Challenge

Storytelling is a great tool that I use all the time. I work with vulnerable populations,

developmentally disabled individuals, senior citizens, and economically

disadvantaged people. Many of these people deal with oppression and dysfunction

in every aspect of their lives, they need to be empowered and inspiration is a path to

empowerment. I spend a lot of time “opening people up” and finding ways to inspire

them to improve their circumstances. When I work with seniors, we share stories for

different reasons. Often they're lonely and are so happy to share stories of their lives

with me to connect and they find meaning in sharing these experiences as a form of

teaching and/or legacy, in a sense. With my developmentally disabled clients I share

stories of my life in order to help them visualize a state of independence, I use their

feedback against the context of my story to ascertain their goals, and sometimes we

use stories to better understand their interests and thought processes. I use this

information to develop different strategies to try and find a way that works for them to

gain more independence in the areas they find lacking in their lives.

Selection

Storytelling describes the social and cultural activity of sharing stories, sometimes

with improvisation, theatrics or embellishment. Every culture has its own stories or

narratives, which are shared as a means of entertainment, education, cultural

preservation or instilling moral values.

Application

Design thinking is a methodology for solving problems that focuses on asking

questions and listening, with empathy, to the needs of individuals and groups.

Storytelling is an “essential human activity” for sharing experiences, explaining

values, and deciding on solutions through vivid verbal and visual accounts. Can

design thinking and storytelling contribute to the research on first generation/low-

income students? I believe so and want to share some thoughts that combine these

two approaches.Storytelling is not limited to entertainment but can also be used as

an effective teaching tool in a language classroom. This study is to identify the

effects of storytelling on students’ language aspects of communication skills and to

evaluate the extent to which storytelling helps in enhancing students’ communication

skills. The findings show that storytelling has beneficial effects on reading skills by

students being able to associate meanings and emotions with words. Students also

develop their vocabulary and learn when and where to use certain words and

phrases.

Insight

Storytelling helps explain the interconnections among people in situations and

settings, teaching broad lessons that engage real human beings. Listening engages

people; and  empathy is an essential and fundamental component in the

process.Stories generate questions and questions expand the breadth and depth of

stories, leading to lots of innovative thoughts and ideas. Storytelling becomes an

important tool for feedback, which is the basis of the iterative process of prototyping

that lead to solutions. Stories and prototypes are intertwined, explaining and

repositioning experiences through a multitude of potential interpretations, which

allow researchers to test new solutions before committing exclusively to a particular

policy, program, or service.

Approach

I will select another tool because I already studied more on storytelling . Next time I

wll chose Mind Mapping.I think I need to be expert in that too.

