Experiential education
Encyclopedia
Experiential education is a philosophy of education that describes the process that occurs between a teacher and student that infuses direct experience with the learning environment and content. The term is mistakenly used interchangeably with experiential learning
. The Association for Experiential Education
regards experiential education "as a philosophy and methodology in which educators purposefully engage with learners in direct experience and focused reflection in order to increase knowledge, develop skills and clarify values." Experiential education is the term for the philosophy and educational progressivism
is the movement which it informed.
was the most famous proponent of experiential education, writing Experience and Education (1938). It expressed his ideas about curriculum theory in the context of historical debates about school organization and the need to have experience as central in the educational process, hence why experiential education is referred to as a philosophy. Dewey's fame during that period rested on relentlessly critiquing public education and pointing out that the authoritarian, strict, pre-ordained knowledge approach of modern traditional education was too concerned with delivering knowledge, and not enough with understanding students' experiences.
Dewey's work influenced dozens of other prominent experiential models and advocates in the later 20th century, including Foxfire, service learning, Kurt Hahn
and Outward Bound
, and Paulo Freire
. Freire is often cited in works on experiential education. He focused on the participation by students in experience and radical democracy
, and the creation of praxis among learners.
John Dewey was an educator, but he was foremost a philosopher. His interests included political philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, logic, and philosophy of education. Political philosophy was one of his many philosophical interests. He saw weaknesses in both the traditional and progressive styles of education. He explains in length his criticisms of both forms of education in his book, Experience & Education (1938). In essence, he did not believe that they met the goals of education, which he defined as obtaining freedom of thought. Dewey did not believe in freedom of thought in any kind of absolute sense.
Dewey advocated that education be based upon the quality of experience. For an experience to be educational, Dewey believed that certain parameters had to be met, the most important of which is that the experience has continuity and interaction. Continuity is the idea that the experience comes from and leads to other experiences, in essence propelling the person to learn more. Interaction is when the experience meets the internal needs or goals of a person. Dewey also categorizes experiences as possibly being mis-educative and non-educative. A mis-educative experience is one that stops or distorts growth for future experiences. A non-educative experience is one in which a person has not done any reflection and so has obtained nothing for mental growth that is lasting (Experience & Education, Dewey).
s (formal education) and out-of-school (informal education
) programs. Many teaching methods rely on experiential education to provide context and frameworks for learning through action and reflection.
Experiential education serves as an umbrella for linking many diverse practices into a coherent whole. Its philosophy is closely linked to numerous other educational theories, but it should not be conflated with progressive education, critical pedagogy
, youth empowerment
, feminist-based education, and constructivism
. The development of experiential education as a philosophy has been intertwined with the development of these other educational theories; their contrasts have clarified differences.
Fellowships and other training programs are available for experiential educators; but, formal training in experiential methods is lacking for K-12 undergraduate teaching programs (see Wendel, A. and Mantil, A., (2008) and the National Society for Experiential Education).
Writing journals
proves to be quite effective as part of English classes. Specifically, by writing "personal" and "text-related" journals, students find meaning in their own thoughts as well as in concepts learned in class. Personal journaling
is the recording of past and present personal thoughts and events in the student's life to enhance self-awareness
, student interest, and learning. Text-related journaling is writing about concepts learned in class in relation to students' personal experiences, to promote understanding.
earned national attention for using their research and writing to publish the Foxfire journal. (Wigginton, 1985). Students researched the culture of the Appalachian Mountains
through taped interviews with local people. They wrote and edited articles based upon their interviews. Foxfire has inspired hundreds of similar cultural journalism projects around the country.
Christchurch School, in the tidewater
area of Virginia, has an experiential program called Great Journeys Begin at the River. The hands-on, skill-based, inside/outside curriculum is based on using the school's location on the Rappahannock River
, in the Chesapeake Bay
watershed
. Students recycle aluminum to raise money for the school's oyster farm, which they tend in an effort to help save the Bay.
The Nicodemus Wilderness Project
provides an environmental experiential education program with a global reach called the "Apprentice Ecologist Initiative". This scholarship-based opportunity is targeted for youth volunteers who want to help protect the environment. The initiative seeks to develop young people for leadership roles by engaging them in environmental cleanup and conservation projects, empower volunteers to rebuild the environmental and social well-being of our communities, and improve local living conditions for both citizens and wildlife.
Project OASES (Occupational and Academic Skills for the Employment of Students) emphasizes experiential education in the Pittsburgh
public schools. Eighth graders, identified as potential dropout
s, spend three periods a day involved in renovating a homeless shelter
as part of a service project carried out within their industrial arts class. Students in such programs learn enduring skills, such as planning, communicating with a variety of age groups and types of people, and group decisionmaking. In their activities and in reflection, they come to new insights and integrate diverse knowledge from fields such as English
, political science
, mathematics
, and sociology
.
Presidential Classroom
, a non-profit civic education organization in Washington D.C., is open to high school students from across the country and abroad. They meet and interact with government officials, media correspondents, congressman, and key players on the world stage to learn how public policy shapes many aspects of citizens’ lives. Students travel to Washington and spend a week hearing from prominent speakers, meet with interest group spokesmen and tour the national capital. Students participate in a group project directed by experienced instructors; they have mediated debates on current issues facing the country. The focus of the week is to give students a hands-on introduction to how "real world" politics take place.
The Advantage Foundation, a not-for-profit education organization in Western Australia
, helps bridge the gap between university and employment via the Australian Business Icon program. The program engages young and emerging entrepreneurs in direct experience and focused reflection to increase knowledge, develop skills and clarify values. It requires students with innovative, strategic thinking, and analytical skills, to take on four (4) pre-organized innovative and entrepreneurial business-related tasks. The goal is to develop the communication, ethics, innovation and enterprise of students.
Global College
, a four-year international study program offered by Long Island University
, is based on self-guided, experiential learning while a student is immersed in foreign cultures. Regional centers employ mostly advisors rather than teaching faculty; these advisors guide the individual students in preparing a "portfolio of learning" each semester to display the results of their experiences and projects.
The New England Literature Program
in the English Department at the University of Michigan
is a 45-day program, in which University instructors live and work together with 40 UM students in the woods of Maine in early spring. They intensively study 19th and 20th-century New England literature, in a program that includes creative writing in the form of academic journaling, as well as a deep physical engagement with the landscape of New England. NELP students and staff take hiking trips into the White Mountains
and other parts of the New England natural areas each week, integrating their experience of the landscape with writing and discussion of texts.
The Chicago Center for Urban Life and Culture
is the only nonprofit and independent experiential educational program for college students in the United States. The Chicago Center is distinguished by unique seminars characterized by a 'First Voice' pedagogy, its location in the multi-ethnic Hyde Park
neighborhood of Chicago
, and development of several hundred intern
ship sites in Chicago
. While many of the students who attend Chicago Center grew up in cities, the majority are from suburban, rural and farming communities. Students participate individually in its Semester, May Term and Summer Session. The Chicago Center also designs and staffs programs for groups, what it calls "LearnChicago!", which promise non-tourist experiences in the city.
Several Australian high schools have established experiental education programmes, including Caulfield Grammar School
's five-week internationalism programme in Nanjing
, China
and Geelong Grammar School
's Timbertop outdoor education programme.
Other projects and "capstone" programs have included student teams writing their own international development plans and presenting them to presidents and foreign media and publishing their studies as textbooks in development studies, to running their own businesses, NGOs, or community development
banks.
At the professional school level, experiential education is often integrated into curricula in "clinical" courses following the medical school model of "See one, Do one, Teach one", in which students learn by practicing medicine. This approach is being introduced in other professions in which skills are directly worked into courses to teach every concept (starting with interviewing, listening skills, negotiation, contract writing and advocacy, for example) to larger-scale projects in which students run legal aid clinics
or community loan programs, or write legislation or community development plans.
The Boys and Girls Club of America provides a framework for youth development professionals to employ experiential learning methods.
Youth development programs have used experiential education methods to reach at-risk youth. An example is "Circus Harmony", based in St. Louis, Missouri
. Their mission is to "teach the art of life through circus education". By learning circus arts skills, students come together from diverse backgrounds and experiences and learn from each other as well.
, or more traditional school subjects, its key idea involves engaging student voice
in active roles for the purpose of learning. Students participate in a real activity with real consequences for the purpose of meeting learning objectives.
Some experts in the field make the distinction between "democratic experiential education" in which students help design curricula and run their own projects and even do their own grading (through objective contracted standards) and other forms of "experiential education"
that put students in existing organizations in inferior roles (such as service learning and internships) or in which faculty design the field work.
Experiential education uses various tools like games, simulations, role plays, stories in classrooms. The experiential education mindset changes the way the teachers and students view knowledge. Knowledge is no longer just some letters on a page. It becomes active, something that is transacted with in life or life-like situations. It starts to make teachers experience providers, and not just transmitters of the written word.
Besides changing student roles, experiential education requires a change in the role of teachers. When students are active learners, their endeavors often take them outside the classroom walls. Because action precedes attempts to synthesize knowledge, teachers generally cannot plan a curriculum unit as a neat, predictable package. Teachers become active learners, too, experimenting together with their students, reflecting upon the learning activities they have designed, and responding to their students' reactions to the activities. In this way, teachers themselves become more active; they come to view themselves as more than just recipients of school district policy and curriculum decisions.
It is also important to point out that not all learners learn the same. As a result, there are diverse learners that have unique learning styles pertinent to their success as students. Studies have shown that cooperative learning is strongly suggested in a diverse learning atmosphere. “Contemporary views of learning and their pedagogical applications have begun to change traditional classroom interaction patterns, shaping the communicative roles of the teacher and students as participants in a classroom learning community,” writes David Wray & Kristiina Kumpulainen. This paradigm shift in education gives both the student and teacher shared responsibility of the learning process. The teacher’s participation in discussion sessions is to act as a facilitator, maintain classroom decorum, provide individual and group feedback, and alleviate concerns or issues in the lesson.
Critical thinking strategies are pertinent to the success of student oriented learning. When students are engaged in active discussions, high level thinking skills are put into practice to the point where students are synthesizing the information at a deeper level of understanding. According to Elliot Eisner, “We need to provide opportunities for youngsters and adolescents to engage in challenging kinds of conversation, and we need to help them know how to do so. Such conversation is all too rare in schools. I use 'conversation' seriously, for challenging conversation is an intellectual affair. It has to do with thinking about what people have said and responding reflectively, analytically, and imaginatively to that process. The practice of conversation is almost a lost art. The most significant intellectual achievement is not so much in problem solving, but in question posing.” Through experimental education, students are capable of finding their voice through peer-to-peer interaction. Students are now seen as active participants in the learning process. Vygotsky`s social development theory requires students to play untraditional roles as they collaborate with one another through critical thinking and conversational skills. According to Ann Ketch, author of Conversation: The comprehension connection writes, “The oral process helps students clarify and solidify their thoughts. The thinking changes from what it was before the conversation took place. Through conversation, the student is in charge of his or her own mental processing. The teacher acts as a facilitator, pushing the student to rely upon and monitor his or her own comprehension, which fosters critical thinking.” This is very vital because student conversation can elicit new ideas that may not have been mentioned or even thought of by another student. Therefore, student dialogue is very important because it helps individuals make sense of what is being learned. It also helps build respect for other’s opinions while taking ownership of his or her learning process.
In experimental education, students are given the opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills by making connections to the real world. Therefore, effective learning entails active experimentation with a hands-on approach to learning. It is perceived that students learn more by being active. Students are interdependent in establishing group goals and decision-making skills. As a result, students are also capable of developing leadership skills, which can also enhance student motivation and confidence.
When students are given a choice in terms of content to be learned, it ensures the teacher that his or her learners are interactive in the learning process. According to Ernie Stringer, “Action learners move through continuous cycles of this inquiry process to improve their understanding, extend their knowledge, or refine their skills.” When given a preference, students may feel motivated to take control of his or her learning experience. Student incentives are tied to progress in academic achievement. “Research indicates that intrinsic motivation stems from one’s interests and capacities to surmount challenge s when presented or pursued,” says Fenice B. Boyd. Many schools are encouraging teachers to tap into student interests with the hope that they transfer that motivation into the classroom.
Through the continuous cycle of learning, teacher’s often work with students to develop a framework of knowledge, which is to be evaluated based on student input to the lessons content. Therefore, the teacher should establish criteria of what is to be learned as related to the student(s) choice in learning material. Ernie Stringer draws on the importance that “action research provides a process for developing a rich, engaging curriculum relevant to the lives and purposes of students, engaging their interests and abilities, and serving the broad human needs of community, society, and the planet. Creative construction of curricula or syllabi provides the means whereby the needs, perspectives, and/or interests of diverse stakeholders can be incorporated into vital, creative, effective programs of learning.” In essence, a well-planned curriculum is designed for learning that encompasses a broad range of goals and individual needs that ensures the active learning process.
As students and teachers take on new roles, the traditional organizational structures of the school also may meet challenges. For example, at the Challenger Middle School in Colorado Springs, Colorado
, service activities are an integral part of the academic program. Such nontraditional activities require teachers and administrators to look at traditional practices in new ways. For instance, they may consider reorganizing time blocks. They may also teach research methods by involving students in investigations of the community, rather than restricting research activities to the library (Rolzinski, 1990).
At the University Heights Alternative School in the Bronx
, the Project Adventure
experiential learning program has led the faculty to adopt an all-day time block as an alternative to the traditional 45-minute periods. The faculty now organizes the curriculum by project instead of by separate disciplines. Schools that promote meaningful student involvement actively engage students as partners in education improvement activities. These young people learn while planning, researching, teaching, and making decisions that affect the entire education system.
At the university level, including universities like Stanford and the University of California Berkeley, students are often the initiators of courses and demand more role in changing the curriculum and making it truly responsive to their needs. In some cases, universities have offered alternatives for student-designed faculty approved courses. In other cases, students have formed movements or even their own NGOs like Unseen America Projects, Inc., to promote democratic experiential learning and to design and accredit their own alternative curricula
Other university level programs are entirely field-taught on outdoor expeditions. These courses combine traditional academic readings and written assignments with field observations, service projects, open discussions of course material, and meetings with local speakers who are involved with the course subjects. These "hybrid" experiential/traditional programs aim to provide the academic rigor of a classroom course with the breadth and personal connections of experiential education.
Adventure education
may use the philosophy of experiential education in developing team and group skills in both students and adults (Rohnke, 1989). Initially, groups work to solve problems that are unrelated to the problems in their actual school
environment. For example, in a ropes course
designed to build the skills required by teamwork
, a faculty or student team
might work together to get the entire group over a 12-foot wall or through an intricate web of rope. After each challenge in a series of this kind, the group looks at how it functioned as a team:
The wall or web of rope can then become a metaphor
for the classroom
or school
environment. While the problems and challenges of the classroom
or school
are different from the physical challenges of the adventure activity, many skills needed to respond successfully as a team are the same in both settings.
These skills — listening, recognizing each other's strengths, and supporting each other through difficulties — can apply equally well to an academic Socratic Method
of questioning or problem-solving toward schoolwide improvement efforts.
For example, the Kane School in Lawrence
, Massachusetts
has been using adventure as a tool for school
restructuring. The entire faculty — particularly the Faculty Advisory Council, which shares the decisionmaking responsibilities with the principal — has honed group skills through experiential education activities developed by Project Adventure
. These skills include open communication
, methods of conflict resolution
, and mechanisms for decision making
(High Strides, 1990).
Established in 1973, Breakthrough in Hong Kong was the first non-profit organization that applied the concepts of Experiential Education (though primarily conceptualized in terms of outdoor adventure education) in youth works. Since then, development in Experiential Education has proceeded in Singapore, Taiwan, Macao, and some big cities in mainland China.
Experiential methods in education have existed in China for thousands of years. However, it should be noted that John Dewey was in China in the early 1900s and his ideas were extremely popular. The interest in Dewey's experience in China and contribution are a growing interest.
Active Based Learning—All participants in the group must engage actively in working together toward the stated objectives.
Problem Based Learning—Provides a structure for discovery that helps students internalize learning and leads to greater comprehension.
Project Based Learning—An instructional method that uses projects as the central focus of instruction in a variety of disciplines.
Service Learning—Providing meaningful service to a community agency or organization while simultaneously gaining new skills, knowledge and understanding as an integrated aspect of an academic program.
Place Based Learning—the process of using local community and environment as a starting point to teach concepts in language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, and other subjects across the curriculum.
Experiential learning
Experiential learning is the process of making meaning from direct experience. Simply put, Experiential Learning is learning from experience. The experience can be staged or left open. Aristotle once said, "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them." David A...
. The Association for Experiential Education
Association for Experiential Education
-Association for Experiential Education:The Association for Experiential Education, or AEE, is a nonprofit, professional membership association that promotes experiential education...
regards experiential education "as a philosophy and methodology in which educators purposefully engage with learners in direct experience and focused reflection in order to increase knowledge, develop skills and clarify values." Experiential education is the term for the philosophy and educational progressivism
Educational progressivism
Progressive education is a pedagogical movement that began in the late nineteenth century and has persisted in various forms to the present. More recently, it has been viewed as an alternative to the test-oriented instruction legislated by the No Child Left Behind educational funding act...
is the movement which it informed.
About
John DeweyJohn Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
was the most famous proponent of experiential education, writing Experience and Education (1938). It expressed his ideas about curriculum theory in the context of historical debates about school organization and the need to have experience as central in the educational process, hence why experiential education is referred to as a philosophy. Dewey's fame during that period rested on relentlessly critiquing public education and pointing out that the authoritarian, strict, pre-ordained knowledge approach of modern traditional education was too concerned with delivering knowledge, and not enough with understanding students' experiences.
Dewey's work influenced dozens of other prominent experiential models and advocates in the later 20th century, including Foxfire, service learning, Kurt Hahn
Kurt Hahn
Kurt Martin Hahn was a German educator whose philosophies are considered internationally influential.-Biography:...
and Outward Bound
Outward Bound
Outward Bound is an international, non-profit, independent, outdoor educationorganization with approximately 40 schools around the world and 200,000 participants per year...
, and Paulo Freire
Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire was a Brazilian educator and influential theorist of critical pedagogy.-Biography:...
. Freire is often cited in works on experiential education. He focused on the participation by students in experience and radical democracy
Radical democracy
Radical democracy as an ideology was articulated by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe in their book Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, written in 1985. They argue that social movements which attempt to create social and political change need a strategy which...
, and the creation of praxis among learners.
John Dewey was an educator, but he was foremost a philosopher. His interests included political philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, logic, and philosophy of education. Political philosophy was one of his many philosophical interests. He saw weaknesses in both the traditional and progressive styles of education. He explains in length his criticisms of both forms of education in his book, Experience & Education (1938). In essence, he did not believe that they met the goals of education, which he defined as obtaining freedom of thought. Dewey did not believe in freedom of thought in any kind of absolute sense.
Dewey advocated that education be based upon the quality of experience. For an experience to be educational, Dewey believed that certain parameters had to be met, the most important of which is that the experience has continuity and interaction. Continuity is the idea that the experience comes from and leads to other experiences, in essence propelling the person to learn more. Interaction is when the experience meets the internal needs or goals of a person. Dewey also categorizes experiences as possibly being mis-educative and non-educative. A mis-educative experience is one that stops or distorts growth for future experiences. A non-educative experience is one in which a person has not done any reflection and so has obtained nothing for mental growth that is lasting (Experience & Education, Dewey).
Practice
Experiential education informs many educational practices underway in schoolSchool
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
s (formal education) and out-of-school (informal education
Informal education
Informal education is a general term for education outside of a standard school setting. It can refer to various forms of alternative education, such as:* Unschooling or Homeschooling* Autodidacticism * Youth Work...
) programs. Many teaching methods rely on experiential education to provide context and frameworks for learning through action and reflection.
- Outdoor educationOutdoor educationOutdoor education usually refers to organized learning that takes place in the outdoors. Outdoor education programs sometimes involve residential or journey-based experiences in which students participate in a variety of adventurous challenges in the form of outdoor activities such as hiking,...
uses organized learning activities that occur in the outdoors, and uses environmental experiences as a learning tool. - Service learning is a combination of community serviceCommunity serviceCommunity service is donated service or activity that is performed by someone or a group of people for the benefit of the public or its institutions....
with stated learning goals, relying on experience as the foundation for meaning. - Cooperative learningCooperative learningCooperative learning is an approach to organizing classroom activities into academic and social learning experiences. Students must work in groups to complete tasks collectively...
alters heterogeneous groupings in order to support diverse learning stylesLearning stylesLearning styles are various approaches or ways of learning. They involve educating methods, particular to an individual, that are presumed to allow that individual to learn best. Most people prefer an identifiable method of interacting with, taking in, and processing stimuli or information...
and needs within a group. - Active learningActive learningActive learning is an umbrella term that refers to several models of instruction that focus the responsibility of learning, on learners. Bonwell and Eison popularized this approach to instruction . This "buzz word" of the 1980s became their 1990s report to the Association for the Study of Higher...
, a term popular in US education circles in the 1980s, encourages learners to take responsibility for their learning, requiring their experience in education to inform their process of learning. - Environmental educationEnvironmental educationEnvironmental education refers to organized efforts to teach about how natural environments function and, particularly, how human beings can manage their behavior and ecosystems in order to live sustainably. The term is often used to imply education within the school system, from primary to...
is based in educating learners about relationships within the natural environment and how those relationships are interdependent. Students participate in outdoor activities as part of their learning experience.
Experiential education serves as an umbrella for linking many diverse practices into a coherent whole. Its philosophy is closely linked to numerous other educational theories, but it should not be conflated with progressive education, critical pedagogy
Critical pedagogy
Critical pedagogy is a philosophy of education described by Henry Giroux as an "educational movement, guided by passion and principle, to help students develop consciousness of freedom, recognize authoritarian tendencies, and connect knowledge to power and the ability to take constructive...
, youth empowerment
Youth empowerment
Youth empowerment is an attitudinal, structural, and cultural process whereby young people gain the ability, authority, and agency to make decisions and implement change in their own lives and the lives of other people, including youth and adults....
, feminist-based education, and constructivism
Constructivism (learning theory)
Constructivism is a theory of knowledge that argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas. During infancy, it was an interaction between human experiences and their reflexes or behavior-patterns. Piaget called these systems of...
. The development of experiential education as a philosophy has been intertwined with the development of these other educational theories; their contrasts have clarified differences.
Fellowships and other training programs are available for experiential educators; but, formal training in experiential methods is lacking for K-12 undergraduate teaching programs (see Wendel, A. and Mantil, A., (2008) and the National Society for Experiential Education).
Examples
Examples of experiential education abound in all disciplines. The educator Lucy Calkins writes,"If we asked our students for the highlight of their school careers, most would choose a time when they dedicated themselves to an endeavor of great importance...I am thinking of youngsters from P.S. 321, who have launched a save-the-tree campaign to prevent the oaks outside their school from being cut down. I am thinking of children who write the school newspaper, act in the school play, organize the playground building committee.... On projects such as these, youngsters will work before school, after school, during lunch. Our youngsters want to work hard on endeavors they deem significant."
Writing journals
Diary
A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...
proves to be quite effective as part of English classes. Specifically, by writing "personal" and "text-related" journals, students find meaning in their own thoughts as well as in concepts learned in class. Personal journaling
Writing therapy
Writing therapy is a form of expressive therapy that uses the act of writing and processing the written word as therapy. Writing therapy posits that writing one's feelings gradually eases pain and strengthens the immune system...
is the recording of past and present personal thoughts and events in the student's life to enhance self-awareness
Self-awareness
Self-awareness is the capacity for introspection and the ability to reconcile oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals...
, student interest, and learning. Text-related journaling is writing about concepts learned in class in relation to students' personal experiences, to promote understanding.
Other programs
High school English classes in Rabun Gap, GeorgiaGeorgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
earned national attention for using their research and writing to publish the Foxfire journal. (Wigginton, 1985). Students researched the culture of the Appalachian Mountains
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
through taped interviews with local people. They wrote and edited articles based upon their interviews. Foxfire has inspired hundreds of similar cultural journalism projects around the country.
Christchurch School, in the tidewater
Tidewater region of Virginia
The Tidewater region of Virginia is the eastern portion of the Commonwealth of Virginia formally known as Hampton Roads. The term tidewater may be correctly applied to all portions of any area, including Virginia, where the water level is affected by the tides...
area of Virginia, has an experiential program called Great Journeys Begin at the River. The hands-on, skill-based, inside/outside curriculum is based on using the school's location on the Rappahannock River
Rappahannock River
The Rappahannock River is a river in eastern Virginia, in the United States, approximately in length. It traverses the entire northern part of the state, from the Blue Ridge Mountains in the west, across the Piedmont, to the Chesapeake Bay, south of the Potomac River.An important river in American...
, in the Chesapeake Bay
Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West...
watershed
Drainage basin
A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...
. Students recycle aluminum to raise money for the school's oyster farm, which they tend in an effort to help save the Bay.
The Nicodemus Wilderness Project
Nicodemus Wilderness Project
Founded in 2000, the Nicodemus Wilderness Project is a nonprofit organization in the United States which provides global experiential education and service-learning opportunities for youth to help save the natural environment while developing their own leadership skills.The mission of the...
provides an environmental experiential education program with a global reach called the "Apprentice Ecologist Initiative". This scholarship-based opportunity is targeted for youth volunteers who want to help protect the environment. The initiative seeks to develop young people for leadership roles by engaging them in environmental cleanup and conservation projects, empower volunteers to rebuild the environmental and social well-being of our communities, and improve local living conditions for both citizens and wildlife.
Project OASES (Occupational and Academic Skills for the Employment of Students) emphasizes experiential education in the Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
public schools. Eighth graders, identified as potential dropout
Dropping out
Dropping out means leaving a group for either practical reasons, necessities or disillusionment with the system from which the individual in question leaves....
s, spend three periods a day involved in renovating a homeless shelter
Homeless shelter
Homeless shelters are temporary residences for homeless people which seek to protect vulnerable populations from the often devastating effects of homelessness while simultaneously reducing the environmental impact on the community...
as part of a service project carried out within their industrial arts class. Students in such programs learn enduring skills, such as planning, communicating with a variety of age groups and types of people, and group decisionmaking. In their activities and in reflection, they come to new insights and integrate diverse knowledge from fields such as English
English studies
English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language , English linguistics English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the U.K., U.S.,...
, political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
, mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, and sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
.
Presidential Classroom
Presidential classroom
The Presidential Classroom is a selective high school program in which students spend a week in Washington, D.C., at the Georgetown Marriott Conference Center at Georgetown University...
, a non-profit civic education organization in Washington D.C., is open to high school students from across the country and abroad. They meet and interact with government officials, media correspondents, congressman, and key players on the world stage to learn how public policy shapes many aspects of citizens’ lives. Students travel to Washington and spend a week hearing from prominent speakers, meet with interest group spokesmen and tour the national capital. Students participate in a group project directed by experienced instructors; they have mediated debates on current issues facing the country. The focus of the week is to give students a hands-on introduction to how "real world" politics take place.
The Advantage Foundation, a not-for-profit education organization in Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
, helps bridge the gap between university and employment via the Australian Business Icon program. The program engages young and emerging entrepreneurs in direct experience and focused reflection to increase knowledge, develop skills and clarify values. It requires students with innovative, strategic thinking, and analytical skills, to take on four (4) pre-organized innovative and entrepreneurial business-related tasks. The goal is to develop the communication, ethics, innovation and enterprise of students.
Global College
Global College
Global College of Long Island University offers the only program in the world that integrates a series of yearlong cultural immersions into a progressive, four-year Bachelor of Arts degree...
, a four-year international study program offered by Long Island University
Long Island University
Long Island University is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian institution of higher education in the U.S. state of New York.-History:...
, is based on self-guided, experiential learning while a student is immersed in foreign cultures. Regional centers employ mostly advisors rather than teaching faculty; these advisors guide the individual students in preparing a "portfolio of learning" each semester to display the results of their experiences and projects.
The New England Literature Program
New England Literature Program
The New England Literature Program is an academic program run by the University of Michigan that takes place off-campus during the Spring half-term. University of Michigan faculty and other staff teach the courses, and students earn regular University of Michigan credit. The program has been in...
in the English Department at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
is a 45-day program, in which University instructors live and work together with 40 UM students in the woods of Maine in early spring. They intensively study 19th and 20th-century New England literature, in a program that includes creative writing in the form of academic journaling, as well as a deep physical engagement with the landscape of New England. NELP students and staff take hiking trips into the White Mountains
White Mountains (New Hampshire)
The White Mountains are a mountain range covering about a quarter of the state of New Hampshire and a small portion of western Maine in the United States. Part of the Appalachian Mountains, they are considered the most rugged mountains in New England...
and other parts of the New England natural areas each week, integrating their experience of the landscape with writing and discussion of texts.
The Chicago Center for Urban Life and Culture
Chicago Center for Urban Life and Culture
Chicago Center for Urban Life and Culture is the only nonprofit and independent experiential educational program for college students in the United States. It was established in the late 1960s as "Urban Life Center" by a group of college professors and college students. It was incorporated in...
is the only nonprofit and independent experiential educational program for college students in the United States. The Chicago Center is distinguished by unique seminars characterized by a 'First Voice' pedagogy, its location in the multi-ethnic Hyde Park
Hyde Park, Chicago
Hyde Park, located on the South Side of the City of Chicago, in Cook County, Illinois, United States and seven miles south of the Chicago Loop, is a Chicago neighborhood and one of 77 Chicago community areas. It is home to the University of Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center, the Museum of Science...
neighborhood of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, and development of several hundred intern
Intern
Internship is a system of onthejob training for white-collar jobs, similar to an apprenticeship. Interns are usually college or university students, but they can also be high school students or post graduate adults seeking skills for a new career. They may also be as young as middle school or in...
ship sites in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. While many of the students who attend Chicago Center grew up in cities, the majority are from suburban, rural and farming communities. Students participate individually in its Semester, May Term and Summer Session. The Chicago Center also designs and staffs programs for groups, what it calls "LearnChicago!", which promise non-tourist experiences in the city.
Several Australian high schools have established experiental education programmes, including Caulfield Grammar School
Caulfield Grammar School
Caulfield Grammar School is an independent, co-educational, Anglican, day and boarding school, located in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1881 as a boys' school, Caulfield began admitting girls exactly one hundred years later...
's five-week internationalism programme in Nanjing
Nanjing
' is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having been the capital of China on several occasions...
, China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
and Geelong Grammar School
Geelong Grammar School
Geelong Grammar School is an independent, Anglican, co-educational, boarding and day school. The school's main campus is located at Corio, on the northern outskirts of Geelong, Victoria, Australia, overlooking Corio Bay and Limeburners Bay....
's Timbertop outdoor education programme.
Other projects and "capstone" programs have included student teams writing their own international development plans and presenting them to presidents and foreign media and publishing their studies as textbooks in development studies, to running their own businesses, NGOs, or community development
Community development
Community development is a broad term applied to the practices and academic disciplines of civic leaders, activists, involved citizens and professionals to improve various aspects of local communities....
banks.
At the professional school level, experiential education is often integrated into curricula in "clinical" courses following the medical school model of "See one, Do one, Teach one", in which students learn by practicing medicine. This approach is being introduced in other professions in which skills are directly worked into courses to teach every concept (starting with interviewing, listening skills, negotiation, contract writing and advocacy, for example) to larger-scale projects in which students run legal aid clinics
Legal clinic
The phrase legal clinic may refer to any private, nonprofit law practice serving the public interest. In the academic context, these law school clinics provide hands-on experience to law school students and services to various clients. Academic Clinics are usually directed by clinical professors...
or community loan programs, or write legislation or community development plans.
The Boys and Girls Club of America provides a framework for youth development professionals to employ experiential learning methods.
Youth development programs have used experiential education methods to reach at-risk youth. An example is "Circus Harmony", based in St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
. Their mission is to "teach the art of life through circus education". By learning circus arts skills, students come together from diverse backgrounds and experiences and learn from each other as well.
Change in roles and structures
Whether teachers employ experiential education in cultural journalism, service learning, environmental educationEnvironmental education
Environmental education refers to organized efforts to teach about how natural environments function and, particularly, how human beings can manage their behavior and ecosystems in order to live sustainably. The term is often used to imply education within the school system, from primary to...
, or more traditional school subjects, its key idea involves engaging student voice
Student voice
Student voice describes the distinct perspectives and actions of young people throughout schools focused on education."Student voice is giving students the ability to influence learning to include policies, programs, contexts and principles."...
in active roles for the purpose of learning. Students participate in a real activity with real consequences for the purpose of meeting learning objectives.
Some experts in the field make the distinction between "democratic experiential education" in which students help design curricula and run their own projects and even do their own grading (through objective contracted standards) and other forms of "experiential education"
that put students in existing organizations in inferior roles (such as service learning and internships) or in which faculty design the field work.
Experiential education uses various tools like games, simulations, role plays, stories in classrooms. The experiential education mindset changes the way the teachers and students view knowledge. Knowledge is no longer just some letters on a page. It becomes active, something that is transacted with in life or life-like situations. It starts to make teachers experience providers, and not just transmitters of the written word.
Besides changing student roles, experiential education requires a change in the role of teachers. When students are active learners, their endeavors often take them outside the classroom walls. Because action precedes attempts to synthesize knowledge, teachers generally cannot plan a curriculum unit as a neat, predictable package. Teachers become active learners, too, experimenting together with their students, reflecting upon the learning activities they have designed, and responding to their students' reactions to the activities. In this way, teachers themselves become more active; they come to view themselves as more than just recipients of school district policy and curriculum decisions.
It is also important to point out that not all learners learn the same. As a result, there are diverse learners that have unique learning styles pertinent to their success as students. Studies have shown that cooperative learning is strongly suggested in a diverse learning atmosphere. “Contemporary views of learning and their pedagogical applications have begun to change traditional classroom interaction patterns, shaping the communicative roles of the teacher and students as participants in a classroom learning community,” writes David Wray & Kristiina Kumpulainen. This paradigm shift in education gives both the student and teacher shared responsibility of the learning process. The teacher’s participation in discussion sessions is to act as a facilitator, maintain classroom decorum, provide individual and group feedback, and alleviate concerns or issues in the lesson.
Critical thinking strategies are pertinent to the success of student oriented learning. When students are engaged in active discussions, high level thinking skills are put into practice to the point where students are synthesizing the information at a deeper level of understanding. According to Elliot Eisner, “We need to provide opportunities for youngsters and adolescents to engage in challenging kinds of conversation, and we need to help them know how to do so. Such conversation is all too rare in schools. I use 'conversation' seriously, for challenging conversation is an intellectual affair. It has to do with thinking about what people have said and responding reflectively, analytically, and imaginatively to that process. The practice of conversation is almost a lost art. The most significant intellectual achievement is not so much in problem solving, but in question posing.” Through experimental education, students are capable of finding their voice through peer-to-peer interaction. Students are now seen as active participants in the learning process. Vygotsky`s social development theory requires students to play untraditional roles as they collaborate with one another through critical thinking and conversational skills. According to Ann Ketch, author of Conversation: The comprehension connection writes, “The oral process helps students clarify and solidify their thoughts. The thinking changes from what it was before the conversation took place. Through conversation, the student is in charge of his or her own mental processing. The teacher acts as a facilitator, pushing the student to rely upon and monitor his or her own comprehension, which fosters critical thinking.” This is very vital because student conversation can elicit new ideas that may not have been mentioned or even thought of by another student. Therefore, student dialogue is very important because it helps individuals make sense of what is being learned. It also helps build respect for other’s opinions while taking ownership of his or her learning process.
In experimental education, students are given the opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills by making connections to the real world. Therefore, effective learning entails active experimentation with a hands-on approach to learning. It is perceived that students learn more by being active. Students are interdependent in establishing group goals and decision-making skills. As a result, students are also capable of developing leadership skills, which can also enhance student motivation and confidence.
When students are given a choice in terms of content to be learned, it ensures the teacher that his or her learners are interactive in the learning process. According to Ernie Stringer, “Action learners move through continuous cycles of this inquiry process to improve their understanding, extend their knowledge, or refine their skills.” When given a preference, students may feel motivated to take control of his or her learning experience. Student incentives are tied to progress in academic achievement. “Research indicates that intrinsic motivation stems from one’s interests and capacities to surmount challenge s when presented or pursued,” says Fenice B. Boyd. Many schools are encouraging teachers to tap into student interests with the hope that they transfer that motivation into the classroom.
Through the continuous cycle of learning, teacher’s often work with students to develop a framework of knowledge, which is to be evaluated based on student input to the lessons content. Therefore, the teacher should establish criteria of what is to be learned as related to the student(s) choice in learning material. Ernie Stringer draws on the importance that “action research provides a process for developing a rich, engaging curriculum relevant to the lives and purposes of students, engaging their interests and abilities, and serving the broad human needs of community, society, and the planet. Creative construction of curricula or syllabi provides the means whereby the needs, perspectives, and/or interests of diverse stakeholders can be incorporated into vital, creative, effective programs of learning.” In essence, a well-planned curriculum is designed for learning that encompasses a broad range of goals and individual needs that ensures the active learning process.
As students and teachers take on new roles, the traditional organizational structures of the school also may meet challenges. For example, at the Challenger Middle School in Colorado Springs, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
, service activities are an integral part of the academic program. Such nontraditional activities require teachers and administrators to look at traditional practices in new ways. For instance, they may consider reorganizing time blocks. They may also teach research methods by involving students in investigations of the community, rather than restricting research activities to the library (Rolzinski, 1990).
At the University Heights Alternative School in the Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
, the Project Adventure
Project Adventure
Project Adventure is an international nonprofit education organization based in Beverly, Massachusetts. The mission of Project Adventure is to provide leadership in the expansion of adventure-based experiential programming.-History:...
experiential learning program has led the faculty to adopt an all-day time block as an alternative to the traditional 45-minute periods. The faculty now organizes the curriculum by project instead of by separate disciplines. Schools that promote meaningful student involvement actively engage students as partners in education improvement activities. These young people learn while planning, researching, teaching, and making decisions that affect the entire education system.
At the university level, including universities like Stanford and the University of California Berkeley, students are often the initiators of courses and demand more role in changing the curriculum and making it truly responsive to their needs. In some cases, universities have offered alternatives for student-designed faculty approved courses. In other cases, students have formed movements or even their own NGOs like Unseen America Projects, Inc., to promote democratic experiential learning and to design and accredit their own alternative curricula
Other university level programs are entirely field-taught on outdoor expeditions. These courses combine traditional academic readings and written assignments with field observations, service projects, open discussions of course material, and meetings with local speakers who are involved with the course subjects. These "hybrid" experiential/traditional programs aim to provide the academic rigor of a classroom course with the breadth and personal connections of experiential education.
Transitions from traditional to experiential
At first, these new roles and structures may seem unfamiliar and uncomfortable to both students and adults in the school. Traditionally, students have most often been rewarded for competing rather than cooperating with one another. Teachers are not often called upon for collaborative work either. Teaching has traditionally been an activity carried out in isolation from one's peers, behind closed doors. Principals, accustomed to the traditional hierarchical structure of schools, often do not know how to help their teachers constitute self-managed work teams or how to help teachers coach students to work in cooperative teams. The techniques of experiential education can help students and staff adjust to teamwork, an important part of the process of reforming schools.Adventure education
Adventure education
Adventure education focuses on participating in activities with perceived risks and does not necessarily occur outdoors.Adventure education includes cooperative games, trust building activities, problem solving initiatives, high adventure activities and...
may use the philosophy of experiential education in developing team and group skills in both students and adults (Rohnke, 1989). Initially, groups work to solve problems that are unrelated to the problems in their actual school
School
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
environment. For example, in a ropes course
Ropes course
A ropes course is a challenging outdoor personal development and team building activity which usually consists of high and/or low elements. Low elements take place on the ground or only a few feet above the ground...
designed to build the skills required by teamwork
Teamwork
Teamwork is action performed by a team towards a common goal. A team consists of more than one person, each of whom typically has different responsibilities....
, a faculty or student team
Team
A team comprises a group of people or animals linked in a common purpose. Teams are especially appropriate for conducting tasks that are high in complexity and have many interdependent subtasks.A group in itself does not necessarily constitute a team...
might work together to get the entire group over a 12-foot wall or through an intricate web of rope. After each challenge in a series of this kind, the group looks at how it functioned as a team:
- Who took the leadershipLeadershipLeadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task". Other in-depth definitions of leadership have also emerged.-Theories:...
roles?
- Did the planningPlanningPlanning in organizations and public policy is both the organizational process of creating and maintaining a plan; and the psychological process of thinking about the activities required to create a desired goal on some scale. As such, it is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior...
process help or hinder progress?
- Did people listen to one another in the group and use the strengths of all group members?
- Did everyone feel that the group was a supportive environment in which they felt comfortable making a contribution and taking risks?
The wall or web of rope can then become a metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
for the classroom
Classroom
A classroom is a room in which teaching or learning activities can take place. Classrooms are found in educational institutions of all kinds, including public and private schools, corporations, and religious and humanitarian organizations...
or school
School
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
environment. While the problems and challenges of the classroom
Classroom
A classroom is a room in which teaching or learning activities can take place. Classrooms are found in educational institutions of all kinds, including public and private schools, corporations, and religious and humanitarian organizations...
or school
School
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
are different from the physical challenges of the adventure activity, many skills needed to respond successfully as a team are the same in both settings.
These skills — listening, recognizing each other's strengths, and supporting each other through difficulties — can apply equally well to an academic Socratic Method
Socratic method
The Socratic method , named after the classical Greek philosopher Socrates, is a form of inquiry and debate between individuals with opposing viewpoints based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to illuminate ideas...
of questioning or problem-solving toward schoolwide improvement efforts.
For example, the Kane School in Lawrence
Lawrence, Massachusetts
Lawrence is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States on the Merrimack River. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a total population of 76,377. Surrounding communities include Methuen to the north, Andover to the southwest, and North Andover to the southeast. It and Salem are...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
has been using adventure as a tool for school
School
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
restructuring. The entire faculty — particularly the Faculty Advisory Council, which shares the decisionmaking responsibilities with the principal — has honed group skills through experiential education activities developed by Project Adventure
Project Adventure
Project Adventure is an international nonprofit education organization based in Beverly, Massachusetts. The mission of Project Adventure is to provide leadership in the expansion of adventure-based experiential programming.-History:...
. These skills include open communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
, methods of conflict resolution
Conflict resolution
Conflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of some social conflict. Often, committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively communicating information about their conflicting motives or ideologies to the rest...
, and mechanisms for decision making
Decision making
Decision making can be regarded as the mental processes resulting in the selection of a course of action among several alternative scenarios. Every decision making process produces a final choice. The output can be an action or an opinion of choice.- Overview :Human performance in decision terms...
(High Strides, 1990).
Experiential Education in other countries
The development of Experiential Education in Asian countriesEstablished in 1973, Breakthrough in Hong Kong was the first non-profit organization that applied the concepts of Experiential Education (though primarily conceptualized in terms of outdoor adventure education) in youth works. Since then, development in Experiential Education has proceeded in Singapore, Taiwan, Macao, and some big cities in mainland China.
Experiential methods in education have existed in China for thousands of years. However, it should be noted that John Dewey was in China in the early 1900s and his ideas were extremely popular. The interest in Dewey's experience in China and contribution are a growing interest.
Methods
There are many ways in which experiential education is practiced. Five of them include: Active Based Learning, Problem Based Learning, Project Based Learning, Service Learning and Place Based Learning. All of these use the pattern of problem, plan, test and reflect as their foundation for the educative experience. This is by no means an exhaustive list of methods used reflecting the philosophy of experiential education.Active Based Learning—All participants in the group must engage actively in working together toward the stated objectives.
Problem Based Learning—Provides a structure for discovery that helps students internalize learning and leads to greater comprehension.
Project Based Learning—An instructional method that uses projects as the central focus of instruction in a variety of disciplines.
Service Learning—Providing meaningful service to a community agency or organization while simultaneously gaining new skills, knowledge and understanding as an integrated aspect of an academic program.
Place Based Learning—the process of using local community and environment as a starting point to teach concepts in language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, and other subjects across the curriculum.
See also
- Cooperative educationCooperative educationCooperative education is a structured method of combining classroom-based education with practical work experience. A cooperative education experience, commonly known as a "co-op", provides academic credit for structured job experience...
- David A. KolbDavid A. KolbDavid A. Kolb is an American educational theorist whose interests and publications focus on experiential learning, the individual and social change, career development, and executive and professional education...
- Laboratory schoolLaboratory schoolA laboratory school or demonstration school is an elementary or secondary school operated in association with a university, college, or other teacher education institution and used for the training of future teachers, educational experimentation, educational research, and professional...
- Outdoor educationOutdoor educationOutdoor education usually refers to organized learning that takes place in the outdoors. Outdoor education programs sometimes involve residential or journey-based experiences in which students participate in a variety of adventurous challenges in the form of outdoor activities such as hiking,...
- Minnesota State University, Mankato Masters Degree in Experiential Education
- Service learning
- Project-based learningProject-based learningProject-based learning, or PBL, is the use of in-depth and rigorous classroom projects to facilitate learning and assess student competence . Students use technology and inquiry to respond to a complex issue, problem or challenge...
- Hands On Learning AustraliaHands On Learning AustraliaHands On Learning Australia is a not-for-profit organisation listed as a Harm Prevention Charity by the Australian Government. The charity was assisted to come into being by Social Ventures Australia and became an Australian company in 2008 with a board of directors providing governance and...
- Problem-based learningProblem-based learningProblem-based learning is a student-centered pedagogy in which students learn about a subject in the context of complex, multifaceted, and realistic problems...
- Active learningActive learningActive learning is an umbrella term that refers to several models of instruction that focus the responsibility of learning, on learners. Bonwell and Eison popularized this approach to instruction . This "buzz word" of the 1980s became their 1990s report to the Association for the Study of Higher...
- Place-Based EducationPlace-based educationPlace-based education, sometimes called pedagogy of place, place-based learning, experiential education, community-based education, education for sustainability, environmental education or more rarely, service learning, is an educational philosophy developed initially by The Orion Society, a...
- John DeweyJohn DeweyJohn Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
Associations
- Association for Experiential Education
- The Council for Adult and Experiential Learning
- National Society for Experiential Education
- New York State Cooperative & Experiential Education Association
Resources
- Experiential Learning & Experiential Education: Philosophy, Theory, Practice & Resources
- New Horizons for Learning
- Business Icon Program
Articles
- Changing Schools through Experiential Education. ERIC Digest. The original version of this Wikipedia article is based on the public domain text at this site.
- Experiential Learning in Higher Education: Linking Classroom and Community. ERIC Digest.
- Incorporating Student Voice into Teaching Practice. ERIC Digest.
- Improving Evaluation in Experiential Education. ERIC Digest.
- Outdoor, Experiential, and Environmental Education: Converging or Diverging Approaches? ERIC Digest.
- Seven Steps to be an Efficient Science Teacher - Butterfly Fields Limited, India.