Reflection Storeytelling

Challenge  Apart from my regular studies during college I really liked to teach school  kids whenever I got chance. During summer vacations I used to go home  and there I used to join small institutes so that I get chance to meet school  kids and share whatever knowledge I have with them and help them in their  studies. After first year of my engineering I went home in vacations and this  was the first time I joined a professional institute for two months and started  teaching the students. I was really confident that I am very good at  explaining the concepts, so I felt every student will understand whatever I  will teach them. At the end of the first week I received feedback from two  students that I was not teaching well. It was really shocking to know that at  that point of time because during my class I used to ask whether they are  understanding or not and no one used to complain about anything.    Selection  After learning about the feedback I went through serious brain storming and  tried to figure out what wrong I was doing? I realized that while teaching I  used to be too involved in all the concepts and went so much in depth that  it made the students uncomfortable and made everything look really tough  to them than it actually was. So I decided to make my class more lightly  and fun for the students. I decided to use Storeytelling method to make  them understand the things easily and also make the class more fun to be  in.    Application  First time applied the storeytelling method when I was teaching about  thermal expansion topic to the students. So I started with telling them about  the world trade centre and its steel structure. Then I told them about how  the steel expanded due the immense heat produced from burning of the  fuel during that tragic incident and how the expansion of steel made the  whole building collapse. This method made them understand about the  amount of force that thermal expansion of steel can generate. Then I told  them some other examples like why train tracks are made by welding the  rails.This made them really interested in the topic they were eager to learn  the topic.

Insight   I was amazed to see how interesting the classes became by using the  storeytelling tool. Not only the involvement of the students improved but  their understanding about the topic really improved. The students started  interacting more and more with me as well as among themselves. I learnt  how to engage with the students and pass your ideas and learnings to  other people smoothly and effectively.    Approach  Moving forward I started using this tool in most of the interactive sessions,  not only with the students but also during presenting seminars during my  engineering and presenting projects.   The alternate tool that can be used in this type of problems is Visualization  tool which also makes people understand something in easier way.

