Sustainable Education for Sustainable Future: Art of Storytelling for Enhancing Creativity, Knowledge Retention on the Acme of Successful Education

• Published in: IEEE access 2024, Vol.12, p.101782-101796
• Main Authors: Afkar, Mohammad, Gholami, Aslan, Gavagsaz-Ghoachani, Roghayeh, Phattanasak, Matheepot, Pierfederici, Serge
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Creativity; Education; Effectiveness; Electrical engineering; engineering; Engineering education; Engineering Sciences; Engineering students; Learning; Mountaineering; Publishing; renewable energy; Renewable energy sources; story-telling; Students; Sustainable development; Taxonomy; teaching; Visualization
• ISSN: 2169-3536; 2169-3536
• DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3432030

Considering the importance of education especially for the newer field of education, the current study proposes a novel teaching method based on storytelling that aims to enhance the creativity of students and improve the effectiveness of learning. The method was applied and analyzed through a one-year teaching course case study to introduce topics regarding renewable energy. Despite traditional education, in which learning occurs through the direct transfer of information, here a plot with the theme of mountaineering and nature using real photos and narration of a fictional story was set for the implementation of the proposed method. Therefore, the unintentional consequences of conventional teaching including quick content forgetting, failure to define the main purpose, improper reaction, and low attractiveness and even effectiveness were prevented. Considering the affective and cognitive domains of Bloom's Taxonomy as well as analyzing the performances of students during the teaching course and their final feedback, the results showed promising improvements including more participation (100%), better retention of content (receiving (75%) and remembering (83.33%)). While the learners preferred the proposed method and found it more effective (75%) and attractive (79.17%) than conventional teaching. Moreover, it was shown that the proposed method can improve education criteria in other affective and cognitive domains and is recommended to be considered for implementation in other complex engineering topics.