Learn How To Include Story-Telling In Your Online Course

by Anand Tiwary July 21, 2020

Creating an effective eLearning course requires a number of learning aids and tools. One of the most successful ways of engaging your learners is through creating an interactive narrative that captures their interest. There are a lot of reasons why storytelling is considered to be a very effective learning aid for learners of all ages and backgrounds. However, the main reason why it is popular within the eLearning industry is the immersive experience that is created via narrative storytelling and engaging scenario creations.

In this article, we are going to focus on some tips and tricks that can help you create an immensely engaging eLearning course.

In order to create and sell online courses with creative scenarios and interactive narratives, use the following tricks:

Illustrate to connect: A picture is said to speak a thousand words and you can use this to your advantage. A narrative is only effective if there are enough realism and engaging graphics for the learner to connect to. The best way to ensure that your learners are engaged with your eLearning course, you need to make sure that you have a stock of high-quality pictures or graphics that your learners can immediately connect with. While curating relevant pictures and other graphics you need to focus on humorous and out of the box options that will surely capture the attention of your learners.
Develop, Analyse, Create: Every character in the story must be relevant and relatable to the learners. The personalities could be something similar to that of the learners. The dialogues and conversation should feel real like their colleagues are having the conversation. The characters should also be symbolic of someone like the learner. One way is that the character should initially lack the skillsets you are trying to teach and then how he gains it and you show how that skill set is helpful for him. A bit of humour is never discouraged, you should remember that the story is the medium through which you want to convey your message. You should stay on the main topic always to keep the learners motivated and not to bombard them with too much unnecessary information.
Script your narrative before you create: All the good stories have an arc where you gradually introduce the characters and explain the scenario first. Then comes the problem or the conflict part which needs to be solved and thus it leads to the final part which is the resolution. You can make your learners feel more emotionally invested by developing the plot slowly through the storyline. Hence they will be immersed in the plot so that it becomes a powerful learning tool. Creativity is also very important like storytelling but it should come second to it and not as the first option. In this way, you can keep the learners invested in your story and they will understand it better and remember it for a long time in that way. At the end of your arc, you should keep your lesson or the message you were trying to convey and this will leave a deep impression on the learners.
Less is more: Statistics and surveys indicate that long posts and chunky content simply puts learners into a sound sleep. So, the golden rule here is to remember that less is more. To keep your narrative effective and engaging, you need to ensure that you creatively design chapters where your learners can find a cluster of learning points and highlights followed by a scenario or graphics to ensure retention of the learning points. Designing your course in this manner ensures that your readers find your eLearning course to be engaging and worth their while rather than mind-numbingly boring.
Blended highlights: The story should reflect the main message you are trying to convey. The plot should have key points as the subject matter and you should get creative while incorporating them in your story. It is easy at times to stray away from the main point but you should keep that at a minimum. More focus should be put on what you are trying to teach and every character and scene should subconsciously reflect that main message you are trying to deliver. Otherwise, the story can be entertaining but it won’t offer them any real help or value.

At CreateOnlineAcademy.com we offer various course designing tools and creative graphics tools that will help you to design your narrative and inject realism into it. COA provides the ultimate course building platform that provides you with a dynamic LMS, an arsenal of premium tools and of course strong marketing support.