Lori Greene ID Page

This is a template for the ID portfolio page, where you will document your instructional design work in progress during this semester. DO NOT EDIT THIS PAGE. See the video guide on how this project works and how to set up your ID portfolio page: Zoom Video If you need to see examples, see Gërt Arnold Portfolio Page; Sarah Stolberg's Portfolio Page.

Navigation links: ETAP 623 Fall 2024 | Link to my mini-course front page

About Me

My name is Lori Greene and I've been teaching marketing subjects in the School of Professional Studies at New York University (NYU) for 16 years; at Fordham University's Gabelli Business School for a few years where I teach an influencer communications masters class and business communications undergraduate; and I taught mobile and content marketing at Temple University's Fox Business School. In addition, I am the President of the Industry Advisory Board for Temple University's Digital Marketing masters program.

I spent over four years as Global Education Manager at Netflix where I devised the streamer's international training strategy that enabled the company to scale education for external production crews to 20 countries on 6 continents. At the moment, I run both an education and marketing consultancy.

On the professional development front, I've run training sessions for financial services, media, and advertising organizations.

My Topic and Purpose

As a former television producer, digital content creator, journalist, and content marketer turned educator for universities and industries, I have found that there’s a great deal of instruction that falls flat and is not at all engaging. When I worked in education at Netflix, we sought to make training as entertaining as possible while keeping within the constructs of learning.  

So, how do you strengthen the learning experience into a journey that’s enriching and enjoyable?  In a word edutainment - the process of entertaining people at the same time that you’re teaching them through the way information is  delivered.   When learners do something pleasurable, their brains release dopamine, a reward center that helps with motivation, memory, and attention. 

In this mini-course, I'll outline how educators can help concepts stick for learners through edutainment using multimedia, storytelling, and immersive tools that can help capture attention and perhaps provoke emotions that can aid in facilitating knowledge acquisition

Scope of Learning Outcomes and Content

This course will enable educators and trainers to make their lessons more engaging and entertaining. By the end of this course, educators will be able to:

• Appreciate the need to keep learners engaged in order to increase their motivation and attention
• Understand how emotions enhance memory
• Design entertaining lesson plans that lead to learning using storytelling principles
• Evaluate lesson plans for their edutainment value
• Apply multimedia techniques to engage learners in the subject matter being taught

Needs Assessment

The educational problem or opportunity

Social media, YouTube, and gaming are some of the distractions drawing attention away from traditional school specifically and education in general. To compound that problem, the way learners get information has changed with the advent of TikTok and digital videos illustrating new ways of engaging the minds of learners. In a learner-centric world where college enrollment is down more than 12% and Americans are increasingly questioning the need for a formal university degree, educators that meet the expectations of learners will succeed in both gaining attention and aiding mastery.

That’s where edutainment, the process of entertaining people at the same time that you’re teaching them through the way information is delivered, comes in. By working to strengthen the learning experience into a journey that’s enriching and enjoyable, educators can enable the focus that is needed for learners to excel.  When learners do something pleasurable, their brains release dopamine, a reward center that helps with motivation, memory, and attention.  So, the opportunity here is to bridge education with entertainment using an edutainment paradigm.

The learners/participants involved

While any educator or instructor can take this course, it will be mostly geared towards high school teachers, higher education professors and adjuncts, as well as professional development instructors.  Educators who have a minimum of three years experience and teach subjects where edutainment is appropriate on the high school, higher education, or professional development level will get the most out of this course.

Analysis of gaps

Current Reality - A Wiley State of the Student report (“Student Engagement a Growing Problem for Colleges Post-COVID”) found data that points to engagement issues within the classroom …. Despite the return to in-person instruction, more than half (55%) of undergraduates admit they’re likely to struggle with staying engaged and interested in their classes, and two-thirds (66%) of instructors identify keeping students engaged as a challenge. While there may be many reasons for student disengagement, one of them is lessons that are uninteresting and irrelevant for learners’ futures.

Additionally, the EdSurge article, As Student Engagement Falls, Colleges Wonder:’Are We Part of the Problem (Koenig, 2022) notes that professors see widespread student disengagement such as learners not coming to class and not handing assignments in on time or at all.

Ideal State - Learners look forward to education because their lessons are entertaining, appealing, and relevant as multimedia examples and storytelling properties similar to the type of content that they seek out on their own are used in the classroom.

Existing efforts to address the gap

While there are plenty of books on storytelling, such as Storynomics: Story-Driven Marketing in the Post-Advertising World (McKee & Gerace, 2018); on presentation, such as HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations ; (Duarte, 2012) on engagement in online learning such as Transforming Online Teaching in Higher Education by (S. Goss, R. Hummel, & L. Zadoff, 2023) none of them cohesively cover how to use edutainment to gain attention and motivate mastery.  While the Lifelong Kindergarten Project at MIT is an extremely worthwhile endeavor to inspire creativity and innovation, it doesn’t solve the issue of engagement for older learners and adults.

Intent statement

This mini course will show high school teachers, professors, adjuncts, and professional development trainers how to make the material they’re sharing with learners more engaging and entertaining by using storytelling principles, eliciting emotion when relevant, and utilizing the foundations of multimedia creation. These techniques will help motivate and engage learners while provoking positive learner experiences that enhance memory and as a consequence mastery as well.

Analysis of the Learner and Context

Who are the learners?

While any educator or instructor can take this course, it will be mostly geared towards high school teachers, higher education professors and adjuncts, as well as professional development instructors.  The learners should be teaching subjects that can be covered in an entertaining manner.

Prior personal/cultural experiences, knowledge and skills or interest they have?

Those who take this course should be motivated to garner the attention of learners and keep that attention. They should have a minimum of three years of experience teaching in disciplines where edutainment is appropriate on the high school, higher education, or professional development level.

In what settings will they use this mini-course to learn?

Participants will engage in learning through the KNILT platform, will be able to access the course at any time, and will have the ability to review the modules again after they complete the mini-course. Educators and instructors should be able to use the lessons that they learned in this course with learners in a classroom that’s equipped with multimedia technology or virtual settings.

How much time will they spend?

It’s anticipated that this mini-course will take the participants 2-3 hours to complete.

What resources will they need?

Participants in this course will need a computer,  a strong internet connection, fluency in English, and curiosity.

Performance-Based Objectives

• Understand what edutainment is and why it's beneficial
• Examine the need to keep learners engaged in order to increase their motivation and attention
• Explain how emotions enhance memory
• Design entertaining lesson plans that lead to learning using storytelling principles
• Evaluate lesson plans for their edutainment value
• Apply multimedia techniques to engage learners in the subject matter being taught

Task and Content Analysis

Before taking this course, the learner:

1. Should have basic knowledge of teaching and/or training skills (prerequisite)
2. Should have a background in teaching and training high school students and adult learners (prerequisite)
3. Should  teach or train on subjects where entertaining content is appropriate
4. Should be actively seeking to engage and motivate learners
5. Should have a basic working knowledge of multimedia

Unit 1 - Edutainment and its Importance in Motivating Learners

After this unit, the learner:

1. will explain why edutainment is important in today’s classrooms and training facilities
2. will be able to define the concept of edutainment and its components
3. will be able to identify opportunities and processes to incorporate eductainment into teaching/training

Unit 2 - Storytelling in the Classroom & Training Facility

After this unit the learner:

1. will understand the benefit of storytelling to enable comprehension
2. will  be able to evaluate which storytelling techniques would work best with their learners
3. will be able to create stories that aid learner mastery

Unit 3 - The Power of Multimedia

After this unit the learner:

1. will understand effective strategies for utilizing multimedia for topics of import
2. will be able to design an engaging curriculum that is best suited for your students utilizing multimedia tools
3. Will find and view videos that educators can use in their practices

Unit 4 - Inserting Edutainment into Your Curriculum

After this unit the learner:

1. will be able to review existing lessons that may be suitable for using edutainment
2. will be able to draft a plan on how to integrate edutainment strategies and techniques into their learning facilities
3. Will critique multimedia examples to ascertain their value for learning
4. Will be able to reflect on and improve a plan for inserting edutainment into lesson plans

Curriculum Map

References and Resources

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