Jennifer Moon on Using Story in Education

Jennifer Moon's book Using Story shows how story is a complex social and communicative phenomenon with multiple conditions, purposes, and effects. While explaining the use of story in higher education, she touches on the characteristics of story that I believe are useful when considering it as a professional development tool. I’ll highlight six of those characteristics and add some of my own thoughts.

One, stories are an implicit and connotative form of communication. Certain elements of the story are difficult to put into language; they are contextual and deal with ideas manifest in specific and concrete situation. As a result, important elements of the story are conveyed symbolically. Description in a story exists to make the story work, not to inform or persuade the audience.

Two, stories happen within a frame that separates them from reality. The frame is part of what gives meaning to the events within the story; the frame is the setting and it’s also the underlying principles that determine which events and which characters are relevant to the story and relevant to the lessons the story conveys.

Three, stories present representative norms and behavioral expectations just as much as (or maybe even more than) they convey factual information. We like to say that stories (esp. myths and folktales) tell us what and why nature is the way it is (e.g., a story that explains the origins of a particular mountain in the shape of a bear). But really, many stories actually help us navigate the complexities of living in nature by showing us the moral and behavioral alternatives we face in day-to-day living.

Four, stories are good for studying underlying assumptions as well as alternative actions and implications. Assumptions, implications, and actions are not always explicit to us in the same way as clear explanation or explicit argumentation. Because stories trade in the currency of implicit and symbolic ideas, they anthropologically reveal our underlying beliefs about and what we expect will result from our actions in the world here and now.

Five, stories tend to express the exceptional as opposed to theory which expresses the commonplace. Stories are about change: unexpected change in the status quo or needed change in the face of stagnation. Stories reveal and give meaning to the exceptional events that interrupt the stasis of the commonplace.

And six, stories are correlated with identity; hence, changing a story might be correlated with changing personal and institutional identity. Obviously stories chronicle events, but those events happen to the characters of the story, to people. The events aren’t as important as what the events mean to the characters; the characters’ identities are in play as a result of the events that happen.

citation: Jennifer A. Moon. Using Story: In Higher Education and Professional Development. New York: Routledge, 2010.

Patrick Lowenthal on Online Storytelling as Professional Development

Patrick Lowenthal opens with the claim that current professional development activities don't actually change faculty behavior. As a result, he advocates storytelling (and specifically online storytelling) as a potential solution to this problem. Storytelling, he goes on to say, is not discussed much in the professional development literature, but it is discussed in the educational literature, and that's where he borrows many of his ideas from.

Stories, according to Lowenthal, have four characteristics that make them worthwhile professional development tools and that also separate them from other types of explanatory discourse. First, stories deal with concrete examples (rather than vague abstractions).

My commentary: Stories deal with common (or even universal) issues and conflicts that people experience and that audiences relate to. Likewise, stories also involve specific characters, acting in specific settings, with specific plot events. Insomuch as stories address larger themes, those themes are manifest within concrete and detailed situations.

Second, stories provide frameworks and contexts that situate meaning (rather than meaning embedded in the message itself, independent of any context).

My commentary: The situatedness of a story shows us how the story's meaning is bound to that context and makes sense mainly within that context. Explanatory messages, on the other hand, are meant to convey ideas that exist and make sense separate from the situation and without much of a context.

Third, stories build personal experiences that facilitate meaning making and memory (rather than merely transfer information).

My commentary: The audience of any communication event will experience that communication event personally and socially. If that communication is explanatory, on the one hand, our experience of the discourse will be information-rich, literal, and we will feel disconnected from the sources of that information. If that communication event is a story, on the other hand, our experience of the discourse is more likely to be eventful, symbolic, we are more likely to feel like we're participating in the events themselves.

And fourth, stories are embedded with the social context in which meaning is created socially (rather than other forms of discourse which create meaning in the language of the message itself).

My commentary: Because stories reveal specific and concrete instances, and because stories are embedded within contexts and frameworks, and because stories build experiences, the social quality of storytelling means the relational aspects of the communication are as important (or more important) than the content aspects. Stories are understood through relationships and social interaction more than explanations (which are understood largely through clear and effective expression).

Lowenthal makes one more point which I'm mostly glossing over here. He claims that moving professional development storytelling online means that digital storytelling applications become a viable option for professional development.

citation: Patrick R. Lowenthal. “Online Faculty Development and Storytelling: An Unlikely Solution to Improving Teacher Quality.” Journal of Online Learning and Teaching. 4.3 (Sept. 2008): 349-356. http://jolt.merlot.org/vol4no3/lowenthal_0908.pdf

Storytelling Retreat at the Center for Teaching Quality

This past summer the Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ) facilitated a retreat for teachers from across the country to learn about telling their professional teacher leader stories.

At the retreat, the teachers worked to “…develop and share their stories of teacher leadership impact in the hopes of shifting the current cultural narrative surrounding teaching and learning” (para. 1). This statement explains what they did and why they did it; the statement also shows us some of the assumptions made by and motivations for the retreat.

First, the description tells us something they did: the retreat taught teachers how to develop their stories of teacher leadership. Teachers, one assumes, need to understand what a teacher leader story sounds like and how to draw those stories out of their experiences.

Second, the description tells us another thing they did: the retreat taught teachers how to share their stories to others. Teachers, one also assumes, need to convey their teacher leader stories in expressive and compelling ways.

Third, the description tells us a reason why they did it: individual personal narratives are being used to shape the larger cultural narrative. An assumption here is that the larger cultural narrative needs to be changed; there’s something harmful about that narrative that is keeping teachers from doing their best work.

Another assumption is that conveying individual (personal) narratives is a kind of first step toward building or influencing a larger (cultural) narrative. Pick your favorite metaphor here: personal narratives are bricks in a larger wall of cultural narrative; individual change is a catalyst toward cultural change, etc.

The rest of the retreat description identifies other, more specific storytelling skills participants learned: identifying your audience, refining your message, assessing the impact of your story, and the more relational goal of getting to know your colleagues who also have compelling stories to tell.

At the bottom of the webpage are links to three participants’ blogs about their experiences at the retreat. A couple of points are salient here.

Tricia Ebner explained how participants questioned their stories: whether their stories had value to others, whether their stories were well-told, and whether their stories would have impact. This shows that storytellers—especially those who are learning to tell their own stories—need to build confidence in their stories and their storytelling.

Noah Klein explained how our stories are tied to their failures, successes, strengths, and weaknesses. We learn from all kinds of stories: stories about what we’ve done well and stories about what we have done poorly.

This description of the CTQ storytelling retreat leaves a rough outline for developing storytelling as a form of professional development that also cultivates professional community.

Student Support (Re)defined = Educator Support (Re)defined

In 2013 the RP Group released a series of reports from their study called Student Support (Re)defined. The study identified six relational factors that help students succeed; that is, students said they were more likely to succeed at a community college when they are:

In other words, students are more likely to succeed educationally when they participate in a community. These six relational factors are characteristics of that community.

Educators, like students, also require support to succeed--especially when they are trying to re-culture their campuses and implement changes to ensure student success.

Is it possible, then, that these six success factors might apply to educators just as much as they do to students? More than once I have heard others asking this same question at conferences and professional development events. So I hope we'll soon hear and read my colleagues exploring the truth of this assertion. For now, it's my belief that the answer is yes.

Educators are teachers but they are also learners. It makes sense, then, that a relational system that supports students-as-learners would also work if applied to teachers-as-learners. If these six relational factors constitute a definition of a community for students, then it's plausible to say they also constitute a definition of professional community for educators.

Appreciative Inquiry, the Golden Circle, and Bread & Butter (and Other Comparable Metaphors)

Simon Sinek's conception of a Golden Circle explains the motivations for change.

The primary motivator for change should be why the change should occur (inspiration for change). Why, in turn, motivates how the change should occur (process for change). How, in turn, motivates what change should occur (product of change).

In other words, motivations should move from the inside of the circle to the outside: why, then how, then what. (Typically, and ineffectively, people try to motivate in the opposite direction: what, then how, then why.)

While Appreciative Inquiry doesn't have a tidy diagram like the Golden Circle, I've seen a nice little triangle, explained by Paula Gunder and Christina Goff from Los Medanos College (and courtesy of the Basic Skills Initiative Leadership Institute) that gets at some of the key qualities of Appreciative Inquiry.

The bottom layer (or foundation) of the triangle is based upon relationships between people. Within relationships people identify the possible changes that the future holds (the next layer up from the bottom). Possibilities, in turn, allow people to formulate plans for action (the third layer up). And plans, in turn, lead to actions carried out by those people (the top of the pyramid).

The wider the layer, the more important it is. Relationships are the largest portion of the pyramid. They require more time, resources, and consideration, to cultivate. In other words, relationships are a fundamental part of the pyramid. Actions, on the other hand, are the top of the pyramid. That doesn't mean they're the least important part (they are, after all, the endpoint or the product of the change the pyramid represents). But they do require less time, resources, and consideration than the lower layers of the pyramid.

The = (equal sign) is the wrong symbol for this relationship because (of course) Appreciative Inquiry and the Golden Circle are not the same thing. But they are comparable. They are analogous to each other. And they are complimentary.

They are peas in a pod.

They are birds of a feather.

They see eye to eye.

Pick your favorite metaphor.

The analogy suggests that relationships should be the primary motivation for making change (i.e., why). Out of those relationships people will recognize possibilities and formulate plans (i.e., how). Actions, then, are merely the relationships, possibilities, and plans manifest in the doing (i.e., what).

The Golden Circle and Appreciative Inquiry. Different ideas expressed in different language. Yet each one gives meaning and clarity to the other.

The Difference between Knowing That and Knowing How

The other day I found this page on "Principles of Effective Practice for Professional Development" from the Center for Teaching and Learning at LaGuardia Community College.

I'm especially intrigued by the sixth principle in the list:

Create a Supportive Professional Community. Teaching is a challenging profession. Innovation involves risk-taking. Establish a climate of support and thoughtful reflection, generating safe spaces, where [faculty] can talk about and learn from what doesn't work, as well as what does.

As an advocate of developing professional community as a part of professional learning, I completely agree. That it's important to create professional community is critical to the success of professional development programming.

The next question, however, is: How do you create professional community? And who knows how to create it?

In a college course it's relatively easy to build a syllabus as compared to fostering a climate of safety and community. It's relatively easy to organize topics into a course calendar; it's more difficult to create spaces where students can take the risks inherent in learning.

Professional development for educators is similar, and for similar reasons. Enhancing educators' competencies is a matter of exchanging information. That's relatively easy. Creating community, on the other hand, is a matter of cultivating relationships between people. That's much more difficult.

Knowing that we should build community is a good first step; knowing how to build community is the next step. LaGuardia Community College has shown us a path. Now let's all take the next steps together.