. More than the quantity
of information, however, the nature of the content differs substantially in
the second version. By describing real users and their actual uses of the software,
the second version suggests that people use the application in ways
that differ from the way that product designers intended it.
Example1 - First Version of Source Material About an Application,
Using a Factual Approach
Purpose of the Application: learning management system
Key tasks:
• Enrollment in classroom and e-courses
• Electronic enrollment and wait-listing in training courses
• Automatic generation of confirmation letters
• Automatic generation of reminder letters
• Reporting of aggregate learning results
• Report on enrollments by course or student
• Provide completions reports
• Tracking of learner progress
• Track starts and completions
• Track “stalled” students—ones who enroll but never complete
• Interfacing with related systems, such as HR or Information Systems
• Provide completions to the employee education record
• Related bookkeeping
• Online payment for services
• Automatic generation of bills
• Posting of payments to registrations
Users:
• Administrative
• Two years of post-college
• Predominantly female
• Currently serve as administrators doing similar tasks as those listed above manually
and with separate applications
Example2. Second Version of Source Material About an Application,
Adapting Storytelling Techniques
Purpose of the Application: A learning management system, which serves as an
electronic registrar for a company’s training operation, performing many of the same
tasks as a university registrar but in a corporate context and with corporate training
courses.
Scenarios of Use: The system performs four main tasks:
• Enrollment in classroom and e-courses
• Reporting of aggregate learning results
• Tracking of learner progress
• Interfacing with related systems, such as HR Information Systems
Here are some scenarios in these tasks might be performed.
Preparing a Compliance Report: Leslie is a manager of medical records specialists
for a large urban hospital that has installed the learning management system. All of
the records specialists are certified, but must receive at least twenty hours of training
annually to retain their certification. Every fifth year, the specialists must receive a
new certification. Because her hospital is in the process of being re-accredited by
the Southern Regional Hospital Association, her manager has asked her to make
sure that all employees’ certifications are up-to-date. So Leslie uses the learning
management system to check on the status of each of her employees. She wants to
make sure that each has received twenty hours of training in the past twelve months
and that all certifications are no more than five years old.
Planning Personal Training Needs: William is a junior engineer working for an
aerospace manufacturer that has installed the learning management system.William’s
manager has told him that he needs to complete the required training curriculum
for new engineers within the next twelve months.Although William’s manager told
him which courses to take,William has misplaced the list. He’s supposed to enroll in
the courses by tomorrow. So he goes online with the learning management system
to first find out which courses he’s supposed to take, then enroll in them.
Generating the Gee-Whiz Report: Andrew manages the management training
department for a medium-sized national retailer, and his company has installed the
learning management system.As Andrew gets ready to prepare his quarterly report,
he wants to collect some “gee-whiz” statistics from the learning management system
to inform his management about the number of people his staff has trained in the
past quarter and the results of that learning (which is assessed by tracking the results
of tests administered).
Preparing Classrooms for the Coming Week: Odell is an administrator at the training
center for a company that has installed the learning management system.As part
of her weekly routine, every Friday, Odell prepares the classrooms for the coming
week. From the learning management system, she prints a list of all classes scheduled
in the coming week. Next, for each class, she prints a roster of all people enrolled. She
also prints a setup list and sets up the classroom according to the instructions in the
setup lists. Last, she checks to make sure that each learner has paid his or her tuition
for the class. For students who have enrolled but not yet paid, she instructs the learning
management system to send a reminder note that tuition must be paid in full before
learners can attend class.
Users: According to the Marketing Department, the typical user is administrative,
two years of post-college, likely to be female (67 percent of users), and currently
serve as administrators doing similar tasks as those listed above manually and with
separate applications.
Here are descriptions of three typical users:
Leslie is a manager of medical records specialists. As a former medical records specialist
and as someone who continues to keep her certification active, she is familiar
with the systems used to keep medical records and has been looking forward to the
installation of the learning management system. She estimates that each September,
she spends 30 percent of her time making sure that her employees have the correct
number of training hours for the year (or are scheduled to receive them).This is
especially aggravating because year-end reports are also due in September (her organization’s
financial year ends September 30) and, as the mother of three young children,
September is also the first month of the school year (with all of its attendant
problems). She would welcome a system that automatically generates the reports
that she needs.
Odell is an example of an expert user. Odell uses the learning management system
to manage a training center. From it, she prints class rosters and setup lists, assigns
courses to individual classrooms, makes sure that each learner paid his or her tuition,
and produces training-related correspondence that is automatically generated
by the system. Odell has been managing her education center for ten years, mostly
through manual procedures supported by many specialized pieces of software.
Although the new system promises to simplify Odell’s work, adjusting to the new
system is another story.The new system uses a Windows interface; Odell has only
used mainframe applications, although she helps her high-school-age daughter with
her homework on a Windows system. Odell is also concerned that moving many of
the tasks to the system will result in her ultimately losing her job. As a single
mother, Odell cannot afford to lose her job.
Andrew is the embattled manager of a training department in a medium-sized corporation.
He was moved into the job when, as sales manager, he failed to meet quota
two years in a row.Andrew’s career had a promising start; he was a sales star for his
first five years.The longer he worked in sales, the less his management expected him
to conform to policies and procedures.That changed when Andrew was promoted to
sales manager, a role in which he was expected to enforce the policies and procedures
he previously eschewed.That task was made all the more difficult by his limited
software skills. But rather than seek assistance, Andrew was afraid he would
look incompetent if he were to ask for computer training, so he has tried to fake it.
Many Web applications are simple enough that he can do so, but he has been less
effective with Office and specialized applications, like learning management systems.
Realizing that Andrew was not an effective sales manager, upper management moved
him to this training position. But Andrew now finds himself being asked to demonstrate
that the investment in training is really effective.The sales representative for
the learning management system told Andrew that he could use the reports for such
a demonstration, but Andrew has to figure out how to do so.
• Emotional connection with learners. One of the challenges of designing
e-learning, especially asynchronous e-learning, is the anonymity of the experience.
Not only are learners separated from the instructor by time and
geography, but in many instances, course designers do not have the opportunity
to meet the learners at all. In classroom courses, face-to-face interaction
provides instructors with an opportunity to better tailor the content to
learners’ needs. In response to misguided looks and direct questions from
students, instructors can mention things in the current class and tweak the
content for future class sessions. That’s not possible with asynchronous
e-learning and difficult to do with synchronous (that is, live virtual) courses.
Furthermore, changing an e-course, especially an asynchronous e-course, is
costly. As a result, the more that instructional designers can find out about
learners before designing a learning program, the better designers can meet
the needs of learners. For example, course designers who are not aware of
Leslie’s needs might easily overlook content about preparing compliance reports
in the design of the learning program, leaving Leslie and learners like
her to figure this out on their own (if Leslie even could). But with this information,
a designer might include a special section of the learning program for
generating compliance reports and might even stress the ease of generating
reports under tight deadlines, like those imposed by government agencies.
• More authentic evaluations. By using storytelling and contextually based techniques
for evaluating online learning programs, instructional designers
evaluate materials in contexts that are closer to actual learning environments
and receive feedback that is more likely to reflect concerns of real
learners in real-life conditions. The resulting changes help designers tailor
the learning materials to the realities of their learning situations. | 
Disclaimer
