Discover the Secrets that Make the Story-Based Lesson Tick - Tip #55

Are you cutting your teeth for a compelling and effective story-based e-learning approach? The story-based approach is not black art that's hidden from the uninitiated and available only to the gurus. There is a structure and a step-by-step process that is sure to deliver the desired results. View the video "The Compliment" to discover the secrets of effective story-based e-learning.

Real-life Experiences Trigger Emotions, Tensions and Curiosity

The idea is to start with a real-life experience that your target audience can connect with, like the clip above which shows a typical office situation. When Tim says, "Hey, I like that sweater you're wearing" with a mischievous demeanor, this triggered some resentment from Roxanne. This creates a conflict which we all can relate to emotionally since this is a pretty common experience. Conflicts induce emotions and learners respond to them.

The tension escalates when Tim failed to see Roxanne's concerned look and pushes further. He said, "I don't understand. I was just enjoying your shirt." Roxanne raises her voice and says "Do you realize that each time you gave me a compliment, etc. Hey, look up. This is me here." Tim, adds more insult by saying "Really I haven't noticed." At this point, you have already successfully captured your viewers' curiosity as they begin to identify with the characters and are now anticipating what's going to happen next! The learners are now thinking, "What will happen next?" "What will Roxanne say?" Some learners might say "Roxanne is overly sensitive," while others might say "Tim is a dork, I will slap his face instantly."

In the Characters' Shoes

By identifying with the characters and feeling their situations, or being in the characters' shoes, we helped the learners travel through time.

According to Bridget Murray in her article "What Makes Mental Time Travel Possible?," "Memory allows us to mentally travel backward in time as well as into the future. Over time, people discovered that recalling past events helped them learn what to avoid and how to behave in the future."

According to experts Roger Schank and Michael Corballis' in their books "Tell Me a Story," and "Recursive Mind" respectively, identifying with the characters in a story is a natural response because we tend to make our own versions of it and insert ourselves in it. Talk about being in a person's shoes, stories accomplish that automatically! 

Characters with Different Wants

In a story structure, emotions and tensions stem from the characters' having different wants. According to Christopher Vogler and David McKenna in their book "Memo From the Story Department: Secrets of Structure and Character." "It is the opposing wants of different characters that raise the stakes and consequences in a story. From the start to the end of the lesson, this has to be the tie and glue that leads the learners to engagement. If you break this dynamics of opposing wants, you remove the essence of a good story lesson. Use the opposing wants from the story-based learning objectives to the application of ideas in the story."

Do you recall the argument they had in the clip? 

Tim said "All I said is that I like your sweater." Roxanne fired back, "Look I just don't like it. How about not saying anything about what I am wearing?"

Escalating Emotions

This conflict has raised the stress and tension and both characters are now emotional. We have led the conversation and by a matter of a few seconds, we shifted the roles of the learner from being an observer to taking an active role in the lesson. We escalated the emotions, tensions and conflicts. You can sense that at this point, you know something has got to give. What else should happen?

Two techniques are key in escalating emotions and shifting roles from the start to the end of the lesson.

First, you allow the viewers to fill in the gap and interpret the story on their own. I encourage designers and developers to avoid giving away the impact of the story by narrating it. Your viewers have seen the story, let them digest it.

The second technique is to "let the characters do the talking." Use the voice of the characters and instantly connect with your viewers. It's a common mistake among designers, trainers and developers to narrate the story in their own voice and create a block between them and their viewers. This slows down the shifting of roles and travelling backward in time.

The story of Tim and Roxanne ends at a point where they have to resolve their conflict.  We brought the learner to a point where they want to know what the decisions are, the choices that were made and the consequences. At this point, since the viewers are already in the story, we are actually making them decide on the questions thrown to Roxanne.

Story Questions Draw in the Learners

To encourage the learners to respond, another technique that I use is "story questions." These are questions which drag the learner deeper into the story. Ordinarily, in an academic and non-story-based approach, these come as questions answerable by right and wrong choices. In this approach they would ask, "What would Roxanne do?" But this is not the character talking! By doing this, you abruptly cut the learners' emotional experience and connections with the story resulting in a sudden loss of interest. This must be avoided at all cost.

Instead, heighten the experience by continuing with how the questions are asked and the responses are given in the story. Do not tell the viewers the "right" or "wrong" feedback, let them discover it by themselves. Let them make their own conclusions.

These are the four questions.

Allow Learners to Bring Their Own Stories

If your Learning Management System or Social Learning System allows you to post comments, you can add to the questions given above. This is crucial because by asking learners to comment, we are helping them to insert further into the story. Check below for samples to comments or click here.

Click here to view more samples of comments like those shown above.
The Lesson Content is Embedded in the Story

By now you are asking the question, "where is the lesson?" The lesson has been embedded in the story. 

What lessons do we want to teach in this content? Sensitivity and compliance with the law. But was there a point in time that we mentioned both in the content? Not a bit. Sensitivity and compliance to the laws are our academic goals and mostly the trainer's learning objectives. The learners don't care about our goals and even more, they don't instantly understand what they mean. Learners only understand sensitivity and compliance in the context of an experience in a real-life situation. So embedding a lesson in a story simply means making it an experience. Move the content into the world of real-life events to help the learners learn.

Build Your Skills

As an ongoing skill development, make it a habit to look for small contents or ideas and try to find out how these are manifested or are missing. By doing so, you build your skill to detect and create the structure, tools and techniques in story-based lesson design. 

Do you want to discover the secrets of story-based e-learning? We invite you to sign up for the workshop now!

References

Robert C. Schank. Tell Me a Story: Narrative and Intelligence. Northwestern University Press, 1995

Michael C. Corballis. The Recursive Mind: The Origins of Human Language, Thought, and Civilization. Princeton University Press. 2011

Christopher Vogler and David McKenna. Memo from the Story Department: Secrets of Structure and Character. Amazon.Web. July 1, 2011

Bridget Murray: What Makes Mental Time Travel Possible?:para. 1 and 7: [Oct. 2003]

Ray Jimenez, PhD

Vignettes Learning

"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"

Step Up Your eLearning Game - Go for Hyper-Stories - Tip #209

Can you think of the most recent viral video or story you have seen and shared? What about it caught your attention? Let me guess. It probably made you laugh out loud, or tugged at your heartstrings, or got you so mad, or afraid even. But it surely moved your emotions enough to share it or extend the discussion among your friends. A study by Jan L. Plass et. al., among many others, have reported the significant influence of emotions on human cognitive processes, particularly learning, memory, and problem solving.

However, modern learners are impatient. According to an infographic from Bersin by Deloitte, online trainers now only have 5 to 10 seconds to grab the learners attention before clicking away. Thus, there is a constant need for learning strategies and approaches that facilitate instant learning. One effective method that we, as trainers, L&D designers, facilitators, SMEs can master is the art of using hyper-stories in our learning designs.

Hyper-Stories

Hyper-stories are the shortest and most emotional aspects of the story. By using hyper-stories, we are providing learners with content that is engaging, thought-provoking and purposeful.

4 Elements of an Effective Hyper-Story

Immediate meaning and context

According to Donald Hull’s definition of contextual learning, learning occurs only when learners connect information to their own frame of reference. The hyper-story is about making sure that the short video or idea brings out an experience from the learners. When they are able to understand the content based from their own interpretation, it is only then that lessons are relevant and useful to them.

Heighten involvement

A good hyper-story amplifies learner engagement. It ignites emotions and elicits learner response and reflection on the lesson you are trying to impart. A good tip when using a hyper-story, is to give the learners a good amount of time for reflection. Try the 10-90 rule (10% video or lesson, 90% reflection). Let it sink in. Allow them to internalize their own experiences in relation to the lesson ideas associated with it.

Faster application

Effective hyper-stories allow the learners to quickly connect the lesson to its application in real-life. When we design lessons for training, facilitate seminars or do workshops, always have a desired learning goal in mind - to build content that assists learners in their need for instant answers and solutions.

Instant recall

Hyper-stories in lessons help the learners be instantly reminded of their past experiences related to it. This accelerates the learning process. We all have a plethora of experiences and knowledge. Hyper-stories aid in tapping into this vast resource and reinforce what the learners already know.

Conclusion

The use of hyper-stories in lessons is an ingenious way to promote instant learning and to capture the emotions and attention of the modern learners. The connection between emotions and learning is undeniable. Learners learn faster by drawing from past experiences and reflection. Reflection deepens their own learning.

References

Um E., Plass J. L., Hayward E. O., Homer B. D. (2012). Emotional design in multimedia learning.

Bersin, J. (2017). The Disruption of Digital Learning: Ten Things We Have Learned.

Schank, R. (1995). Tell Me A Story: Narrative and Intelligence (Rethinking Theory)

Hull, D.. (1993). Opening Minds, Opening Doors: The Rebirth of American Education

The Art of Using Hyper-Stories in Learning webinar

Tip #98 - Keep Learners Motivated Using Hyper-Stories

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

Why Stories Drive Social Learning - Tip #111

Why did Susan Boyle become an overnight sensation?

According to Jonah Berger and Katherine L. Milkman in their paper What Makes Online Content Viral?, “Virality is partially driven by physiological arousal.” The authors explain how evoking certain emotions in people increases the chance of a message getting shared. “If something makes you angry as opposed to sad, for example, you’re more likely to share it with your family and friends because you’re fired up,” Berger says.

Awe-inspiring content strongly influences emotions and increases action-related behaviors. Boyle's impressive and remarkable story captivated the hearts of her listeners and gave them hope. People realized that new doors can open at any point of life. Many were inspired to follow her footsteps.

Thanks to YouTube, Boyle became an instant international celebrity. Inspired by what she accomplished, millions of viewers exchanged insights about their feelings, their opinions and their own hopes. People from all over the world learned about each other. Boyle's story affirmed what Academy Award-winning producer Brian Grazer said: “The power of YouTube has made it the most valuable storytelling outlet our planet has ever seen.”

Boyle proved that stories can drive social learning.

The challenge then becomes: How do we leverage social sharing behavior and formal learning content and instructions? Here are some ideas to help you get started on arriving at an answer.

Tip 1: Use language that encourages experience sharing.

Stories arouse emotions and enrich the mind. Consider these two approaches of giving information.

The first approach: “Constant exposure to loud noise is harmful.”

The second approach: “Do you know that Roy lost his hearing due to too much exposure to noise?”

The first approach states a fact; the second invites the listener to engage in a conversation and thus has a stronger impact than the first because it evokes an emotional response and a desire to know more.

When we get so emotionally involved with a story, we begin to identify ourselves with some of the characters. Because we are social beings, we are always in a relationship. Sharing what we feel, what we think and what we do just follows spontaneously. Emotions are as contagious as viruses.

To make experience sharing smoother, use language that encourages it. Examples include:

• What has worked or not worked?
• What are the frustrations?
• What are the joys and dreams realized?

Tip 2: Encourage sharing of factual content.

Social learning, unlike formal instruction which is highly factual, is contextual and emotional, thus elaborates on a the wider scope of the story.  It melds facts with emotions and context, and weaves stories and factual content into seamless lessons. This is facilitated by stories, which act as emotional drivers and help create context for learners.

Present factual lessons using an emotional context that learners can immediately relate to. Introduce facts by highlighting its impacts on living situations.

Consider the following scenarios and how you can seamlessly incorporate facts into their emotional context:

• What would a broken spare tire do to the health and safety of a worker?
• How would listening help establish rapport?

Tip 3: Allow learners to share their interpretations of factual content.

When people share stories, they begin to ask questions. Have you experienced something like that? Did you ever feel the same way? How did you resolve it? Did it work? They share factual content that are meaningful to them.

Encourage learners to share their experience about a specific problem or situation. Guide them by asking questions like “Have you seen or experienced this in your life or situation?” or “What would you do to resolve this?”

Conclusion

Stories enhance successful social learning because they add meaning to factual content. They encourage learners to share their own stories. Hence, stories are preferred methods in social learning projects.

References

Jonah Berger, Katherine L. Milkman (2012) What Makes Online Content Viral? Journal of Marketing Research: April 2012, Vol. 49, No. 2, pp. 192-205

Bozarth, Jane. Social Media for Trainers: Techniques for Enhancing and Extending Learning. Pfeiffer, 2010

David Brooks. The Social Animal: A Story of How Success Happens. Short Books: April 1, 2011

David Brooks. The Social Animal. March 2011

Brian Grazer. Susan Wojcicki. Time: April 16, 2015

Association for Psychological Science. Why Do We Share Stories, News, and Information With Others?. June 28, 2011

Tip #20 - Weaving Stories and Factual Content for Seamless Lessons

Tip #54 - Social Learning Ought to be Story-Sharing: "Friends You Haven't Met Yet"

Tip #109 - 12 Metaphor Story Questions to Engage Learners

Ray Jimenez, PhD

Vignettes Learning

"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"

How to instantly grab e-learners attention!

To instantly grab e-Learners, remember embedding content into stories.

Embedding Steps

1. Relate
2. Interpret
3. Apply

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, exhausted. The fist statement is a technical content, whereas, the second statement is a story.

Many experts agree that in e-Learning, storytelling is a good approach to instantly grab learners and help them relate the content to real life situations, hence, helping them to retain and apply the content. Thus stories carry with them the emotional aspects of learning. 

Emotions as integral to learning  

According to Rosenfield (1988), emotions have important connection to memory; Caine and Caine (1991): 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 as carry learning ideas 

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

Two types of content

There are two types of content: technical which are factual, objective, mechanical content and 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 e-Learning pages, 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. Unfortunately, in e-Learning, the facilitator 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”.

Embedding content into stories

Embedding content into stories is the technique of relating mechanical content into engaging stories. The technique is valuable when you wish to instantly grab and engage your learners. Essentially there are three steps. 

Embedding Steps

1. Relate
2. Interpret
3. Apply
 

Relate the technical content to real-life situations

Relate refers to adding meaning to new mechanical content by presenting or translating them into emotional and real-life experience. The experience might be events, people and conversations. Furthermore, it is not sufficient to relate real-life situations. The real-life situation must have emotional aspects to them. To relate the technical content to real-life meaning involves one or more of these methods:

• Citing unresolved problems – helps learners to focus on specific, meaningful and real-life conditions. Example: “John lost his left eye due to a furnace blast. He used the wrong protective goggles.”
  
  
• Using familiar and personal experience – helps learners to understand the content by finding a relevant meaning in their personal lives. Example: “When was the last time you had to work 24 hours to meet a timeline?”
  
  
• Using visualization and emotional experiences – helps learners imagine and picture in their minds and capture the emotions of the content through a story, metaphor, examples, illustrations and other organic methods. Example: “He touched my shoulders, leaned on me, whisper in my ears and sad ‘you smell great’”, she sobbed while telling her story to the lawyers.”
  
  Brainstorming questions:
  
  What is the mechanical and technical content? What is a real-life problem situation that depicts the content? What can learners easily relate to? What familiar events are familiar to the learners? What stories and other form of organics help the learners visualize and feel the emotions of the real-life situation? 
 

Ask learners to interpret the story

While the learner is relating the story, it helps the learners when they are asked to interpret the story. Interpretation is a mental process that allows the learners to connect the story and the content in their own lives and their own create their meanings. The story and the content becomes part of learners’ experience. And therefore helps the learner to personalize and own the story and content. This is similar to the learner discovering the answers for themselves. To help the learners’ interpret the story and content, one or more of these methods would work: 

• Asking the learner to respond – this helps the learners move from an observer to a participant in the story. Example: “If you are Pearl, what would you do?”
  
  
• Bring the learner into the story – this helps the learners become a character in the story. Example: “To stop this accident recurring, what would you do as a safety officer?”
  
  
• Ask the leaner to resolve the problem – this helps the learners to actively offer their personal solutions to the problem. Example: “How would you resolve Nancy’s dilemma?”
  
  Brainstorming questions:
  
  How do you invite the learner to respond? How can the leaner become a character in the story? What and how do you ask the learner to resolve the problem?
  
  

Ask the learner to apply in their own real-life situations

To further engage the learner and strengthen the learning process, ask the learners to apply their understanding of the story and content in their own lives. This process is either a thinking or an action process. By applying the solution to a problem or the learning discovery into their real-lives, the learners satisfy themselves that indeed they discovered the meaning of the story and content. If not, learners will go back to interpret the story and will try to understand it further. Applying the ideas helps in retention of the knowledge, but even more important is the immediate usefulness of the ideas. The usefulness of the discovery helps learners recognize the immediate value of the content in their own lives. To help the learners’ apply the story and content, one or more of these methods would work:

• Reflecting on the application – this helps the learners reflect on how they can apply the solution in their own lives. Example: “Why is this case useful to you?”
  
  
• Applying in a personal case – this helps the learners apply the solution in a very specific personal case. Example: “Select a situation at work that you can apply your solution?”
  
  
• Responding to a similar story – this helps the learners apply the solution in another related or similar story. Example: “In the related story where John and Martha had the same disagreement, but John, in this case, terminated Martha, how would you apply the ideas that you learned?”
  
  
• Applying in off-line activity – this helps the learners extend the learning into a specific work project. Example: “Go off-line and have a conversation with your boss. Ask him: ‘How would handle this situation?’”
  
  Brainstorming questions:
  
  How do you ask the learner to apply the story, content and solution in their personal lives? What is a related story that you can ask learners to apply the content and solution? 
 

Now, let’s look at some examples.

Example 1 - Sales Training

The technical content
To close a sale you need to know what the customer needs. Understanding the customer needs helps you offer the right product or solution. The more you know the customer’s need, the more you close the sale. The story Would you buy from a salesperson if he does not know what you need? What’s the worst thing that can happen? How would knowing the need of the customer help you close more sales? Reflect for a moment. Which content helps you immediately relate to real-life situation?

Example 2 - Cashier Training 

The technical content

Scan each product correctly to get an accurate record of the sale and update the inventory. A mistake is very costly for the company because of excess inventory and wrong forecasting in production.  

The story The delivery driver complains – “I just delivered 100 cases of product X, but you still have 100 cases available, on-hand? Why did you over-order?” 

What likely happened in this situation? What would you do to avoid the problem? Reflect for a moment. Which content helps you to immediately relate to real-life situation?

Example 3 - Leadership Training 

The technical content 

An effective leader has integrity and can be trusted. The leader who is trustworthy builds a bond with his team members.

The story 

How do you feel a leader whom you can not confide your personal concerns?

For team members to confide in the leader, what must the leader possess? How do you build integrity and become trustworthy?

Reflect for a moment. Which content helps you to immediately relate to real-life situation?

In the above examples, we used the common patterns for questions?

Questions are basic technique of engaging the learners. 

Example 4 - Leadership Training (A Story)

The technical content 

An effective leader has integrity and can be trusted. The leader who is trustworthy builds a bond with his team members.

The story

It has been rumored that Dana was fired because Peter, her boss, reported to HR and legal that Dana had misused her company credit card. “I trusted Peter and I was asking for his advice”, Dana said. Dana was cleared of the allegations and kept her job. What do you think happened in this case? What happened to the trust between Dana and Peter? If you are Peter, why is it important to preserve the trust between you and Dana and how would you go about preserving this trust?

Conclusion

To instantly grab e-Learners, remember embedding content into stories. Embedding Steps

4. Relate
5. Interpret
6. Apply

Ray Jimenez, PhD  

Vignettes Learning
"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"

How to instantly grab e-learners attention!

To instantly grab e-Learners, remember embedding content into stories. Embedding Steps

1. Relate
2. Interpret
3. Apply

_________________________________ 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, exhausted. The fist statement is a technical content, whereas, the second statement is a story.

Many experts agree that in e-Learning, storytelling is a good approach to instantly grab learners and help them relate the content to real life situations, hence, helping them to retain and apply the content. Thus stories carry with them the emotional aspects of learning.

Emotions as integral to learning According to Rosenfield (1988), emotions have important connection to memory; Caine and Caine (1991): 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 as carry learning ideas Furthermore, stories and storytelling are the carriers of emotional content. Stories, which I call organics, have different forms: narrative stories, anecdote, example, metaphor, demo, illustration, and other forms that bring the emotional and real-life aspects of content. Two types of content

There are two types of content: technical which are factual, objective, mechanical content and 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 e-Learning pages, 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. Unfortunately, in e-Learning, the facilitator 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”. Embedding content into stories Embedding content into stories is the technique of relating mechanical content into engaging stories. The technique is valuable when you wish to instantly grab and engage your learners. Essentially there are three steps.

Embedding Steps

1. Relate
2. Interpret
3. Apply

Relate the technical content to real-life situations Relate refers to adding meaning to new mechanical content by presenting or translating them into emotional and real-life experience. The experience might be events, people and conversations. Furthermore, it is not sufficient to relate real-life situations. The real-life situation must have emotional aspects to them. To relate the technical content to real-life meaning involves one or more of these methods:

• Citing unresolved problems – helps learners to focus on specific, meaningful and real-life conditions. Example: “John lost his left eye due to a furnace blast. He used the wrong protective goggles.”
  
  
• Using familiar and personal experience – helps learners to understand the content by finding a relevant meaning in their personal lives. Example: “When was the last time you had to work 24 hours to meet a timeline?”
  
  
• Using visualization and emotional experiences – helps learners imagine and picture in their minds and capture the emotions of the content through a story, metaphor, examples, illustrations and other organic methods. Example: “He touched my shoulders, leaned on me, whisper in my ears and sad ‘you smell great’”, she sobbed while telling her story to the lawyers.”
  
  Brainstorming questions:
  
  What is the mechanical and technical content? What is a real-life problem situation that depicts the content? What can learners easily relate to? What familiar events are familiar to the learners? What stories and other form of organics help the learners visualize and feel the emotions of the real-life situation?

Ask learners to interpret the story While the learner is relating the story, it helps the learners when they are asked to interpret the story. Interpretation is a mental process that allows the learners to connect the story and the content in their own lives and their own create their meanings. The story and the content becomes part of learners’ experience. And therefore helps the learner to personalize and own the story and content. This is similar to the learner discovering the answers for themselves. To help the learners’ interpret the story and content, one or more of these methods would work:

• Asking the learner to respond – this helps the learners move from an observer to a participant in the story. Example: “If you are Pearl, what would you do?”
  
  
• Bring the learner into the story – this helps the learners become a character in the story. Example: “To stop this accident recurring, what would you do as a safety officer?”
  
  
• Ask the leaner to resolve the problem – this helps the learners to actively offer their personal solutions to the problem. Example: “How would you resolve Nancy’s dilemma?”
  
  Brainstorming questions:
  
  How do you invite the learner to respond? How can the leaner become a character in the story? What and how do you ask the learner to resolve the problem?
  
  

Ask the learner to apply in their own real-life situations To further engage the learner and strengthen the learning process, ask the learners to apply their understanding of the story and content in their own lives. This process is either a thinking or an action process. By applying the solution to a problem or the learning discovery into their real-lives, the learners satisfy themselves that indeed they discovered the meaning of the story and content. If not, learners will go back to interpret the story and will try to understand it further. Applying the ideas helps in retention of the knowledge, but even more important is the immediate usefulness of the ideas. The usefulness of the discovery helps learners recognize the immediate value of the content in their own lives. To help the learners’ apply the story and content, one or more of these methods would work:

• Reflecting on the application – this helps the learners reflect on how they can apply the solution in their own lives. Example: “Why is this case useful to you?”
  
  
• Applying in a personal case – this helps the learners apply the solution in a very specific personal case. Example: “Select a situation at work that you can apply your solution?”
  
  
• Responding to a similar story – this helps the learners apply the solution in another related or similar story. Example: “In the related story where John and Martha had the same disagreement, but John, in this case, terminated Martha, how would you apply the ideas that you learned?”
  
  
• Applying in off-line activity – this helps the learners extend the learning into a specific work project. Example: “Go off-line and have a conversation with your boss. Ask him: ‘How would handle this situation?’”
  
  Brainstorming questions:
  
  How do you ask the learner to apply the story, content and solution in their personal lives? What is a related story that you can ask learners to apply the content and solution?

Now, let’s look at some examples. Example 1 - Sales Training The technical content To close a sale you need to know what the customer needs. Understanding the customer needs helps you offer the right product or solution. The more you know the customer’s need, the more you close the sale. The story Would you buy from a salesperson if he does not know what you need? What’s the worst thing that can happen? How would knowing the need of the customer help you close more sales? Reflect for a moment. Which content helps you immediately relate to real-life situation?

Example 2 - Cashier Training

The technical content

Scan each product correctly to get an accurate record of the sale and update the inventory. A mistake is very costly for the company because of excess inventory and wrong forecasting in production. The story The delivery driver complains – “I just delivered 100 cases of product X, but you still have 100 cases available, on-hand? Why did you over-order?”

What likely happened in this situation? What would you do to avoid the problem? Reflect for a moment. Which content helps you to immediately relate to real-life situation?

Example 3 - Leadership Training

The technical content

An effective leader has integrity and can be trusted. The leader who is trustworthy builds a bond with his team members. The story How do you feel a leader whom you can not confide your personal concerns?

For team members to confide in the leader, what must the leader possess? How do you build integrity and become trustworthy?

Reflect for a moment. Which content helps you to immediately relate to real-life situation?

In the above examples, we used the common patterns for questions?

Questions are basic technique of engaging the learners.

Example 4 - Leadership Training (A Story)

The technical content

An effective leader has integrity and can be trusted. The leader who is trustworthy builds a bond with his team members. The story It has been rumored that Dana was fired because Peter, her boss, reported to HR and legal that Dana had misused her company credit card. “I trusted Peter and I was asking for his advice”, Dana said. Dana was cleared of the allegations and kept her job. What do you think happened in this case? What happened to the trust between Dana and Peter? If you are Peter, why is it important to preserve the trust between you and Dana and how would you go about preserving this trust?

Conclusion To instantly grab e-Learners, remember embedding content into stories. Embedding Steps

4. Relate
5. Interpret
6. Apply