Inspiring Examples of Storytelling in eLearning

What are you binge-watching on TV proper now? For me, it’s the newest season of Severance. The storytelling is so good that I can’t wait to see what occurs subsequent. Just like the employees at Lumon Industries, I’m determined for solutions! I’ve develop into invested within the narrative, linked to the characters and inquisitive about their world.

But I’m removed from distinctive on this. People are hard-wired for storytelling. Once we hear a narrative, our brains activate as if we’re experiencing it ourselves. This ‘mirror neuron’ impact may also be utilized to tutorial design to make content material extra relatable and compelling.

Weaving coaching content material right into a narrative captures the learner’s consideration, sparks curiosity and fosters a deeper connection to the fabric. Finished effectively, storytelling not solely enhances comprehension but in addition helps us retain and retrieve data extra simply. All of us keep in mind what occurred to Little Pink Driving Hood, don’t we? Which is why I typically joke that fairy tales are the primary compliance coaching we ever take…

On this article I’ll share some video excerpts from well-liked Litmos programs which can be glorious examples of how eLearning programs can leverage storytelling methods to drive engagement and enhance comprehension.

Various Views for Efficient Storytelling

Should you stroll right into a bookshop in the present day and choose up a novel at random, likelihood is it makes use of first-person narrative. The story is instructed from the viewpoint of a personality contained in the story, utilizing “I” or “we” pronouns. We’re given a window into their ideas, feelings, and perceptions.

However should you walked right into a bookshop 300 years in the past, the story is more likely to make use of third-person narrative, the place the narrator is exterior the story, referring to the characters utilizing “he” “she” or “they”. This wider view of the story permits the narrator to current occasions extra objectively.

Against this, tutorial writing and eLearning tends to make use of second-person narrative. That is the place the narrator immediately addresses the learner as “you,” which has apparent advantages when it is advisable guarantee a learner is aware of what to do in a given state of affairs. It’s unambiguous and direct.

Every perspective gives distinctive benefits for partaking learners and enhancing their academic expertise. However as storytelling tendencies change and audiences develop into extra subtle, there’s so much to be gained from breaking out of the normal second-person narrative in eLearning.

Let’s check out how Litmos Originals, our in-house pre-built coaching programs, leverage storytelling methods to assist customers present extra compelling and fascinating studying experiences.

Examples of First Individual Perspective in eLearning

Utilizing first individual perspective to inform a narrative helps learners relate extra personally to the lesson being taught, by creating empathy with the protagonist. This system is very efficient in eventualities the place private reflection and emotional engagement are essential.

In our Neurodiversity collection, the first-person perspective is used for example the actual challenges confronted by neurodivergent candidates in interview conditions:

Examples of Second-Individual Perspective in eLearning

At Litmos Originals, we use second-person perspective to put learners on the coronary heart of the narrative. We’re not merely addressing the learner as “you,” and telling them what to do, we’re immersing them in simulation-based coaching, the place their selections immediately affect the end result of the story.

In our Worker Expertise Administration (EXM) collection, we’ve got constructed environments and simulations that mimic a contemporary distant office, utilizing this attitude to not solely ‘inform’ learners what to do, however ‘present’ them how you can do it:

Examples of Third-Individual Perspective in eLearning

For a extra goal, documentary-style strategy, third-person narration gives a broader perspective on a subject and permits learners to look at and analyze conditions from an exterior standpoint. This may be helpful for creating important considering abilities and understanding advanced methods.

In our California Office Violence Prevention course, this attitude is used to supply learners with an goal overview of an occasion:

A Query of Perspective

When Daniel Defoe printed Robinson Crusoe method again in 1719, its autobiographical, first-person type was ground-breaking. However what if the identical story was instructed from Friday’s perspective? Or from the viewpoint of Crusoe’s rescuers? Think about how totally different every of the examples I’ve shared can be in the event that they used a unique perspective?

For Tutorial Designers, deciding how you can current the knowledge is as vital as deciding what data goes right into a course. Nonetheless, that isn’t to say upon getting chosen one perspective, you’re locked into it.

Take a look at this instance from one in every of our programs on Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities. The framing of the situation subtly shifts between first and third individual perspective, whereas sustaining a second-person tone:

Leveraging Frequent Narrative Buildings in eLearning

Regardless of their very totally different use of perspective these examples all have one factor in frequent: they take the learner on a journey of discovery. It is a frequent storytelling method, which hooks us as readers, moviegoers and, sure, as learners, too.

In his 1949 guide, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the author Jospeh Campbell steered that the majority mythology follows the identical basic construction, which he referred to as “The Hero’s Journey”.  An odd individual is known as on an journey, faces challenges and hardships in an unfamiliar world, undergoes a private transformation, and returns house with one thing priceless to share. The proper studying expertise!

Many years later, the author Kurt Vonnegut simplified this story sample into simply three elements. His “Man in a Gap” mannequin focuses on a personality who faces an issue (they’re caught within the “gap”), then overcomes it, and finally ends up higher off than earlier than. By plotting this story on a graph, Vonnegut confirmed that we’re extra invested in tales the place the protagonist improves their state of affairs. We would like the hero to win. This has clear parallels with office coaching, the place we have to increase security requirements, cut back complaints, or proper a fallacious.

An illustration of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Man in a Gap” graph from the Litmos webinar, “Grasp Storytelling in L&D This Yr”. On this illustration, Litmos mascot Lenny is digging himself out of the proverbial gap (a studying and/or enterprise problem).

Contemplate the next the subsequent time you’re creating an eLearning course:

• How does your selection of perspective have an effect on the presentation of the knowledge?
• Is your learner “within the gap” themselves or serving to another person in problem?
• By the tip of the coaching, has your learner not solely elevated their abilities and information, but in addition resolved the storyline in a method that may assist them retain and recall these classes later?

Within the age of Tiktok, AI, and streaming companies, consideration spans are quick. Learners are on the go and consuming content material continuously. Constructing partaking narratives into your programs can set your eLearning initiatives aside.

When skillfully utilized, these storytelling methods can remodel eLearning programs into compelling, memorable, and impactful academic experiences. Whether or not it’s a brief microlearning module or a extra in-depth suite of programs, making purposeful choices about perspective and setting, following a easy three-act construction, and immediately linking your studying outcomes to this narrative is a blockbuster method.