Hi David: First, I'll compliment you on the use of stories to help keep attention and focus. Students like stories, and when you can use the to reinforce your teaching point, they're more likely to remember the story - and your point. A couple of alternative strategies: * Student-led discussions. Here, the student (or student groups) actually prepare the lesson and present it to the class. You can step in to correct, or wait until they're finisished and add any clarifying points, or add additional emphasis that was missed. * On a lighter tone, a Jeopardy-style competition between two havles of the class. Present a scenario, and have each group discuss the merits, then present what they believe is the best course of action and why. After both groups share, then you can provide your comments about the better way of looking at the case, and point out the good and not so good comments students made. * If there is a particularly difficult concept you are going to lecture about, you could use the power of repetition in this way. Say you have have four groups. As you lecture each one is going to take notes to the best of their collective understanding. Then each group will present their summary to the class using different media: Group 1: PPT; group 2: overhead; group 3: flipchart; group 4: Questions with true and alternative answers. The same information is bound to be repeated but it will be memorable and retained, which was your purpose. Hope these give you some ideas for your own creativity. Regards, Barry