Enriching teaching through storytelling and virtual reality

A dissemination meeting was recently held at the Catholic Institute, Floriana, on ‘Story Changers – Enhancing Pupils’ Skills and Enriching Teaching Methods Through Storytelling and Virtual Reality’ – an Erasmusplus funded project running from 2020-2023.

Ruth Mansueto, project coordinator of Mater Boni Consillii St Joseph School, Paola, explained that the school was motivated to join the project to continue sharing good practices and pedagogies between different countries, as well as to help develop the teaching methods to help students develop skills that are needed. for the 21st century and their well-being, according to the Six Cs of Education for Student and Society, by Michael Fullan (2014).

The schools participating in the project from Malta, Greece, Cyprus, France and Spain formed a consortium to develop an innovative digital teaching package for teachers in the use of VR and storytelling to promote diversity, respect and tolerance at school , and improve key social skills, such as e.g. as empathy, emotion management and problem solving.

After conducting desk research on the value of storytelling and in the use of VR, the consortium produced a ‘curriculum and methodological guide’ for teachers on how to combine storytelling and virtual reality in teaching methods to improve pupils’ skills. After the project ends, this guide can be used by interested parties as a tool to familiarize professionals with basic creative story writing, concept making and creative writing techniques.

The partners then compiled the stories under the theme ‘You tell stories’, which includes several ‘decision points’ – moments when the pupils themselves decide what the heroes of the stories should do.

The stories include ‘decision points’ – moments when the pupils themselves decide what the heroes should do

At this stage of the project, five of the 10 stories created, also based on the storytelling methodologies of Gianni Rodari and Eugene Trivizaz, also developed in e-books, are converted into virtual reality scenarios. In addition, a guide on how these ‘You Tell’ virtual reality scenarios can be used is also being developed.

One of the project’s next steps is to train master teachers to use the teaching package, and they will in turn train other teachers on how to use the teaching package. Teachers will then test the ‘You tell’ stories and VR scenarios with their pupils.

As part of the project, Mater Boni Consillii St Joseph School created the story Rospo with the collaboration of Rita Azzopardi. The story is available as an e-book in both English and Maltese.

The project was made possible with funding from the Erasmusplus programme. The European Union Programs Agency (EUPA) in Malta supported the school to implement the project.

For further details about the project and stories visit the project website or Facebook page about the project.