Learning strategies that feel natural and powerful
Let me tell you about my old lecturer, John. He taught us Quantitative Analysis (statistics and probability) in our Bachelor of Business. Picture 300 first year students.
One lonely man at the front; with a computer, a piece of chalk and a double black board (I did say the lecture theatre was old).
Our lecture was for 3 hours once a week.
3 hours of maths and formulas with no fresh air or natural light (and no freekin aircon in subtropical Queensland Australia)
John stood in front of us on the morning of our first lecture and said….
‘Good morning everybody.’ (OH good grief he had a terrible speech impediment. He could not pronounce ‘r’. He sounded like the minister who tried to perform the wedding ceremony in the Princess Bride.)
‘This semester we are going to learn about….. (HUGE pause and deeeepppp intake of air) correlation and regression.’ (Go on… think about that with ‘w’ where the ‘r’s go)
What to do? …. Silence… Awkward silence. Heads turning to look at friends. Eyebrows knotted. Is he kidding? – Outcome 300 students, 100% present in the room. Full attention.
Well the answer was – he was a bloody rat bag. He was letting us know that he had the speech issue and that he also had a wicked, slightly dark sense of humour and IT WAS WONDERFUL.
3 hours of maths and formulas is hard work. He had a lovely sense of the room and just as it was becoming too much, he would lean on the huge front desk and say … ‘have I told you what my Mother-in-law did?’
And he had us.
Those stories were hysterical… usually completely fabricated and would somehow link back to the lesson like ‘so when she put her hand under the mower, which was still running, and removed the twig, how many fingers was she likely to lose?’ I’m sure he had a fabulous relationship with his Mother-in-law but she certainly got some air time in our lectures. His body language would come alive as he animated the stories and the energy in the room was alert. We were refreshed. We ready to learn again.
Stories are ancient, instinctual learning … they work and they’re fun!!
Your earliest learning happened through stories. Being read to, watching stories unfold around you, watching TV or movies. Not to mention those cautionary tales our mums and grandmothers like to tell!!! (Not so much Dad – his stories were mostly BS, hysterical and with no purpose other than mischief. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – see strategy 4)
Storytelling is a powerful learning tool because it requires the learner to make sense of their observations. It implies an ending and recognizes players and interactions in the narrative. It also creates opportunities to reflect on personal perspectives and bias. Stories create opportunities to integrate feelings and thoughts with new knowledge.
Stories are also great if you’re developing online learning. Of course you don’t benefit from the body language issue but you can use images to great effect.
The point is, stories are powerful learning tools. We listen better. We pay attention to the details better when the story involves people, a context, and a problem. And they are SO much more interesting than models and theories without context.
Types of storytelling for learning
1. Case study
A case study is a real example used to demonstrate and analyse the issue for learning purposes.
Do your past clients offer you great case study material? Ask for permission before you use them. De-identify if they prefer. Describe;
- Their problem/need/desire
- Barriers to overcome – trips and learnings along the way
- Major successes and outcomes
- Strategies that can be duplicated or learned from
Good case studies;
- Concrete new concepts to real world examples
- Allows learners to see how situations are interpreted and consequences
- Create memories –
- visual images (stories create images in our minds)
- links to emotions/feelings (empathy, happiness, sadness, hope)
Case studies are great for case law – for example discrimination, harassment, bullying, and work place health and safety examples. These can be a bit shocking and give real anchors for the learner to remember. You don’t have to look too far for examples. Just Google it.
Some resources for Australian case law
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/case-studies-conciliated-complaints-discrimination-employment
http://www.discriminationmatters.com.au/discrimination-case-studies.html
2. Scenarios
Scenarios are fictitious stories – a sequence of events with people playing roles. You can;
- Write out the story – a bit like a script
- Create images with character names in an online scenario
- Have it acted out and play it as a video.
The scenarios need to be;
- Realistic to the issue (make it believable) and the environment
- Challenging enough to not be blindingly obvious – requires some mental processing
- Require some unpacking – that is identifying what is relevant and what is ‘noise’ in this situation – but no so much that it is confusing or unfocused
- Problem based – presents a situation, issue, challenge or problem that needs to be addressed using the tools provided in the lesson
- Logical order of events – reasonable cause and effect
How to use scenarios
- Use small scenarios throughout the session/module – deal with discrete parts of the lesson
- Create a quite complicated scenario that gets addressed multiple times throughout the session/module
- Create people who play particular parts at the beginning of the session and use them to demonstrate how each part might unfold.
- For example, let’s say you’re a fitness coach. You can introduce 3 characters – with images and names and a brief description of their life/need/desires. These people can take different paths during your materials, each leading to different outcomes using (or not using) the strategies you are suggesting. This method allows you to show how your strategies are put into place for an individual (regardless of that person being fictional) and will involve their struggles/blocks/routines etc.
Example of branching scenario – although I’m not a fan of the examples given, you can see how a branching scenario can work.
Want some more information on how to write scenarios? I LOVE Cathy Moore’s blog. She really focuses on corporate training but her style is excellent and there is much to learn here.
3. Role plays
Role plays are pretty much universally hated (except with therapists or other sorts of social workers I’ve found) however they are powerful.
Role plays are the extreme sports of active learning methods.
Role plays are simulations the learners actually participate in rather than just read about.
You must create a safe environment for role plays to work well as you are putting your learners in a vulnerable position.
Role plays work particularly well in developing communication and interpersonal communication skills and methods.
Use role plays where there is trust, risk taking is endorsed and mistakes are seen as ways to learn and grow.
Let’s look at how you could use this in a workshop environment.
- Create briefs for each role. Give each role only the information and back ground they need. Clearly identify what each person wants to achieve and the purpose/context/environment of the interaction. (You can have people take on more general roles such as disgruntled customer who wants a refund and is going to be completely arrogant and argumentative, but take care, some people like this a little too much.)
- Briefly explain what is going to happen, how long it should take and the expectations around ground rules and roles (eg each role player, the observers and what happens at the end of the session – what happens in the training room stays in the training room)
- Ask for volunteers. You may then use a role play trio where everyone gets a ago in at least one role, but model the process first. (Role play trio – 2 role play, one observes and comments; then change roles around)
- Ensure all role players use ‘names’ for their characters and ‘de-role’ them at the end of each activity. This differentiates the role played from the person who played the role and allows them to get involved in the debrief and see their persona as someone they can comment on as well.
- Eg “Thank you (real name) for your participation and allowing us to benefit from the activity. I’m sure we all learned a great deal from (role play name). (Real name) Is there something you would like to say about (role play character name)?’
- Ask them to take their seat again to continue the debrief with the group and take their role with the learners again.
- Thoroughly debrief the activity – respect that people have engaged with the activity and really milk all there is to learn. Ask loads of probing questions. Clarify. Get really clear about how the content of the lesson is applied in the lifelike role play. What worked particularly well? How else could this have gone? What else did you observe? What would you do differently and why?
Online training role plays;
- With a collaborative interface (eg chat, webinars, closed groups) – LIMIT TIME. 5 minutes.
- can take the form of a live coaching call within a webinar or teleconference (between the coach and a participant or between participants). The facilitator is modelling the coaching methods being taught and the participant may be given a role to play with a specific issue/barriers/attitudes etc (rather than play themselves).
- You can assign roles and have the participants break into smaller groups (virtually using chat or email or into breakout groups in a teleconference). Have two roles and an observer and do as described in the workshop example. One person from each group can feedback to the larger group at the end of the activity.
- Without a collaborative interface –
- Give the participant a prompt. Have her/him record her/his response. Listening to their own voice allows her/him to analyse the response according to some guidelines you have provided.
- A script the learner would use when in a particular situation. For example, if your course is about converting sales then you may provide a script for entrepreneurs to use with various responses and options as the conversation continues. This script would be accompanied with a set of reflection questions. ‘What worked really well?’ ‘Why?’ ‘What did I find difficult?’ ‘Why?’ ‘How would I do this differently next time?’
Looking for some more examples? (Most examples of online use of role plays are actually branching scenarios)
4. Anecdotes
Ah the old war story. Having worked with police for a long time, these can be both powerful and over used!!!
Anecdotes can be spontaneous or predetermined. Rules to consider;
- Be careful to make them relevant and appropriate
- Be mindful of confidentiality and anonymity issues
- De-identify where necessary
- Be purposeful – that is, lighten the mood, have a moral, demonstrate an action or outcome, create a connection, make yourself more ‘real’ to the participant
- Be genuine – if you’re making stuff up to be amusing… make it obvious. Don’t BS or lie to make yourself look more impressive. That’s rubbish and burns trust.
- Don’t waffle on
You can use anecdotes to lighten the mood when the lesson feels heavy or tired. This is a bit more performance and entertainment based storytelling and it is super fun and effective in recharging a session/lesson. Mischief in training is a good thing 🙂
I started this blog with an anecdote.
How was my anecdote relevant?
John used anecdotes and storytelling beautifully. His classes are where I learned to use stories – I went on to teach accounting in a university for 5 years. Stories helped 🙂
RIP John x Thanks for the lessons.
Want to know more? Get in touch. I can help you develop great activities to engage and cement your client’s understanding of how to implement your ideas.
Knowledge without action is a waste of time.
I’d love to hear your experiences. Have you used storytelling in your products? What worked well? What advice would you give others?
