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There is a growing concern about students' engagement in mathematics, science, and technology education. Numerous institutions are investing funds in technology in hopes that it will address declining engagement and improve course learning outcomes. Similarly, instructors are challenged with engaging students in synchronous and asynchronous eLearning. Synchronous teaching increased significantly with Covid-19 emergency response teaching. Instructors with no prior online teaching experience were disadvantaged; they were found teaching to black boxes that lacked student engagement. Student engagement is an ongoing challenge for most instructors, and the presentation of the learning content integrated with technology is significant for learning to be achieved. Moreover, digital technologies allow more complex, layered representations of teaching and learning materials (Borko, Whitcomb, & Liston, 2009), and the demand for integrating technology effectively into teaching is constantly increasing (Abbitt & Klett, 2007; Borko, et al. 2009).
Studies show that storytelling can be used as an innovative approach to course design (Hirumi, et al., 2012), and best practices in hybrid and online course design consider both the cognitive and imaginative dimensions of the learning process (Baldwin & Ching, 2017; Martin, et al, 2019). Moreover, research suggests that presenting factual information is not enough to achieve student engagement, and therefore, alternative methods of instruction are important. Narrative education in higher education has been discussed by research scholars (Alterio, 2004; Taylor, 2006; Kalogeras, 2014; Ketelle 2017) and has proven to be an effective teaching method; however, the scholarship on narrative design for Learning Management System (LMS) has not been studied from the perspective of narrative course design and narrative content.
Critical studies aim not only to offer a critique of mainstream educational discourses but also to transform them. It is essential to consider Freire’s (1996) pedagogy because he offers insight into the collaborative and reflective practices that are central to learning environments of today. Reflection is a key concept in the theories of learning that can inform education (Kolb, 1984; Schon, 1983). Critical reflection encourages thinking about these experiences within individual, interpersonal, and wider social contexts. To this end, the construction of meaning can be achieved by sustained reflection and discourse (Dewey 1933; Garrison, et al., 2000). Moreover, critical reflection can be achieved by incorporating a storytelling approach because the thread that underlies critical pedagogy and transformative learning also underlies storytelling. There is a consensus that stories are useful within higher education particularly in the areas of reflective practice and engagement (McDrury & Alterio, 2002; Harrison, 2009; Moon, 2010; Kalogeras, 2014), and because storytelling involves imagination, data visualization, and self-reflection, the mathematics course and project under investigation in this study was structured to follow narrative design.
The study investigates whether storytelling and narrative instruction can engage critical reflection, recall, and retention. The researchers propose that narratives structured as stories facilitate engagement and emotional responses. The work considers the Community of Inquiry Model (Garrison et al., 2000) and Transmedia Storytelling (Kalogeras, 2014) that can be used for either hybrid, online, and seated learning. Moreover, an authentic narrative-based course in mathematics is presented with an interactive and self-reflective assignment. Students who took the course have provided their pre and post feedback of the assignment.