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Integrate Stories to Maximize Interest

Tags

All Ages Strategy

Skills

Attention Verbal Reasoning Verbal Memory Abstract Reasoning Visual Memory

Integrate Stories to Maximize Interest

If you want to deeply engage your students in a topic

How To Apply It!

  1. Students are more likely to listen closely, pay attention to details, and think critically when they are interested in the topic, so try your best to give lessons in the context of a story, rather than providing a list of facts or steps.
  2. When introducing a new subject, tell a story that shows why the information is relevant in life. Use details to make it meaningful and interesting.
  3. Stories work in all academic subjects. Teach students about perimeter with the story of walking around the entire stadium looking for your father. Contrast that with how you picked out tiles to lay out the floor in your kitchen. In physics class you can explain why one roller coaster feels so much scarier than another.
  4. Give students the opportunity to tell their stories on the subject. This develops personal connections. Their stories will demonstrate understanding. And their stories might engage and help other students who are still trying to understand.
  5. Stories work particularly well when teaching 21st century skills including collaboration and communication.
  6. Role playing games can be very effective teaching tools for the same reasons. Find them on a variety of topics here.

Why It Works (the Science Of Learning)!

Student engagement is directly tied to learning outcomes, particularly for struggling learners. Stories are usually far more engaging than learning facts. They are also memorable because they call on emotions and they tie the details together in a logical sequence making them easier to recall.