Integrative curricular model: Incorporating Narrative as a Means of

Learning in the Classroom

Ted Takamura, PhD, CPA, CFE, CGMAEastern Oregon University

Business FacultyGresham, Oregon

IACBE 2014 Annual Conference and Assembly Meeting

April 8-11, 2014 in San Diego, California, USA

Abstract

Narratives are many times the forgotten yet effective tools by which to facilitate and assess learning, Kegan and Lahey contend that how people talk can change the listener’s encounter through the introduction of alternative views, different possibilities, and questions challenging the meanings people have personalized in their own experiences.

Keywords: Kegan, Lahey, narratives, learning, teaching

Core CompetenciesPrinciples of Management

BA 321

Principles of Marketing

BA 312

Information Management

BA 325

Business EthicsBA 411

Intermediate Accounting

BA 383

Intermediate Accounting

BA 384Intermediate Accounting

BA 385

Organizational BehaviorBA 461

Policies & Strategies

BA 498

Advanced Accounting

BA 419

Individual TaxationBA 333

Cost Accounting

BA 421

AuditingBA 428

EOUAccounting

Major

Theoretical Basis

• The way students talk can change the way they work.

• Narrative incorporated into the process can be a bridge for helping students learn.

• A way to encounter alternative views, different possibilities, that challenge the meanings.(Kegan & Lahey, 2001)

Meaning making through reflection in formal education can be accomplished by listening to students’ accounts of their experience of the learning assignment or process that has just taken place recently. Listen to how their stories change.

Epistemology

DEVELOPING REFLECTIVE JUDGMENTPatricia M. King & Karen Strohm Kitchner, 1981 Jossey Bass Publishers

PRE- REFLECTIVE THINKING

STAGE 1 “What I have seen is true.”

STAGE 2 “I know that it is true because I have experienced it.”

STAGE 3 “All I have to do is to figure out the correct formula.”

REFLECTIVE THINKING

STAGE 4 “If I understand the problem, I can figure out a solution.”

STAGE 5 “I need evidence suggests the truth for me to offer an opinion.”

STAGE 6 “Examining my experiences helps me to validate them.”

STAGE 7 “Learning requires continuous examination of my ways of knowing to search for the truth.”

When storying becomes overt and is given expression in word, the resulting stories are one of the most effective ways to making one’s own interpretation of events and ideas available to others.

(Wells, 1986, p. 194)

Story Construction

Becoming the authors of their own lives involved reshaping what they believed (epistemology), their sense of self (intrapersonal), and their relationships with others (interpersonal).

(Baxter Magolda, 2001, p. 119)

Becoming the Authors

• Listening for stories.

• Hearing how the stories change.

• What to listen for?

• Hear how the student reassess and reconstructs particular events.

Practice in the Classroom

Stories

• This must be the answer!

• Why can’t you teach me?

• Where do I begin?

• Taking ownership.

Evolving Self

• Reflection.

• Moving on.

• Practicing.

• A new way.

Taking Ownership

• Examining the self.

• Learning to learn.

• Seeking the truth.

• Challenging the meanings.

Serendipity

• Student responsibility.

• Ask more questions.

• Challenge personal assumptions.

• Read materials more carefully.

• Do additional research.

Summary

• For meaningful learning to take place the student must reflect on their experience.• Experience is the foundation of, and stimulus

for learning.• Constructing stories has been called one of

the most fundamental means of meaning-making.• Becoming the authors of their own lives

involved reshaping what they believed.

References

• Magolda, M.B. (2004). Making their own way. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

• Bandura, A. (1995). Self-Efficacy in Changing Societies. Cambridge University Press.

• Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

• Kegan, R. (1982). The evolving self: Problem and process in human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

• Kegan, R. (1994). In over our heads: The mental demands of modern life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

References• Kegan, R. & Lahey, L. L. (2001). How the way we talk can

change the way we work. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.• Miller, P. C. (2005). Narratives From the Classroom: An

Introduction to Teaching. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

• Motschnig-Pitrik, R. & Santos, A. (2007). The person-centered approach to teaching and learning as exemplified in a course in organizational development. Retrieved July 25, 2008 from http://elearn.pri-univie.ac.at/derntl/papers/pcaforum07-rm.pdf.

• Tennant, M. & Pogson, P. (1995). Learning and change in the adult years. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publications.

Integrative curricular model: Incorporating Narrative as a Means of Learning in the

Classroom

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