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Steve Ziegenbusch learned from Reed Popovich one of the most important instructor techniques that enabled him to move from being a good instructor to being a great instructor; that is, The story telling technique.

    To illustrate the story telling technique, Reed used an example of what might be said at an admiral’s briefing onboard an aircraft carrier. Something like:  
“Dragon Fire 703 will be taking off today at 1300 for SSC.”

     That ‘brief’ statement already says what it needs to say to the intended audience – a TFCC watch team. But what if you had to use that statement to teach a group of college kids. You could use the Reed Popovich ‘story telling technique.’ To use the technique, you would simply begin by stating the brief statement and then start expounding upon it. Something like this:
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Dragon Fire 703 will be taking off today at 1300 for SSC. Dragon Fire 703 is a callsign of an antisubmarine aircraft on an aircraft carrier. A callsign can be thought of as the aircraft’s ‘nickname.’ The aircraft is specifically designed to search and attack surface and subservice ships and submarines. Taking off at 1300 just means it will be launching at 1pm. SSC is the surface search coordinator, callsign Alpha Zulu. AZ’s primary job is to locate, track and report all contacts within the ship’s sensor range to the numbered fleet commander …
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In his 25 years of teaching, Steve says this is the most important technique he ever learned to help him confidently teach in a classroom. He also says that the ‘story telling technique’ can be used in almost every situation, and by learning to ‘tell a story’ this technique helped him better understand and present course material.