Storytelling & the Brain

How do you currently DESIGN your learning material? Did you say interesting? Or inclusive? Appealing to emotion? Images? Let me share the formula I user pretty consistently: Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction. 

Let's see it in action: 

Let's talk for a second about that first level of instruction...Gaining a learner's attention. 

Specifically, how do we do it??!?

Do you know who this guy is?

In 1748, this guy – John Montague was a British politician and also an aristocrat. And when you’re an aristocrat, you spend a lot of your free time with hobbies. John’s hobbies included playing cards. 

But, Earl John had a problematic situation – he got hungry during a long card games and it was really difficult to set up a full dining experience while still holding your cards. So, he had this really brilliant idea to take his meats and stuff them between two slices of bread so he could hold his snack with one hand AND hold his cards with the other!!!  TA-DA...the Sandwich is born! 

Imagine if I had told you this information like this instead of a story:

But, isn't this terribly uninteresting bulleted list exactly the way we present information to learners in online modules? WHY? WHY DO WE CONTINUE TO DO THIS???

Why do we become so much more engaged in a movie? Or even a friend’s story?

There are two parts of the brain that allow us to process language. Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas are cortical areas specialized for production and comprehension of human language.

Why is this important? When we listen to a powerpoint presentation with bullet points, the Broca and Wernicke start to fire. The information hits our language processor and then we decode the words into meaning. That’s it.

When we are being told a story, however, things are dramatically different. Our Broca and Wernicke are still firing – because we are decoding language, but other areas of our brains light up – the sensory cortex, our motor cortex also gets active. A story puts your entire brain to work!

And we do it all the time! We think in narratives all day – whether it is about buying groceries, weekend plans, or heading to work. We make up short stories in our heads for every action and conversation.

Did you know that personal stories make up 65% of our conversations?

The Science of Stories...

Why do we respond to stories?

Stories spark emotion!

Stories help us make sense of things!

We learn from stories!

Stories help us create context and understanding!

When we trigger emotion, we remember!

So, stories = learning?

What do you think? Let's discuss in the comments.