Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Moon, J (2010) Using Story: In Higher Education and Professional…
Moon, J (2010) Using Story: In Higher Education and Professional Development
Learning and the Understanding of Story
Constructivist Learning Theory
Constructivist model of learning suggests a flexible and shifting network of ideas and feelings, some more closely linked than others, that form a 'cognitive structure
What we learn is guided by what we know (existing cognitive structure) and what we choose to pay attention to. In the case of story, 'what we know' may be the context of the story that's been set-up. Story offers a rich context of ideas and expectations that can guide the processing or further input of ideas
Processes of Cognitive Structures
Cognitive Dissonance
Real world is full of dissonant messages that require critical thinking in order to manage them
Most of what we learn in formal educational is relatively in accordance with expectations so relatively uncritical processes ofassimilation and accommodation can operate
Stories utilise Twists
Learning guided by what we already know and what they chose to pay attention to
Cognitive structure may be stimulated
to change without new material (eg. reflection)
We also learn from the process of representing what we have learned
The process of learning to learn can be considered in the same way as the process of learning knowledge
Other factors are important in influencing the assimilation and accommodation of new ideas eg. choice, trust etc.
Process of Assimilation
1) Linked directly to the cognitive structure as it exists
2) Modified in order to fit existing knowledge
3) Stimulates modification of the existing cognitive structure - and so change understanding
The constructavist model sees learning as a process of change
Meaning
Significant meaning is constructed by the learner
meaning a learner makes is dependant on their patterns of cognitive structures and so may be different meaning to another learner
Social Processes
tools and practices that operate have developed as social processes to help us find agreed meanings that allow us to function as communities
Language is a tool designed to help attain shared meaning
Developing Meaning
Change in meaning due to physical experience
Change in meaning due to information after the experience
Appresentation
A partial representation of something that is perceived as external experience that stimulates a more complete internal experience
Internal experience can therefore be much richer than external experience
One of the ways in which poetry and story work is by alluding to concepts rather than spelling them out, and the listener supplies and develops a rich set of perceptions in her own way
Truth
Meaning resides with the learner and, as Gabriel has said, ‘The truth of a story lies not in the facts, but in the meaning’ (Gabriel, 2000)
Variation
In order for there to be new learning there needs to be variation between selected figures in external experience and the internal experiences. there are four forms of variation:
1) change in the external experience in the material of learning
2) With the same material of learning, by changing the frame of reference to perceive different details, thereby changing the external experience
3) Working with internal experience through reflecting and relating to prior experience
4) Representing learning through action, and comparing results of the external experience through reflection
Framing
A frame of reference provides focus and attention and allows learners to select figures for 'appropriate' learning. Without it, it's possible to develop different concepts
The Unspoken
Includes imagery, emotion, past and present contexts of story, internal experience of teller and listener that contribute to meaning, implicit expectations of story structure, and any sense of spirituality for teller and listener
There is an assumption is academia that we can put all worthwhile knowledge into words (Moon, 2009a)
Elements of the Unspoken
The external context of the story
Wy in which the story is told
non-explicit intentions of the teller
non-explicit meanings of the story generated by the listener
In sensory imagery
In Unconscious elements of story
In the form and genre of stories
Emotion
1) work with emotion as it's central theme - its subject matter (eg. love, etc).
2) they can work to generate emotion (horrors generate fear, suspense etc)
3) emotion is by-product of stories, unintended by the teller (but due to audience experience)
4) Emotion influences the telling and receiving of the story and can trigger the telling of story
5) Emotions can trigger the telling of a story.
6) Story can trigger emotional insight
The Deployment of meaning in story
How Meaning is Constructed - The Frame
Obvious Frame
Traditional beginnings and endings, a place where stories are told, the purpose of the story, a change in quality of voice etc.
A story needs to be distinct from its context. a semi-permeable membrane within which is a world with its own history and its own conventions from which meanings are constructed
Narrative structure / grammar as a frame
Stories have narrative or story structures (or grammars) which are consistent internal structures that are familiar to listeners
Innate and specific linguistic capacity
Humans have a ‘precocity’ for narrative structure or ‘some core knowledge about narratives’ (Bruner, 2002)
Duel Process of Comprehension
‘the interpreter has to grasp the narrative’s configuring plot in order to make sense of its constituents... But the plot configuration must itself be extracted from the succession of events’ (Bruner, 1990)
Awareness of such structure seems
to be present early in a child’s life
Structures we learn to recognise
Expectation
We are taking account of variation between internal and external experience in our management of meaning (Bruner, 1986)
Scripts
Memory devices that summarise how others behave (Schank, 1995)
Genre
Engagement
Suspension of Disbelief
For the listener to allow herself vicariously to experience the ‘story world’ involves her in ‘suspending her disbelief’ and thereby suspending some current connections with the here and now
This empirical work seems to suggest that engagement with story tends to ‘turn off’ readers’ critical faculties and therefore supports the notion that disbelief is suspended
Unspoken ambiguity or uncertainty in story, which draws in the listener because she is actively constructing the story
Reality Frame
Effect over Accuracy
Gabriel (2000) suggests that the story is distinguished from the chronicle by its focus on effect rather than accuracy. suspends her disbelief, she holds back from critique or dismissal of a different reality
Different Meanings of Reality
Shifts in Time and Space
Story has the capacity to link past, present and future
Non-Fiction / Fiction
What we mean by ‘real’ and other words like ‘true’, ‘imagined’ and ‘factual’ material
‘Stories may be attempting to say something that is true to life, but not true oflife’, but they have ‘enormous power to teach about life, albeit indirectly’ Claxton (1999)
Imagination / Fantasy
Mythic Explanations
Suppress complicating variations (of explanation) and replace them with a kind of uniform simplicity’ (Spence, 1998)
Dreams
Story Medium
Value of Seeing Through Others Eyes
‘In the process of writing and reading, both the author and reader become others, able to see through different eyes (Alvarez and Merchan,1992)
Narrative fiction can enable readers to ‘enter the story and vicariously experience the events portrayed (Phillips,1995)
Simulation
Theory of Mind
Stimulates our self-understanding to enable us to comprehend the psychological processing of characters
The ability to infer the psychological views of others is called the ‘theory of mind’ (Astington, 1990, cited in Mar et al., 2006)
Social Improvement Hypothesis
Involves the reader in following the protagonists in the story in their dealings with complex situations of life, gives us practice in navigating in the social domain
Mar et al., 2006; Oatley, 2008b
Story as Framed Stimulus for Reflection and Change
Guided Contemplation
Emotion prompting Insights
Springboard Story
Story as metaphor for life
Retelling & Secondary Reflection
Story and epistemological Development
Models of epistemological development
Perry, 1970; Belenky et al., 1986; King and Kitchener, 1994; Baxter Magolda, 1992, 1994, 1996
Techniques story can offer
Multiple Perspectives
Notion of Constructed Knowledge
Cause and Effect
Stimulus for Reflection
Exploration of Ideas
Graduated exercises
Link to cognitive dissonance
Perspective Transformation
Mezirow (1991)
(e.g. Hines, 1988; Kloss, 1994; Lauritzen and Jaeger, 1997; Fisher, 1999; Richardson, 2000; Gold and Holman, 2001; Laming, 2004; Lucas and Meyer, 2005)
Story and Memory
Constructivist view of Memory
to have knowledge is to have memory of that knowledge and to be able to represent it in one way or another
Focus not on memory but not forgetting (Schank, 1995). What is lost is reconstructed through imagination
Construction of Story
memories are evoked in the mind of the listener to or reader of story more than are evoked by expository material
If memory is constructed, then story is reconstructed when told from memory - and to suit the present circumstances
Why we remember stories
Because they contain important information to survive
Because they have many indices to other thoughts, feelings, and memories that can activate prior knowledge
Social, Cultural and Communication Functions of Story
Satisfying human need for Interaction
Belonging
people listening to the same story can become involved in a kind of community experience
Story provides a sense of community with its common points of reference. Common understandings
Something engaging and memorable has a greater chance of becoming embedded in cultural ‘memory’
Stories can educate or manipulate and there may sometimes be little to distinguish between these intentions.
Conveying information, knowledge and unspoken understandings
Storytellers carried news between isolated communities, and the exchange of news
Distorting factors of stories
The need to engage may affect the manner in which information is carried in a story
A state of suspended judgement is not most suited to the reception of reliable information
The making of a good story may supersede the importance of conveying information.
Types of story content
Information
Stories may not work well for the conveyance of straight facts or ‘fact-as-information’
Unspoken Understandings
It is for this mix of story elements – information and unspoken – that story is valued and utilised in many contexts
Representing expectations and norms of behaviour
Ways in which story might help people to learn to behave in accordance with the general norms of a social group
Fairytales provide examples of solutions to the problems through working with stereotypes that are simplified versions of the real-world experiences.
the brain is triggered by fiction stories to simulate the actions of the story
A repository for Culture
Bruner (1990) describes culture as a set of stories that we enter.
Reciprocal manner in which culture and tradition influence story and stories told influence the culture and tradition and ensure that it maintains its vibrancy
The sense of the past in the minds of most people is as a series of stories that have captured the imagination and lie in the memory
Conveyer of morality / Instigator of social change
Techniques
Allegory, fables and parables rely on metaphor
Deviations from the normal
Stories designed to prompt discussion
Displayed by characters
Can use to create social change
This effectiveness might be explained again by the notion that stories encourage the suspension of disbelief - persuasion to accept or change ideas is more acceptable.
Multiple Dimensions of Story
Definition of Story
Broad Form Story
Strong Form Story
Purpose of Story
Story as communication
Experience
Clarifying a complex or difficult situation
Facilitating learning from experience
Teller / Listener
Effect on the teller
Effect on the listener
entertain, catharsis, identity forming
Story as a way of stimulating thought in the listener
Social / Cultural
Story and its role in social behaviour
cultural function, cohesion, influence
Story as a form of transmission of traditional culture
Story and its role in belief systems
Developing Skills
Story as a medium for development of skills (storytelling)
The construction of story as an aid to learning communication skills