Using a Storyboard to Understand Processes

What

This is a teaching strategy that uses storyboarding to help students understand decision-making processes and how different decisions can be effective or ineffective. For my purposes, I use the activity to help them understand the trust repair process. Prior to conducting the activity, the students learned that there are multiple theories about trust repair based on the type trust violation. Then, they used TWINE to create a storyboard to better understand how the different types of trust violations can lead to effective or ineffective repairs.

Why

  • To apply a decision-making process to a realistic example by making them think through all of the checkpoints
  • Use technology to generate creative ways to think about the process and share their thinking with their classmates
  • To stimulate in-depth thought about each point in the decision-making process and analyze outcomes that are effective and ineffective.

How

As you look to use storyboarding and TWINE to better understand the decision-making process, I would encourage you to give detailed instructions to make them comfortable with technology they are unlikely to be familiar with
  1. Outline the different processes and the potential checkpoints. My activity involved teaching the students about establishing trustworthiness, different types of trust violations, and different processes of effective and ineffective trust repair.
  2. Have students get familiar with TWINE
    1. Use the included links below to familiarize with TWINE and see some examples
    2. Highlight the unique way that TWINE saves their material and publishes their material. Otherwise, students are likely to lose their material and have to start over.
  3. Have them create their storyboard! Encourage them to be creative as they are thinking of the background details for their story to help foster investment in the material and activity.
  4. After each story is submitted (I have them work in small groups of 4-5 students to complete their story), they get to engage in a “peer review” process. Each student reviewed two other groups and gave them a paragraph of feedback on how they applied their story to the decision-making processes.

Recommended Resources

I use the TWINE software to conduct this activity. Here are some good links to get you started with this software:

Contact Information

Amy Bartels, amy.bartels@unl.edu, assistant professor of management

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Comments

Amy, this is a great idea and I love how you have explained what you are doing and the benefit for your students. It is a great interactive way for your students to work and share their thinking.

I've also heard this called a Branching Narrative or non-linear interactive story. I have my students in Forensic Entomology create Branching Narratives of a mock crime that must be solved using insect evidence. Next semester, I plan to have them create a BN for youngsters to "play" at the Boys and Girls Club. Here's an example one student created in Weebly. http://cchapma2.weebly.com/ I've also had students use Adventure Cow: http://adventurecow.com/stories/3453/forensic-entomology-branching-narrative Others have used Wix.com and Chooseyourstory.com