Annual Conference 2013 paper: Storyline: Enhancing learning and teaching through co-constructed narrative

Abstract

In my 26 years of teaching… I have never come across a more powerful teaching and learning structure than Storyline. (Lindberg, 2007, p.164)Each time I used a Storyline topic, I was struck by its effectiveness in engaging my pupils in a way that brought the best out in them. (Adamson, 2007, p.194)Like the two teachers quoted above, we have been impressed with the effectiveness of the teaching and learning method Storyline. We have seen that Storyline is effective for learners in primary and secondary schools as well as in university and community settings. We believe that this effectiveness is in large part due to how Storyline uses principles from educational psychology which are currently seen as helpful to learners. This paper is a short examination of Storyline from the educational psychology perspective. In this paper we first introduce the Storyline approach to teaching and learning. We lead the readers through a typical class which uses Storyline, and we list a variety of learning situations which have successfully used Storyline. Finally we discuss the links to the field of educational psychology.