Storytelling is key to engagement in so many ways when it comes to teaching classes. I try to use storytelling as an aspect of my teaching often. I think there are few things that help bring a class together than being able to know the history and the background of the teacher and maybe more importantly, vice versa.
One thing I try to encourage all of my instructors to do is to reach out and promote that the class they are teaching tell their own stories. When I taught field technicians how to work large pieces of equipment I showed up with a wealth of book knowledge and 8 hours to fill. The classes I taught were to field personnel with hours and hours and weeks and years of time in the field on the very equipment that I was trying to train on. I learned quickly that not only should I step back and allow the class to teach themselves, but also to encourage the use of their telling their own stories.
Quickly we found that the younger technicians really honored and enjoyed hearing the stories from their more senior supervisors. By that same token, the senior supervisors, when hearing the stories and anecdotes from their teams, we're able to add to them, address their issues, and help them. Encouraging the use of having the class tell us their stories really helped make the class more powerful and worthwhile for the class as a whole.
