Story Design + Digital Storytelling

Much of the literature on digital storytelling from the past two decades centers around beneficial aspects of primarily student-createddigital storytelling projects in the classroom, though a few scholars have looked at using stories as part of the design process. Of the former, a handful of key categories emerged: digital storytelling as a constructivist tool, a means of personal expression, and as a social, community-building tool.

 

In writing about constructivism and its relationship to instruction, Karen Swan notes that theories of constructivism locate “learning in the mind of the individual and … it defines it as an active process of mental construction linked to interactions with the environment” (Swan, 2005, pp. 3). The potential benefits of digital storytelling in relation to constructivist learning theory is touched on in numerous studies where digital storytelling has been employed in undergraduate and graduate educational settings. Digital storytelling was found to offer substantial self-reflection, thereby connecting students’ personal experiences to the subject matter and reinforcing course concepts as a result (LaFrance, 2013).  Likewise, for students involved in digital storytelling projects, some of “the most significant gains pertain to higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills, including synthesizing, analyzing, evaluating, and presenting information”(Robin, 2008). Yet another study has posited that the act of transferring knowledge of scientific principles to digital narrative forms deepens understanding of such principles and that the quality of narrative structure is proportional to the depth of grasping of these principles (Tan, 2014). In each of these cases, the primary benefits extend well beyond the experience gained with technology, instead deriving from the active engagement of the student as the content creator.

Digital storytelling as a tool is often related to a personal form of expression, so that it is not just the activity that is engaging the student, but the fact that they are often required to draw from personal experience or frame projects from a first-person perspective, which is what makes digital storytelling especially engaging for learners (Vinogradova, 2011; Yang & Wan-Chi, 2014).  Carpentier (2009) summarizes (as cited by Westman, 2012), “[t]o date, a substantial amount of the literature on digital storytelling has focused on its potential for increasing participation and self-representation at the individual level. The definitions and descriptions ascribed to the practice embed it in the community media movement and the emancipatory strands of applied new media” (pp. 93).  Numerous studies have highlighted class projects that rely on students presenting personal narratives and explicit connections of their life stories to course content (Westman, 2012; Vinagradova et. al., 2011; Skouge, 2009; LaFrace, 2013; McLellan 2006).

Silvers, O’Connell and Fewell (2007) address the inherent difficulty in creating community in an online environment. The authors ground their discussion of online learning strategies in a social constructivist framework, espousing the need for learners to “engage with each other as well as with course content”, and that “online learning cannot be reduced to transmitting information in a unidimensional direction (teacher to student; student to teacher)” (pp. 81). Digital storytelling is introduced as one strategy employed by the authors to cultivate a sense of community by asking students to share visual presentations about themselves. This community-building attribute of digital storytelling is often discussed in relation to the social context in which digital narratives are both created and shared. In an online environment, this can be especially useful to establish what Garrison, Anderson & Archer (as quoted by Lowenthal & Dunlap, 2010) refer to as social presence: “the ability of people to project their personal characteristics into the community, thereby presenting themselves to other participants as ‘real people’”. The authors go on to cite researchers who have established “to varying degrees – a relationship between social presence and student satisfaction (Gunawardena, 1995; Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997; Richardson & Swan, 2003), social presence and the development of a community of learners (Rourke, Anderson, Garrison, & Archer, 1999; Rovai, 2002), and social presence and perceived learning (Richardson & Swan, 2003)” (pp. 70). The authors describe the utility of digital storytelling for establishing their social presence in online teaching, where they’ve created their own digital narratives to share with students, and this further led to implementing student digital storytelling projects for the same purpose.

A common thread in the literature on digital storytelling involves the assertion that digital narratives can both activate the technological savvy of “digital natives” (students who came of age with the internet) (Morgan, 2014) while at the same time helping students develop digital literacy as a professional skill (George-Palilonis, 2009; Clarke 2012).   While the assumption that contemporary students have a common baseline of technological competency can be problematic, especially in an online environment where student ages can deviate from the traditional 18 to 22 year old, the fact that students are accustomed to consuming a broad variety of visual media does support the notion that these students will at least be more engaged in projects and processes that involve similar elements of visual communication (Morgan, 2014). Whether or not students bring a common degree of media literacy to a digital storytelling project, numerous studies address their potential for cultivating digital literacy – that is, the ability to think critically about the methods involved in digital storytelling and their implications for communication (Xu, Park & Baek, 2011). It is important to note that this is far beyond the simple acquisition of a technological skill, but, as Vinogradova, Linville & Bickel (2011) describe it, the activity of digital storytelling and the use of technology it requires “demystifies these ubiquitous technologies and creates the basis for students to become more critical consumers of media who can therefore cast a more analytical gaze on media texts” (pp. 175-176).

Scholarship on the use of elements of storytelling as part of the design process is comparatively thin. Patrick Parrish (2008) first laid out a story approach to instructional design by way of his writing on aesthetics. In this, he suggests “we examine the ways in which instructional designers can and do make decisions similar to those artists make in producing their work, look to strategies derived from the arts that could help in creating artful instruction, and consider the extent to which the aesthetic experience of learners is important to learning” (p. 17). In this dissertation, and in subsequent writings, Parrish’s writing serves as an alternative to instructional design approaches that are more heavily influenced by learning sciences than art. In Aesthetic Principles for Instructional Design, Parrish furthers this effort by laying out specific principles and guidelines an instructional designer can follow to consider aesthetics in the design process. The purpose here is not simply to arouse interest in the student, as “[a]esthetic experience is marked by emotionally charged anticipation, deep engagement, and willingness to follow through to completion. Because these are optimal conditions for learning, we want learners to have aesthetic experience in the instructional situations we create” (Parrish, 2007). Parrish’s principles provide an early effort to connect storytelling technique to instructional design by plot, characters, theme and context in relation to the educational environment. Here, educational experiences should be recognized as having a beginning, middle and end, where learners are considered protagonists in the story (2007). Clearly, the Story Design framework will closely align with and expand on Parrish’s principles.  

In Embodiment and Narrative: Practices for Enlivening Teaching, Serle-White and Crozier discuss using narrative to enliven their own teaching and to better engage students:

First, organizing knowledge into stories seems to be a natural way in which our brains deal with complex information (Schank, 1990; Turner, 1996). We also recall information that is presented in narratives much better than information presented as abstract principles (Schank & Berman, 2002). Stories can also convey a great deal of information compactly by using our brain’s innate tendency to fill in the gaps in what we hear (Serle-White & Crozier, 2011, p. 9).

But beyond using stories to convey information or structure activities, the authors promote a similar approach to Parrish by designing lessons as a narrative, with a beginning, middle and end. But Serle-White and Crozier frame their approach around principles of acting more than writing, including elements of physicality, voice and presence.

Another study on narrative in teaching by Hirumi, Sivo and Pounds assessed the “application of storytelling to the systematic design of web-based learning” in two online courses (2012, p.8). In this study, designers worked with contractors to identify the learning outcomes of a graduate course and work on developing the story from this. It’s worth noting that their group encountered challenges early on, as described here:

It took considerably more time to transform the contents of the instructional treatment plans prepared by the instructional designer into a story than originally planned. Although the contractor worked with the instructional designer and the designer spent additional time trying to rewrite contents “in story,” it became apparent that storytelling is both a skill and an art that takes time to develop (2012, p. 10).

This study took a much more quantitative approach to data collection to measure variables such as student motivation, confidence, and satisfaction – generally looking at student engagement in these courses compared to previously taken online classes. Their findings confirmed that “learners’ reported significantly greater levels of attention, relevance, confidence, satisfaction, and overall motivation for the two online courses that applied the innovative storytelling approach than for two prior online courses completed by the same population that applied conventional designs, including online readings assignment, discussions, and assessments” (2012, p. 27). These results provide data-supported confirmation of the claims made by the previous authors – namely that using a storytelling approach, and considering students as the audience, can measurably increase student engagement.  

 

 

 

References

Berg, M., & Seeber, B. (2016). The slow professor : Challenging the culture of speed in the academy. Toronto ; Buffalo ; London: University of Toronto Press.

Hirumi, A., Sivo, S. & Pounds, K. (2012). Telling stories to enhance teaching and learning: The systematic design, development and testing of two online courses. International Journal on E-Learning, 11(2), 125-151. Waynesville, NC USA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved February 21, 2018 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/37139/.

Parrish, P. (2006). Design as Storytelling. TechTrends, 50(4), 72-82.

 

LaFrance, J., & Blizzard, J. (2013). Student Perceptions of Digital Story Telling as a Learning-Tool for Educational Leaders. International Journal of Educational Leadership.

 

McLellan, H. (2007). Digital Storytelling in Higher Education. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 19(1), 65-79.

 

Morgan, H. (2014). Using Digital Story Projects to Help Students Improve in Reading and Writing. Reading Improvement, 51(1), 20-26.

 

Parrish, P. E. (2008), Designing Compelling Learning Experiences (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Colorado Denver, Denver CO.

 

Parrish, P. E. (2009). Aesthetic Principles for Instructional Design. Educational Technology Research And Development, 57(4), 511-528.

 

Robin, B. R. (2008). Digital Storytelling: A Powerful Technology Tool for the 21st Century Classroom. Theory Into Practice, 47(3), 220-228.

Serle-White, J. & Crozier, D. (2011). Embodiment and narrative: practices for enlivening teaching. Transforming Dialogues: Teaching and Learning Journal. 5(2), 1-13.

Silvers, P., O’Connell, J., & Fewell, M. (2007). Strategies for Creating Community in a Graduate Education Online Program. Journal of Computing in Teacher Education, 23(3), 81-87.

Skouge, J. R., & Rao, K. (2009). Digital Storytelling in Teacher Education: Creating Transformations through Narrative. Educational Perspectives, 42(1-2), 54-60.

Swan, K. (2005). A constructivist model for thinking about learning online. . Elements of Quality Online Education: Engaging Communities. Needham, MA: Sloan-C.

Tan, M., Lee, S.-S., & Hung, D. W. (2014). Digital Storytelling and the Nature of Knowledge. Education and Information Technologies, 19(3), 623-635.

Vinogradova, P., Linville, H. A., & Bickel, B. (2011). “Listen to My Story and You Will Know Me”: Digital Stories as Student-Centered Collaborative Projects. TESOL Journal, 2(2), 173-202.

Westman, P. J. (2012). “Playing with the Team”: The Development of Communities of Practice in a Digital Storytelling Project. Digital Education Review(22), 92-100.