The Power of Metaphors in eLearning

Synthesis:
In the film, Lincoln, President Lincoln and Thaddeus Stevens used the power of metaphors to solve two crucial historical stand-offs during the American civil war. The insights shared here will help us to better appreciate the power of storytelling and show us how we can effectively use it as eLearning professionals, developers, and trainers. __________________________________________________________________________

Lincoln, Steven Spielberg’s masterful biographical film on Abraham Lincoln, unravels the saga of an emerging American nation torn by ideological divide. The centerpiece of the film is the last four months of President Lincoln’s life, dedicated to push for the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution by the House of Representatives.

While the film uncovers the many facets of the 16th President of the United States both as a man and  as an emancipator, it provides a glimpse into how other Americans stood by or stood against Lincoln. As soldiers fight on the battlefields, another battle shifted to the United States Congress as Republicans and Democrats debated on the meaning and context of the line: “Men, being created equal.”

Even the Republicans were divided. 

Thaddeus Stevens was firm on his hard stance on full equality for all – Negroes and Whites – on marriage and voting rights. However, Lincoln only wanted to focus on equality under the legal definition of emancipation.

To persuade Stevens, Lincoln used this metaphor:

“The compass points you true north but does not warn you of obstacles and swamps along the way. What is the use of knowing the North Star when along the way one can sink into a hole and never reach one’s destination?”

Apparently, Lincoln’s metaphor was so persuasive that it convinced Thaddeus Stevens  to support the Law of Emancipation.

Taking his cue from Lincoln, Thaddeus Stevens used the power of metaphor to outwit and overpower the hostile Congress with these words:

“How can I hold that all men are created equal? When here before me stands stinking the moral carcass of the gentleman from Ohio, proof that some men are inferior, endowed by their Maker with dim wits, impermeable to reason, with cold pallet slime in their veins instead of hot red blood?!

You are more reptile than man, George!

So low in fact, that the foot of man is incapable of crushing you.

Yet, even you... even worthless, unworthy you, ought to be treated equally before the law.

And so, I say again and again and again: I do not hold the equality of all things - only the equality before the law!“

At the end, Steven Thaddeus succeeded.

Congress passed the Law of Emancipation.

So, what can we learn from here?

If you want to accelerate the learning process, use metaphors and tell a story.

While Lincoln used the ‘story of a man following the North Star’ to persuade Stevens, he in turn, told a scathing tale about ‘a man who was as low as a reptile’ to rebuke Congress.

By infusing metaphors with brilliant storytelling, the complex abstracts are transformed into understandable specifics.

In Story-Based eLearning Design there are abundant opportunities to use metaphors. I often use metaphors to emphasize a point or stress a simple idea with a more vivid image.

For example:

"I hate doing this." to "I grind my teeth when I am asked to do this task."

"Avoid using the software for the wrong reasons" to "Don't use a dump truck to haul furniture or use a Volkswagen Beetle to haul a boulder."

Do you want to change the world?

Tell a story.

See previous blog: Transforming Minds - Using Metaphors in eLearning


References
 
Jimenez, R., Lincoln, Storyteller. 2012, accessed at http://vignettestraining.blogspot.com/

Lincoln Production Notes, accessed at http://www.thelincolnmovie.com/media/LincolnProductionNotes.pdf

Spielberg, S.: Lincoln. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox & DreamWorks Studio, 2012.
 


Ray Jimenez, PhD
Vignettes Learning
"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"

Learning Facts and Foundational Knowledge with Stories

Synthesis:
Facts – whether foundational or advance – can be related to real-life occurrences to engage learners and help them find context while gaining required knowledge.
______________________________________________________________

Does story-based learning only apply to experienced learners?

What is common among these photos?  

I am teaching a course on interactive elearning design at the University of California, Irvine and a nagging question has surfaced. Is story-based learning only applicable to audiences who have experience on a given subject or does it also work  in teaching foundational and factual knowledge?

For our conversation here, we define factual or foundational knowledge as scientific formulas and technical processes and procedures.  We also define story-based learning as a design method using narrative and interactive stories rooted in real-life events. Click here.

In preparing for a response to the class, what comes to my mind quickly are the works of Richard Feynman – Nobel Laureate, B. Audoly and S. Neukirch – Breaking Spaghetti and teaching kids measurement units.  

What can we learn from these examples and how can we apply them to the elearning design?

How bent spaghetti breaks

In this experiment, the use of spaghetti aids the scientists to link a common day to day experience- breaking spaghetti- to the explanation of the dynamics of elastic rods.

The scientists use spaghetti all throughout the presentation and makes it as a reference point. Readers and students understand the scientific facts better because they are presented with a commonly understood representation – spaghetti.
Please see more.

Feynman Lectures – Boat Time

Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics, used real-life examples to state his problems. In this case, he used the boat’s travel time to compare two methods. Access the link, click on “Exercises” and select “Boat Time.” You may also see other examples here -

http://www.feynmanlectures.info/ .

The Little Inch Worm – Teaching Units of Measurements

From the website of Shorecrest Preparatory School, I found this interesting illustration. “While learning about the letter Ii and units of measurement, the Junior Kindergartners read "Inch by Inch" by Leo Lionni. The story is about a little inchworm that must measure different things. When threatened that he'll be eaten if he doesn't measure Nightingale's song, he uses his imagination to get himself out of a tough situation. As an extension, the children used one-inch square paper number tiles to create an inchworm. They had to find the correct numbers and glue them in order to create their useful friend.” See more.

Making facts and new knowledge familiar – challenge and solution

The above examples illustrate how factual knowledge, whether foundational (kids on measurement) or advance formulas (Feynman’s “ Boat Time” and B. Audoly/S. Neukirch’s “Spaghetti Break”) are best learned by using familiar real-life-events or stories. Selecting these stories can be approached in this manner:

1.   Understanding how stories aid our natural instincts to face challenges and find solutions

The narrative elements of stories become a form of goal-seeking device, relative to presenting  a challenge to the learner. The interactive elements of stories, on the other hand, aid in the quest for resolutions. In this pursuit for answers lie the opportunities for interaction by the learner. Natural instincts compel learners to be in Constant Readiness mode for learning.
 
The examples above show some form of a challenge and a quest for a solution. This is at the very core of the design that engages learners. Feynman always used problems and solutions to engage learners.

2.   Transforming the fact into a common or familiar real-life experience

Boats, spaghetti and worms are common or real-life occurrences. The purpose of selecting a real-life episode is to help the learner visualize and simplify the theory and fact in their minds, as it “happens in real life.”

The easiest way to achieve this is to think that all theories, facts and foundational knowledge do exist in real-life situations; that theory and fact explain real-life phenomenon.

 

I recall a quote from a scientist

“I observe nature and then I construct a theory.”

This is similar to the very familiar illustration of “Newton’s apple” on gravity.

eLearning designers can ask the question, “Facts are based on reality. Therefore, what is the reality behind the facts?” This is a good place to start connecting the real-life experiences and facts.

The “dynamics of elastic rods” do happen in spaghetti. But why use spaghetti and not rods? Well, spaghetti is obviously more familiar to many of us – it’s fun, it’s food – hmmmm.  Rods, who cares?

3.   Supplementing lack of experience with imaginary stories

In the example above on “The Little Inch Worm – Teaching Units of Measurements”, children had no prior experience of measurements. By creating or connecting a parallel story, which is anecdotal or mythical and adding the challenge and resolution (children used one-inch square paper number tiles to create an inchworm), the children learned the concepts of inches and measurements.  However, they learned the real-life meaning first and then the factual concept of inches and measurements.

In eLearning for adult situations, this is accomplished by case stories and fables.

Why worms? Why not caterpillars? Worms evoke the image of the dark side of things, the fear in us. 

Summary

Everyone has some experience of the real-life meaning of facts. Facts are rooted in real-life events and therefore are observable or relatable. Stories present challenges and need for solutions, which is a natural learning instinct. In the absence of experience, the creation of  imaginary stories allows learners to visualize facts.

Related Posts:

Engaging Technical eLearning – Tips on Design and Delivery

Making Facts Stick With Stories - Jiggling Atoms

How to instantly grab e-learners attention!

Ray Jimenez, PhD
http://VignettesLearning.com

See more eLearning stories: Story Impacts eLearning System

http://try.storyimpacts.com

Making Facts Stick With Stories - Jiggling Atoms

Synthesis:
Even technical, software and scientific information can be made engaging and fun for learners because everything and everyone carries a story within themselves. Crafting story development is crucial to the success of emotionally fertilized content integral to learning.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oftentimes, I hear workshop participants and clients say,
“Scientific fact, software and technical content do not have stories in them.”

Richard Feynman, the renowned Nobel Laureate who has worked in Caltech for many years, has proven otherwise. Feynman has a knack for making complex scientific discoveries and explanations very easy to understand by using day to day experiences. For example, he explains the nature and characteristics of atoms and molecules by using the boiling water illustration. The hot plate and boiling water atoms and molecules jiggle and transfer their heat to other atoms and molecules. They are constantly bouncing, dancing and colliding. This is what happens in boiling water. The behavior of atoms is a fact, while the boiling water is a real-life phenomenon.

Boiling Water

One might think of the boiling water as an illustration. But in actuality, it is a real-life event and told as a story. Look at this example below. Which statement grabs you instantly?

Life is full of trials and tribulations
or
I started work at 3:00 am and finished at 11:00 pm, totally exhausted.

The first statement is a fact and a technical content, whereas, the second statement is a story.

Many experts agree that stories work to instantly grab learners’ attention and help them relate the content to real-life situations, hence, helping them to retain and apply the content. Stories carry with them the real-life and emotional aspects of learning. When we use stories, there is no need to grab learners’ attention. Learners are naturally drawn to stories, the characters and their experiences, and will automatically lend their attention.

Emotions as Integral to Learning

According to Rosenfield (1988), emotions have important connections to memory. Caine and Caine (1991) said stories add and help in storing information, thus triggering its recall.

"The emotional depth and range that learners have, affected their actual capacity to grasp ideas and procedures. Similarly, content that is emotionally sterile is made more difficult to understand. ... To teach someone any subject adequately, the subject must be embedded in all the elements that give its meaning. People must have a way to relate to the subject in terms of what is personally important, and this means acknowledging both the emotional impact and their deeply held needs and drives. Our emotions are integral to learning. When we ignore the emotional components of any subject we teach, we actually deprive learners of meaningfulness."

Stories and Storytelling Carry Learning Ideas

Stories and experiences are the carriers of emotional content. Stories, which I call organics, have different forms: narrative stories, anecdote, example, metaphor, demo, illustration, meme, and other forms that bring the emotional and real-life aspects of content.

Two Types of Content – Stories and Facts

There are two types of content: (1) the Technical which are factual, objective, mechanical content and (2) the Emotional which are real-life situations, personal context and understanding of the content.

The technical and emotional content work hand in hand. However, we discover that in designing presentations, e-Learning, mobile learning and social learning, there is even a greater need to magnify the emotional side. There is practical reason to this. In classroom or facilitated sessions, the good instructor or facilitator can successfully relate the technical and emotional content by sharing their own stories and experiences. Unfortunately, in much technology delivered learning, the facilitators and stories are absent and we oftentimes find the lessons to consist more of technical or mechanical content. Something is lost in the conversion. The emotional content is “lost in the translation”.

We need to make our learning content more emotionally fertile, not sterile.

Craft in Story Development

The underutilization of stories as a learning design tool is caused by the inherent nature of how most developers receive the source of the content today and the leadership culture that frowns on the “softer and touchy feely” preconceptions of stories.

Most professionals involved in design learning – designers, developers, subject matter experts and leaders - lack the experience that go along with the content: The lesser the experience of professionals with the content, the more removed they are from real-life context and meaning of the content. It is not surprising that we have a deluge of PowerPoint presentations in eLearning and other learning approaches. On the other hand, the more the experience with the content, the more the professional can create stories to help learners learn.

Nonetheless, there is a craft in plucking stories representing the meaning of logic and fact to help learners. By carefully selecting stories to explain the data and technical information, the more we discover and are able to practice our craft better.

Test your craft

The “jiggling atom” example tells us that we can make our learning more fun, engaging and easy for the learner by using stories.

Ray Jimenez, PhD
Vignettes Learning
"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"

Igniting Learning with a Story: Compliment – Can’t a person compliment a woman anymore?!

We continue to create Vignettes – short, succinct, micro-scenarios – to help you with an example on how you can use stories to ignite and provoke learners to interact and learn.

The Vignette “Compliment” revolves around officemates, Roxanne and Tim. Roxanne has been , oftentimes, uncomfortable to the point of feeling violated whenever Tim compliments her. Tim contends that his remarks are completely devoid of malice.

When is a compliment not just a compliment? Is Tim guilty of sexual harassment? Is Roxanne simply paranoid? Listen to their conversation and let us know your thoughts.

How to Use the Vignette

While the situation presented is specific, this vignette covers a wide range of topics to include conflict-resolution, work ethics and other management-related issues. Use this vignette to spark learner interest in your training session, show it as part of your lessons or utilize it as a post-training test. Face-to-face or online, this vignette is intended to push your learners to the EDGE!

Vignettes have proven to be powerful stimuli in classroom training, eLearning activities and even in social learning communities. Click here to preview “Compliment – Can’t any person even compliment a woman anymore?!”

This is part of our continuing new series of Vignettes designed for Story Impacts.

These provocative vignettes are for your use, with our compliments.

In next week’s vignette, "Do You Think Age is a Problem?" – A case of age discrimination, a company production manager investigates if a supervisor is guilty of age discrimination. When does a remark or question amount to discrimination? In day-to-day decision making and selection of the right person for a job can be tricky business especially in the hands of inexperienced or new managers - even for existing ones with possible biases. Where does one draw the fine line between the ability of someone to perform job requirements and age? What dangers are posed by certain assumptions about job requirements and possibly ignoring basic employee rights?

Join us and let us know how you like the vignettes. We sincerely appreciate your thoughts. If you have any suggestions , improvements or topics of interest to you, please let us know.




Ray Jimenez, PhD
Vignettes Learning"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"

How Do You Handle a Star? – Provocative Learning Vignette 2

This week’s vignette , The Star, is a story of John who is a star performer, but who causes problems as he repeatedly refuses to cooperate with his team members. How do you deal with a person like John? If he was your team member, how will you handle the situation? How prepared will you be to handle John’s possible adverse reaction? How will you resolve this conflict if you were Terry – John’s superior?

How to Use the Vignette

While the situation presented is specific, this vignette covers a wide range of topics to include conflict-resolution, work ethics and other management-related issues. Use this vignette to spark learner interest in your training session, show it as part of your lessons or utilize it as a post-training test. Face-to-face or online, this vignette is intended to push your learners to the EDGE!

Vignettes provide exciting stimuli during classroom training, eLearning activities and in social learning communities. Click here to preview “The Star”



We continue with our new series of Vignettes designed for Story Impacts.

These provocative vignettes can be used by you, with our compliments.

Next week , our vignette “ Compliment” - Can’t a person even compliment a woman anymore?! , will revolve around two officemates: Roxanne and Tim. Roxanne feels violated whenever Tim compliments her. Tim thinks there is nothing wrong with his gestures. When is a compliment not just a compliment? Is Tim guilty of sexual harassment? Is Roxanne simply paranoid? Listen to their conversation. This time it’s his word against hers. We’d like to know what’s yours.

Join us and let us know how you like the vignettes. We sincerely appreciate your thoughts. If you have any suggestions , improvements or topics of interest to you, please let us know.



Ray Jimenez, PhD
Vignettes Learning"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"

"Can you tell me if my job is safe?" A Provocative Learning Vignette

The Little Secret presents the story of Maria, a dutiful office manager. Maria's management capability is put to the test when she is caught in between adhering to office policy and addressing employee needs. What should Maria do? Can you help her think of a way out?

How to Use the Vignette

While the situation presented is specific, this vignette covers a wide range of topics to include conflict-resolution, work ethics and other management-related issues. Use this vignette to spark learner interest in your training session, show it as part of your lessons or utilize it as a post-training test. Face-to-face or online, this vignette is intended to push your learners to the EDGE!

Use it for your classroom training, eLearning and social learning communities. Click here to preview "The Little Secret."

We are proud to introduce the new series of Vignettes designed for Story Impacts.

On a regular basis, we will send you provocative vignettes which you can use with our compliments.

Next week, we are sharing with you the vignette on "The Star" - a story of John who is a star performer, but causes problems because he refuses to cooperate with his team members. How do you deal with a person like John? Stay tuned. This will be fun.

Join us and let us know how you like the vignettes. If you have any suggestions , improvements or topics of interest to you, please let us know.



Ray Jimenez, PhD
Vignettes Learning
"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"

How to keep your sanity in the “Learning Vortex”?

Synthesis
The learning industry is in turmoil - like in a twister. There is constant push and pull which results to changes and adjustments. The “Learning Vortex” is an effective way of maintaining focus and keeping one's “sanity” in the midst of the “ twister” in learning. The core of the vortex represents the impact and result of the changes – which can be clearly categorized and identified by the three other parts of the vortex

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Recent events have reminded everyone of the catastrophic impacts of hurricanes, and tornado or twisters.

A twister is a phenomenon in our atmosphere where cold and hot air collide to create massive turbulence. In many respects, our learning world appears to be caught up in a twister. There is an abundance of change, innovation, and technologies, as well as dislocations and realignments. There is constant push and pull, as well as impacts.

As a learning professional, I most often find myself in the center of a twister. There is so much to learn. Too many changes, too much risks and adjustments confront me. To make sense of rapid changes, I developed a framework called the “Learning Vortex.” This helps me to take a “fly over” when I need to take a breather and see the overview. I especially need the “Learning Vortex” when I begin to feel sucked into the core and feel like I am losing my balance because of what’s going on around me.

The “Learning Vortex” has four parts: The Core; Learning Strategy; Implementation; and Organizational influences.

Let me share with you a few of my thoughts on each area.

The Core
The Core is the heart of the vortex. This is the strongest area where the twister creates new values and impacts the way we do things. The main impacts in today’s changes in learning are more pronounced in cutting costs and increasing speed, and refocusing the attention of trainers and learners on what is important. Preview the video of Sal Kahn and Bill Gates about Kahn Academy and you will see the inroads to creating new values. We are redefining our roles by being agnostics in our approaches.

Part 1 – Learning Strategy

Regardless of whether one starts from Part - 3 Organizational Influences or Part 1 - Learning Strategy, the learning professionals now realize that they must change their roles, skills, tools, and objectives to meet the shifting needs of learners.

1. Skills – we are becoming “Collaborative Learning Anthropologists” where we focus on using different skills sets to become catalysts of change.
2. Objectives – the focus of our efforts is how to bring learning closer to work.
3. Learners – we are seeing learners more as contributors who actively pursue their own learning interests.
4. Trainers – we are seeing more of us in the role of Network Weavers.
5. Tools – the abundance and large scale adoption of Web 2.0 tools in learning suggest our growing versatility to choose and pick the right tools for a given problem.

Part 2 – Implementation

The design, development, and delivery of learning has been redefined by technology. Both classroom and course development are undergoing remakes that make them accessible and flexible. From mobile learning to video streaming, the focus is to provide newer experiences in learning and more opportunities to cut costs and increase speed.

6. Design – we see more Microlearning programs, courses and delivery.
7. Develop – rapid development enables trainers to get training delivered, fast.
8. Deliver – more of our learning initiatives are delivered through diverse forms of collaborative and social networking tools and methods. We also see the practical learning values of tools like Twitter and micro-widgets.

Part 3 –Influences

The “Learning Vortex” takes place in the larger context of our organizations and societies. How much change we experience and the speed at which it happens are always influenced by the nature of the business, leadership and the goals and strategies of the business. This is part of the push and pull of the “Learning Vortex”. Organizations that are seemingly slow in adapting to change often create environments where the learning professional is caught in a flux. Businesses want to reduce the costs and increase the speed of change that create new learning values, but are not prepared to embrace solutions that demand transformation in their culture and leadership. So, we see learning professionals doing guerrilla warfare – using unauthorized and unorthodox learning methods and deliveries outside of the corporate structures.

9. Culture – enterprises are complex structures and the “Learning Vortex” is most visible mainly in how enterprises use knowledge – as a central repository of information or as a living and growing knowledge base to be built and shared freely within the organization.
10. IT Structure – we see IT departments starting to adopt collaborative systems and becoming more tolerant and accepting of multiple requests from learning professionals in deploying social networks and high and rich media content delivery.
11. Organizational Impacts – convergence of technologies makes it possible to link learning to actual performance metrics in business impacts.
12. Feedback – although feedback from a traditional view suggests that trainers provide feedback on learning progress, learners are taking more and more responsibility upon themselves when it comes to their own learning. .

Conclusion

There is always rapid and constant change, especially in the things that influence learning and the learners’ needs. All the different strategies, ways of implementations, and influences change along with time and innovations in technology. The “Learning Vortex” can help us take these things into consideration and understand their effects on the core of learning. It helps strike a balance when things go out of hand. As clearly pointed out in each element, these changes are inevitable and are therefore greatly impacting the core of every learning experience, and learning need.

Ray Jimenez, PhD
Vignettes Learning
"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"

Transforming Minds - Using Metaphors in eLearning

Synthesis
Using metaphors in eLearning makes learners more receptive to ideas and information that are otherwise complex to figure out. These metaphors in presentation mode or self-contemplative mode make learners easily grasp needed knowledge and immediately adapt concepts thereby prompting a faster and better course of action.

What do we mean when we say “my computer is down” or “molecules act like boiling water”? We are exercising the power of metaphors.

From Newton’s clockwork theory to John Reeves’ Emoticons , metaphors have been used for purposes of communication for the longest time - whether it’s to communicate with each other, learn and even socialize in the new world of social media. So, what is a metaphor and how can we use them in eLearning programs?

A metaphor is the use of an object or idea to represent certain meanings which are otherwise difficult to explain.

Metaphors have fascinated cognitive scientists because they have the power to transform the way people think and how they respond. They allow large amounts of information to be retained, recalled and applied rapidly. Creating good metaphors requires skills which can be learned by eLearning designers and developers.

In the fast-paced learning environment where learners are highly distracted, busy and overloaded, the use of metaphors provide even greater value. Metaphors allow faster understanding of ideas and provide a more efficient way of recalling knowledge and information. Learners are usually engaged because they comprehend the meaning of the ideas at once.

Richard Feynman – Jiggling Atoms

An example of a great metaphor is Richard Feynman’s use of Jiggling Atoms to explain the physics behind a complex concept.

(Click here to preview Richard Feynman’s video)

Usages of Metaphors in e-Learning

• Explain new ideas in familiar ways - Introducing new ideas to learners requires a link from familiar to unfamiliar. Metaphors make it possible for learners to cognitively connect concepts and terms to their own context.

Example: The ‘horseless carriage’ and the ‘cordless phone’ connect the idea of technology to existing and familiar reference.

• Explain innovations by imitating nature’s model - Bio-mimicry is a method of transforming scientific concepts by using nature’s model as inspiration.

Example: Using caterpillars in constructing flexible all terrain robotic machine suited for Mars.

• Simplifying complex systems - Using analogies such as “waterfalls model” and “wheel spokes model” in elearning design.

Metaphors for eLearning

In my experience, there are two ways of using metaphors that help learners learn faster and better. The first is the presentation mode and the other is the self-contemplative mode.

The presentation method helps elearning designers develop lessons that translate their content into easier ways for learners to learn. By using any of the methods mentioned above, designers transform the way learners appreciate the content. This particular method is akin to a narrative, storytelling or teaching an idea.

The self-contemplative mode is when a designer incorporates in the design, a way to encourage the learners to share their own metaphors. The value of this mode is immersive learning. It helps learners create their own context and connect the content to what is immediately meaningful for them. This mode also assists learners to assimilate the concepts into their real-life work situation. Oftentimes, many eLearning designs are in presentation mode or the information dumping method which inhibits the learners from a deeper reflective thinking about the content.

Steps to discover and develop Metaphors

Although there are many sources of metaphors, there are steps which when followed can consistently inspire the use of metaphors for elearning.

1. Conduct a survey – determine associations
The first step is to identify a content that you feel may require a metaphor. Ask your learners, clients, and individuals with experience to suggest a metaphor. Ask the question, “what associations do you have with the content idea?” Oftentimes, people have associations that connect a concept and provide potential cognitive links to people’s experiences and understanding.

2. Work with SMEs – simplification
Engineers and subject matter experts spend countless hours wrestling with how to explain the ideas in simpler terms. Asking them “how they can simplify the concept” helps you discover the options on when and how to use a metaphor. Simplifying an idea often allows engineers to use explanations that are easily understandable, hence, making it accessible to learners. The iPod has undergone several iterations to provide more simplified models.

3. Conduct brainstorming focus group exercises – like analogy group thinking
Creative development can sometimes come from open-ended brainstorming exercises. Group thinking exercises can generate innovative metaphors. Encourage the group to imagine ways to express an abstract concept into a real world analogy. Ask “what-if questions” that also trigger metaphors. These questions help unearth parallel thinking and sharing of experiences. What are the options available? What’s next?

4. Test metaphor – instant recall
Select the metaphor that has high-experience and content idea connection. Try to express the metaphor in visual and verbal methods and see how quickly learners respond to it. Look for the “aha” effect – a sense of immediate connection between the learner’s appreciation of the metaphor and understanding of the idea. The “Fish in a bowl” tells how narrow minded our views can be.

5. Incorporate metaphors into elearning lessons – selectively
Metaphors can be positioned effectively by using them in exercises, games, demonstration, animation and simulation. Care should be taken to integrate the metaphor seamlessly. The singular test is to discern if the metaphor can serve as an effective replacement representation of the concept. For example in elearning design, we refer to the “waterfall model of design” to mean “linear design.”

Conclusion

Applying Metaphors for elearning brings about a welcome relief to complex and difficult concepts that learners are trying to unravel. While it’s true that metaphors in presentation methods translate contents thru a narrative or storytelling which helps learners appreciate the content of an idea, more value to elearning is added thru the self-contemplative mode of using metaphors where learning is more immersive and assists learners to integrate concepts into their real life work situations. This helps us avoid the concept of information dumping which can be overwhelming. In the midst of information overload, metaphors help learners take and use concepts quicker and better.

Preview the video by James Geary on Metaphors. (Click here)

Preview this interesting video on how to construct a metaphor. (Click here)


Related Blogs

Inspire others - be a Master Storyteller -Study the Profile and Survey

How to instantly grab e-learners attention!

How to Embed Learning Goals in Stories

Ray Jimenez, PhD
Vignettes Learning
"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"