Storytelling

Over the past few years in my math and computer science courses, I have tried several different approaches to teaching and learning. I’ve implemented a thinking classroom through vertical non-permanent surfaces (more here), open ended rich tasks, learning through inquiry, project based learning, learning through problem solving, and math talks.

I have had some great successes as well as some challenges. While each of these strategies differs in purpose and focus, I’ve noticed that for everything I have done there has always been one underlying technique that has been tremendously effective. That one tool is storytelling.

Effectiveness

When I say effective, I am not just talking about engagement, but actual learning. I came to realize that people aren’t just engaged by stories, they learn through them. Teachers often talk about retention as a challenge. “I taught this at the beginning of the year but now everyone has forgotten it right before the exam."

What are the things that we do not forget? I was fortunate to recently attend a conference in San Francisco put on by Learning and the Brain about creativity and learning in the 21^st century (I promise there will be more blog posts in the future about the conference). Storytelling and connecting to the emotional intelligence of learners was a theme that came up again and again. We don’t really learn something and retain it unless we have an emotional connection to it.

So what kinds of things do we retain and how do we retain them? We take in new information, make sense of it by telling ourselves a story, view it through our own lens and attach prior understanding, and then emerge from that space of not knowing with new understanding.

A while back, I was tweeted this graphic by @Tedfujimoto that summarizes the effects of storytelling on the brain.

Engagement

When I say that people find stories engaging, it really is an understatement. A more accurate description would be that humans find stories enthralling, enchanting, and immersive.

At the conference, one of the speakers and author of The Storytelling Animal, Jonathan Gottschall, talked about how humans are wired to be engaged by stories and how we can tap into the power of stories as a way to teach, learn, and make sense of complex ideas. He shared the following famous photograph of the Bushmen in Africa:

Look at the body language. The people are leaning in, completely zoned in and engaged. What I find even more intriguing is how happy they look. Can we as educators tap into the power of stories to spread the joy and passion we have about the subjects we teach?

Think about how people look when they are watching a movie. Again, eyes locked in, completely engaged for hours. Why do people scream when they are watching a scary movie? They are not just watching someone else; they feel like they are in the movie. We put ourselves into stories we hear.

In my classroom, as soon as I say the words “I know this person who once…” I can almost feel everyone stop their own thoughts or conversations and zone in to the story I am about to tell. Another strategy I have used in the classroom is called smudged math where parts of a picture or math equation are smudged out. Just for fun, I usually start off these exercises with a little story about how I was working on my lesson plans at home and my daughter spilled coffee on it.

I’ve used this story many times on many different classrooms from early years, to high school and even adult learners and every single time without fail the entire class groans when I show the following picture.

They exclaim their disappointment that the story I had told did not really happen; everyone had wanted to believe the story.

Teaching math through story

Again, this is not just about engaging students. What role does storytelling have in the learning of mathematics?

I often hear people claim that they are “visual learners” and I chuckle a bit because we are all visual learners; pictures and visualizations are very powerful sense-making tools. However, we are also all language learners. We make sense of concepts through language and metaphors.

It is important not to overlook this because as teachers, the words we use can have a profound impact on student understanding. The words we choose help students create metaphors to represent their understanding of math concepts – and unfortunately sometimes fuel their misunderstandings.

Consider the following example: the concept of subtraction. Students often first learn about this concept through the language of “take away”. This evokes a metaphor of a starting set and then a part of that set being removed. The language is correct in this sense.

However, the concept of subtraction also applies to difference. In this context, we no longer just have one set, but we have two and we are examining the difference between them. If a student still only connects the concept of subtraction with the metaphor and language of “take away”, then you can start to see why learning new contexts like difference can be confusing.

How can we bridge this gap between prior knowledge and new learning? Again, through story, language, and metaphors.

Consider the following picture:

What is the difference between the two containers of marbles? The correct operation to use would be subtraction, but remember that some learners only see subtraction as taking away from a set.

We can describe the solution by saying:

“We can find what is different by taking away what is the same”

While the established metaphor of take away lead to the confusion, it also served as the bridge to the new learning of difference. Powerful stuff.

This was a longer post. I was nervous about writing it because I was afraid I would understate how important I really think storytelling is in teaching and learning. I hope I did it justice for now; I will be sure to visit this idea again in the future.