Stories, Cases, Examples, and Episodes
We intend this as an broad exploration of the concept of the idea of a story. We understand that those advocating storytelling have a specific way of defining what a story is and offer a rationale for the value of writing and reading content fitting with this structure. We have attempted to present this perspective and we encourage you to explore other resources we have identified should you find this position appealing. What follows is not so much a counter argument as an effort to broaden this perspective and argue that descriptions of life events need not necessarily be offered according to specified structure. Our compulsive nature and the flexibility of offering content in a nonsequential format not requiring that everyone explore all material presented allows us to add this page.
When you write about ideas and the methods for evaluating what qualify as valid examples of such ideas from the perspectives of multiple formal disciplines and also from the ways in which we all use these ideas in an informal way, it may be inevitable that you end up struggling with differences in how key concepts are described and how practices related to these concepts are justified. This seems to be the case with the concept of a "story". I think I tell stories in my personal and professional life. I think I listen to a lot of stories. I cannot say that I have given a lot of thought to what qualifies as a story and what makes a good story. Some stories seem informative. Some stories are emotional. Some stories are dull and pointless. I have not had difficulty in making such distinctions, but I have done so from a personal perspective. I am not certain I could operationalize why different stories strikes me in different ways. Does it matter? We hope to at least identify some interesting issues and some interesting opinions related to stories and educational practice.
As a teacher, it is sometimes an advantage to begin with a term that is novel from the perspective of the learner. With an unfamiliar concept, there is the opportunity to explain how you would like the concept to be understood and used. We have entitled this section with a list of terms (stories, cases, examples, episodes) and are interested in your reaction. Are there some items from this list more familiar to you than others? We would guess you might make frequent use of the terms "story" and "example", but not necessarily "case" and "episode". As you consider these terms, are these terms basically different ways of describing the same thing or do the terms mean different things to you? Most important, from the perspective of an educator, do these terms imply useful differences in your own behavior (e.g., I told a story, I used an example) or what you expect students to produce (e.g., I asked students to write a story, I asked my students to think of examples). Would you tell a story in one situation and use an example in another?
Expertise - learning from cases and thinking with stories
Case-based reasoning provides a model of expertise and explains the processes of meaningful learning and the application of knowledge in a way that may surprise educators. Those who advocate this perspective value concrete experiences over abstractions. They suggest that expertise is a combination of many stored “interpreted” experiences (i.e, cases) and a personal system for organizing this experiences so that relevant cases can be recalled and compared with an immediate situation (Kolodner, Owensby, & Guzdial, 2004). This position might be contrasted with the view of "knowing" as semantic knowledge which we described in Chapter two (Meaningful Learning in an Information Age) and which might be simplified as the storage and application of definitions, rules, and principles. If this seems abstract, let us suggest that the key issue here is what it is we should be learning and experiencing as we learn.
Let us be clear, it is not enough to have had experiences. Daily life is nothing but experiences. We cannot avoid experience, but we can attempt to change the experiences we have and we can change how we think about our experiences. To contribute efficiently to the development of our capabilities, these experiences (cases) must be subjected to personal reflection and “indexed”. Our index represents our personal directory (perhaps catalog) of which case is an example of what and an experience can be indexed as an example of several things. For example, a particular classroom experience may be indexed as an example involving discipline. The same experience might be indexed as a classroom situation in which our intervention as the teacher did not have the outcome we desired. We would suggest that writing about a personal experience to make some point is likely a great way to encourage how we index our experiences. Telling a story about your favorite teacher may encourage reflection on your personal way of thinking about teaching quality.
Expertise - collecting and organizing stories
True expertise requires a considerable amount of time - you may have heard 10000 hours (5-10 years) suggested as a general rule of thumb for what is required (Gladwell, 2008). Scientific study of expertise does indicate that the very best have invested a very large amount of time and continue their improvement for an extended period of time as a consequence (Ericsson, 2001). A very large personal catalog of experiences begin to reveal patterns to those who think carefully about the similarities and differences in cases. The argument then is that experts function by way of pattern matching - they match a new experience to their existing library of cases. How close is the match? What are the differences? What course of action was successful in those previous situations? Will the differences prompt a different course of action than was used last time? So, the argument is made that expertise is not so much a matter of applying general rules and abstract principles, but more recalling similar examples and relying on approaches that worked before?
Case based instruction, as might be applied then in medical education, begins not with memorization and the study of prerequisite principles, but with exposure to cases and instruction intended to highlight critical case features for learners and provide them with content appropriate to understanding the critical features.
Cases and stories
Perhaps this is enough of an introduction to identify how a case as used in daily conversation (i.e, a medical case) and as a component of a model of learning (i.e., case based reasoning) contribute to the development of skill in the reflective learner. So far, however, no real mention of stories.
Roger Shank (1995), a pioneer in artificial intelligence and the value of learning from games and simulations, offered a very similar explanation of how we actually learn using "story" as a key concept. His way of describing the value of experiences is memorable. He suggested that we may assume we learn from our experiences, but perhaps a better way to explain this is “what we learn are experiences". He used both "case" and "story" in his way of explaining how we learn most effectively. Educators should offer cases and the adaptation of cases through stories (p.54). "Story telling and understanding are essentially the same thing" (p. 24). Some stories we learn (official stories), some stories we pick up and use second hand, and some stories we invent (adapt) to make a point.
Communication is very often an exchange of stories. More capable individuals more accurately process the stories told by others, match on core rather than superficial features, and respond with a story that advances the conversation in an interesting and productive way.