I have long been intrigued with authors who use story to write books in innovative ways (I almost said “novel” ways). I’m interested in business novels, business fables, like Steve Denning’s Squirrel, Inc. and Spencer Johnson’s Who Moved My Cheese?, and some of the others that appear on the sidebar of this blog.

A new entry is Edge! A Leadership Story.

Here’s what the book’s Web site says about its creation:

In May of 2006, Bea Fields approached Corey Blake with an idea. She was recognized as a pioneer in her industry, but she needed a vehicle to really shake people up and challenge them to set higher standards for themselves, their businesses and their lives. She also knew that the way to achieve her goal was to use a story approach that would engage and entertain her readers as much as it would educate them. With a longstanding background in storytelling and developing exceptional content, Corey brought aboard Eva Silva Travers, an accomplished writer, and the three worked over the course of two years to bring you Edge! A Leadership Story.

One of the co-authors, Corey Blake, gives a quick plot summary in the clip below:

I was pretty much past the hands-on mothering stage by the time I entered my PhD program in 2003 as my kids were almost grown and one was already out of the house.

But I remain interested in the stories of PhD holders and students, especially those who share the joys and burdens of motherhood, so I was pleased to see the launch of a new blog within Inside Higher Ed, Mama PhD in which seven women blog about balancing motherhood with academic careers.

A couple of recent items about using storytelling in teaching:

In a publication about teaching corporate ethics, Timothy Fort writes:

It’s important to include the use of narrative in class, and there are often other more subtle and powerful forms of narrative that can be used as well. On the micro-level, sharing personal stories gives students permission to share their own stories. … Without turning the classroom into a therapy session, sharing stories of struggle invites students to share their own accounts. As students share their personal stories, they begin to connect with the larger themes …. As a first assignment, students in my class tell a personal story of something that happened in business that they believed to be good. … On a macro-level, the class itself can be used as a model of a narrative story on how to create positive organizational cultures.

Noting that stories in the classroom can be as simple as case studies, “baldTrainer” writes about using storytelling in online classes:

Storytelling isn’t just a possible option to include within an eLearning course. It is an absolute necessity.

This video, Storytelling Theory and Practice, was recommended by a blogger as “excellent” and offering great tips. I’m sure the content is excellent and does offer terrific tips. But I couldn’t get through more then 5 minutes of its 45 minutes. Yes, the presenter, Dr. Brian Sturm of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, does incorporate a story early on. Yes, he’s a decent presenter. But he stands in front of a whiteboard, flanked by a screen, giving a lecture in front of a classroom. We also get to see some fuzzy slides projected on that screen next to him.

Just can’t help thinking that with all that’s going in digital storytelling, this information could be presented in a way that would entice me to listen to the full 45 minutes.

Continuing my series of bits from the nice outline (by “gwennis48” at the Luther I. Replogle Foundation) of key points from the presentation that Andy Goodman delivered. I’ve blogged previously about my fondness for Goodman’s Web site and company…

To illustrate the effectiveness of stories for memory and learning, Goodman noted that when told to remember pairs of words, a group of 5-year-olds can remember one pair out of 21; if they make a sentence out of the pairs, they remember 8 of 21; if they make a question about the pairs, they remember 16 of 21. If the pair is “soap” and “shoe,” the question might be “Who put the soap in my shoe?” The research subjects remember when they ask a question because the question helps them make a story.

Dr. Rebecca Isbell is a proponent of storytelling for learning, especially for young children. On her Web site, she notes these learning advantages for children that stories offer:

• They provide a new way to learn how the world works.
• Exposes them to stories from other cultures and different people.
• Storytelling develops their visual imagery.
• Provides opportunities to discuss moral and social issues.
• Increase listening comprehension of stories.

In a blog posting on Library Trainer, Lori Reed, who attended one of Dr. Isbell’s workshops, noted these additional learning features of stories. Reed asserted that the learning that comes through storytelling applies largely to adults as well as children.

Stories:

• Help learners remember and reinforce key points and concepts.
• Give meaning and deeper understanding to a new concept or skill.
• Help the learner stay awake! How many times have you ever been in a workshop where you had to pinch yourself to stay awake?
• Make learning fun!

Here's a way to test the ability of stories to teach -- at least compared to PowerPoint presentations.

Writing in Newsday, Patricia Kitchen told of the technique of Manhattan-based organizational consultant Ben Dattner that "vividly illustrate[s] how stories are memorable and PowerPoint is forgettable."

Writes Kitchen:

Dattner asks his master's-level classes at New York University to put away their notes following team presentations and call out details they remember from the slides. The students are often shocked at how few bullet points they can summarize after listening for 20 minutes - usually around 5 percent of the PowerPoint content," he says. "However, students generally remember about half of the stories or anecdotes in the presentation."

Try it yourself or with students/audience members the next time you're in a situation in which you can compare PowerPoint-heavy presentations with talks that are anecdote-rich.

In a terrific testament to how storytelling aids learning and makes students want to learn, creator Caitlin Kelleher describes Storytelling Alice:

As my thesis work, I created and evaluated a programming system for middle school girls called Storytelling Alice that presents programming as a means to the end of storytelling. Storytelling Alice includes high-level animations that enable users to program social interactions, a gallery of characters and scenery designed to spark story ideas, and a story-based tutorial. To evaluate the impact of storytelling support on girls’ motivation and learning, I compared girls’ experiences using Storytelling Alice and a version of Alice without storytelling support (Generic Alice). Results of the study suggest that girls are more motivated to learn programming using Storytelling Alice; study participants who used Storytelling Alice spent 42 percent more time programming and were more than three times as likely to sneak extra time to work on their programs as users of Generic Alice (16 percent of Generic Alice users and 51 percent of Storytelling Alice users sneaked extra time).

Here is the information on her dissertation that reports those results:
Kelleher, C. Motivating Programming: Using storytelling to make computer programming attractive to middle school girls. PhD Dissertation, Carnegie Mellon University, School of Computer Science Technical Report CMU-CS-06-171.

Another excellent explanation of the project is here.

In her blog Soulbride's Kitchen, Kamalla Rose Kaur tells of what sounds like a wonderful storytelling class at Western Washington University (where the class is a General Education Requirement) taught by Rosemary Vohs. Commenters to Kaur's blog affirm Vohs's exceptional teaching ability and credit her with significant influence on their lives ("She taught me virtually everything I know about storytelling, public speak[ing], and performing," writes Jacqueline Bartha of Jacksonville, FL.)

Kaur's main point in her posting is how she was derided when she told people she was taking the storytelling class. People assumed it was an easy and lightweight topic. In reality, storytelling was Kaur's hardest class. She wonders if storytelling is looked down upon "because anyone can tell a story...?"

Is it because professors are often horrible storytellers, while humble working class folk often excel at it? Is it a women’s discipline? Is it a childish subject? Or are other races better at storytelling than people of European descent?

Kaur peppers her posting with some great quotes about storytelling, which I've now posted in my Story Wisdom section.

She concludes, "The capacity to tell our tales is neither easy nor is it trivial." Referring to the tendency of the revilers to compare the class to basket-weaving, Kaur declares: "I dare you! Weave a basket that holds water and lasts longer than your puny little lifetime."

In a sad postscript to her blog posting, Kaur notes that because of budget cuts, Western Washington U. has cut Vohs' classes down to one and told her to vacate her office.

At The Learning Times Green Room, a podcast for Renewal, Retooling and Conversations about Learning, co-hosts Susan Manning and Dan Balzer offer a podcast on using storytelling for instructional purposes.

The Learning Times Green Room blog also offers notes to go along with the podcast. Susan's and Dan's discussion of "getting students engaged in solving a problem, making a recommendation, or breaking up problem down into simpler components are methods of using story" resonates with me. Susan and Dan also encourage listeners to check out Learning Scenarios Online based at Valencia College, which is near me. You can log onto a demo Learning Scenario course, Teaching for Learning, a story-based course described, in part, like this: "By engaging with the storyline, characters, and resources, and interacting with other participants, you will leave with the skills, attitudes and knowledge to assist you in creating a learning-centered classroom environment."

The Learning Times Green Room's show topics are often drawn from members of LearningTimes.org, a free online community of education and training professionals from across the globe. The LT Green Room gives listeners (and ourselves) an opportunity to reflect on what they're doing behind the scene that results in an effective learning experience.