FLAGSHIP PROJECT | Articulate Rise eLearning Course
Dr. Carr’s Story Slam Challenge
What | asynchronous eLearning course with optional biweekly synchronous meetings
Audience | anyone who wants to increase professional and/or personal satisfaction via the power of storytelling
I originally created this course for stressed healthcare professionals to grow community, connection, and camaraderie, but it has value in any educational setting or workplace. Dr. Carr’s Story Slam Challenge is an all purpose workshop for anyone who needs to tell a compelling story to manifest their dream COLLEGE, MEDICAL SCHOOL, GRADUATE PROGRAM, JOB, LIFE, etc.
Tools Used | Amazon AWS, Articulate Rise, Canva, iMovie, QuickTime Player, Slack, YouTube
Why This Is My Flagship Project |
1. I leverage my expertise as a teacher of writing in an unfamiliar—unlikely even!—environment.
2. I work with SME‘s (in medical education) and as a SME (in storytelling).
3. I translate synchronous, in-person instruction into an asynchronous eLearning course to better suit learner personas.
4. I spotlight the 8 elements of Modern Learning: accessible, autonomous, chunked, experiential, hyperlinked, multimedia, personalized, social.
5. I take a Lot Like Agile Management Approach (LLAMA) to designing for Modern Learning.
Dr. Carr's Story Slam Challenge
Dr. Carr's Story Slam Challenge
Instructional Design Highlights
This project exemplifies my expertise in translating in-person, synchronous, instructor-led training into an asynchronous, student-directed eLearning course that’s engaging for a variety of learner personas: from medical students to stressed bankers to ambitious executives to high school students to underserved teens.
It showcases my ability to find the right balance of autonomy and support, and independence and community, to support adults in making the transition from dependent to self-directing learners.
Process & Objectives
Process | When I design learning assets, I rely on the lot like agile methods approach (LLAMA), which marries the best practices of both agile project management and instructional design to craft effective learning content in an iterative, orderly yet flexible way. My personal approach to LLAMA is needs- and asset-based, interactive and alive—fostering team engagement and community buy-in along the way. I believe that the best projects are ones where we sit down and establish a human connection, build rapport, and develop a shared understanding. When I think about designing a learning experience, I also always try to think beyond the initial learning event towards practice, feedback, support, and developing further to get learners to the next level.
Organizational Objective | I was working outside my expertise at a medical school, with stressed and ambitious managers and SME’s and needed to employ a streamlined, efficient process that would enhance stakeholder and team member buy-in to support the senior leadership team as they catalyzed a culture shift, incorporating creativity, awe, and perspective into the organizational values. My Story Slam project was an important component of a school-wide initiative to prevent burnout and improve employee satisfaction and retention.
Story Slam Challenge
Story Slam Challenge
Step #1: Analyze/Assess
PHYSICIAN BURNOUT | A COMPLEX PROBLEM
STORYTELLING WITH THE DATA
The researchers on my team had done extensive research into character traits associated with work-place wellbeing and engagement in medicine—basically what makes a “good” physician—according to physicians, patients, and medical literature, curriculum and assessments.
And this is what they came up with…
If you are feeling a tad overwhelmed by this data, know that you are not alone!
My team wrestled with this complex data set for more than a year and determined that some key takeaways from this figure are...
1. All perspectives emphasize JUDGMENT as a core character strength.
2. Community members emphasize some character strengths that receive little emphasis in the profession’s perspective, like humility and fairness.
3. Shown in red, there are several character strengths empirically associated with well-being in private life are not at all emphasized in the profession’s perspective, or community members’ perspective: creativity, awe and perspective.
Step #2: Design/Develop
STORY SLAMS | A CREATIVE SOLUTION
Step #3: Design/Develop
MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT (MVP)
Step #4: Analyze/Assess
MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT via KIRKPATRICK LEVEL 1 & 2 EVALUATION
Step #5: Design/Develop
STORY SLAM eLEARNING COURSE
Step #6: Analyze/Assess
STUDENT TESTIMONIALS
Step #7: Design/Develop
ITERATE STORY SLAM CHALLENGE FOR MULTIPLE LEARNING PERSONAS
Outdoor Academy | Sarasota
Process | I was invited to lead a one-day, 70-minute Story Slam Workshop for high school juniors preparing to write college application essays. I adapted the Story Slam Challenge to:
help students identify 10 experiences that helps admissions committee staff to understand who they are as individuals, the experiences that have shaped them, the unique qualities they bring, and how they connect themselves to the larger world,
teach students a 4-step process of discovery to choose the most compelling, story-worthy experiences and then transform those experiences into stories that create a genuine emotional connection with the reader
give students an opportunity to practice transforming one of those experiences into a compelling story.
Students leave with a four-step storytelling toolkit: mining our memories for stories, setting the stakes, setting the scene, and beginning with compelling detail that packs an emotional punch!
Instructional Design Highlights | I chose to foreground Amanda Gorman’s “Roar,” a story in which Amanda talks about not getting the part of Nala in Broadway’s The Lion King. This example helps students to move past externalized notions of “success” to reflect on how our “failures” shape us, on transforming mistakes into next steps, and on letting go of societal expectations and false beliefs as the truest indication of individual potential. “Roar” invites students to radically revise their notions of what makes person valuable, and teaches them how to distinguish themselves a in a competitive application pool—a “all-purpose” skill that will serve them long after their college application as they apply for their dream graduate school, their dream jobs, and their dream promotions.
Story Slam Workshop
Story Slam Workshop
Selby Public Library | Sarasota
Process | I was invited to lead a five-day bootcamp for students aged 13-18 participating in GIRLS, Inc. summer programming at the Selby Library. I adapted the Story Slam Challenge to help underserved girls develop self-esteem, grow community, build trust, and persuasively connect with others by reflecting on and tapping into the power of their experiences.
The Science | In an Education Week survey, 80% of teachers said they thought a sense of belonging in the classroom is important for student success, while 41% said it is challenging or very challenging to make their students feel like they belong, particularly when it comes to concerns students express around sexual orientation, gender, race, socioeconomic, ethnic, and disability identities.
“Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of people. But stories can also repair the broken dignity.”
~ Chimamanda Adichie
Instructional Design Highlights | In Dr. Carr’s Story Slam Bootcamp, students will learn the skills to:
Build trust with listeners
Tap into emotion and connect with audiences
Steal the show during interviews + college aplication essays
Surprise and delight others
Be remembered
Inspire action
By the end of the week, you will have polished one 5-minute story and all the tools to craft countless more.
