Stories have helped humans to pass information from generation to generation. It’s safe to say that “Stories were, are, and will be the best means of communication”
Here are a few reasons which led us to believe why storytelling is an effective teaching tool for learning.
Storytelling Is An Impactful Way Of Communicating
Interestingly, even though technology has come a long way in making communication much more advanced and convenient, storytelling remains one of the most effective ways of learning. Have you ever wondered why it works? Why do we remember all of our childhood stories?
It’s because stories engage human minds on an emotional level. The question is, how does the human mind tend to retain information obtained in the form of stories?
The answer to which is – it is mainly due to the person’s storytelling abilities that engage people on an emotional and intellectual level.
Stories resonate with people deeply, therefore it becomes crucial for the storyteller to make the entire process effective and impactful for learning.
Storytelling techniques are very impactful even when it comes to the corporate sector. It remains one of the most effective ways of engaging and teaching working adults.
Storytelling helps to illustrate your ideas better
We have always been using data to present our ideas largely made up on spreadsheets and slide decks, but that is not the way we can communicate and pass on the information impactfully. Emotion is what moves people to take action, and the best way to connect with another person is by telling a story that they resonate with.
More so, stories appeal to all of us as they can simplify complex subjects. They help organise information in a structured pattern, connecting every detail, every key aspect and execute the process. Storytelling provides an opportunity to retain and recall information more effectively.
Many learning courses are in a textual format, hence many of us fail to make a connection between theoretical data and practically doing the work. It is especially useful for heavily theoretical courses digestible when taught through stories.
Course creators need to include case studies into their course content, in order to make a connection between theoretical data and real-life scenarios. Although the case studies or stories are normally brief, they are effective enough to equip workers with better knowledge on ways to help clients, thus increasing productivity amongst other desired outcomes.
Hence storytelling is proven to be an effective method of teaching, allowing for workers to retain as much content as possible. In this day and age, traditional methods such as cramming large blocks of texts are slowly being phased out by storytelling, whereby content is easily explained and absorbed by the individual.
Storytelling helps to teach
Methods of storytelling are not restricted to simply weaving a topic into a story, so as to teach through telling the story. Stories themselves have the inherent characteristic of being lessons in themselves. Hence, in such instances where a story is in line with a topic being taught, it is better to adopt this approach as opposed to other more traditional methods of teaching.
In addition, stories have the power to bring text to life, with visual aid from videos or other forms of illustration. All in all, people get a more contextualized learning experience as they are able to immerse themselves into the lessons through simulations of real-life scenarios, which will prove to be essential in a corporate setting where mistakes are best minimized.
By using videos, corporate e-learning trainers can bring the stories to life, this highly interactive approach to teaching adds depth and clarity to the subject matter.
Storytelling Cuts Across All Technologies
As humans, we have spent our entire careers transporting audiences through visual storytelling. Storytelling traces its roots back to the very beginning of the human experience. It’s found its way through multiple forms, from ancient traditions of verbal storytelling, to art, text, images, cinema, and multimedia formats on the web.
Visual Storytelling is a language that we have developed over the years to transport the audience by providing them with an immersive experience. Stories are told through tons of different mediums, and the craft has been in a state of evolution for just as long as we have.
One of the recent and most innovative visual storytelling mediums is through immersive technologies, like Virtual reality and Augmented reality, also known as Storytelling via VR.
In the traditional storytelling format, a story or a structure is presented to a listener, reader, or viewer. Whether it is acting or dancing, some actors are presenting the story. But in virtual reality content creation, in contrast, we are no longer the passive audience. In-fact we are the character or the actor. The story will automatically unfold itself.
The sense of presence in VR, transforms the storytelling experience. Participants become a part of the environment with an incentive to act and respond to the events they encounter.
What sets VR content creation apart is the feeling of being present. This creates an entirely new set of opportunities and creative constraints. We believe our environments, characters and situations should be better suited for virtual reality then they would be anywhere else. This is easier said than done, as you might imagine.
Storytelling via VR is powerful because it is so immersive — and they play on our sense of imagination excitingly.
Marketers/brands leverage storytelling via VR to promote their product or experiences. The technology creates a fake yet realistic environment. Sometimes storytelling via VR is visual, and sometimes it’s multi-sensory, depending on the device. A full virtual reality headset offers a completely immersive experience, while a VR Instagram filter simply overlays objects or pictures onto the camera view.
Furniture making, makeup, and shoemaking companies benefit greatly from VR content creation and storytelling technology. Customers can “try out” multiple pieces of furniture at once, including complete room sets. Customers can see how pieces suit their rooms and how they look together. Similarly, you can experience your favourite destination to travel to and try out makeup before buying.
Storytelling via VR gives creators, filmmakers, manufacturers, and teachers numerous possibilities to create customized immersive experiences for their audience. With virtual and augmented reality, you can offer your customers a unique perspective. They can try out dozens of products in minutes to find the best possible fit, or they can see the first-hand social impact that their purchases have.
With evolving virtual reality content creation, the focus of marketing has shifted from the product to customers. Engage your customers with an immersive experience.
While marketing through print media and television offers a two-dimensional, linear experience to the customers, on the other hand, immersive storytelling via VR and AR can completely transform the customer’s experience.
Last words
Storytelling is one of the most effective solutions to teach and learn new skills especially if you are in corporate training. Studies have proven that lessons that incorporate storytelling yield better results due to blending real-world context into the learning experience.
But if you combine storytelling with new technology like virtual reality and gamification then it enhances the overall learning experience.
To sum up, we all need to start integrating storytelling into the teaching, or more specifically, into corporate e-learning courses. If it rings true for children to remember a good story with a compelling narrative, then there is no doubt that storytelling will be an effective medium for corporate training for all of us.
