“Experiential education is a philosophy that informs many methodologies in which educators purposefully engage with learners in direct experience and focused reflection in order to increase knowledge, develop skills, clarify values, and develop people’s capacity to contribute to their communities.”

Association for Experiential Education

Experiential education focuses on purposefully engaging learners in direct experience and focused reflection (Miano, n.d.). There are many theorists in the area of experiential education. The two most prominent names are John Dewey (1859-1952), an influential philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, and David Kolb (1939 – ). Kolb’s model for experiential learning has the following four components (Bates, 2015): 

• active experimentation;
• concrete experience;
• reflective observation;
• abstract conceptualization.

For a great visual representation of Kolb’s experiential learning model, check out my colleague Capri’s blog post here. 

Experiential education occurs through a multitude of models and learning environments, and can be adjusted to best fit the learning situation. 

You might find experiential learning opportunities in: outdoor and adventure education, non-formal education, place-based education, project-based learning, global education, environmental education, student-centered education, informal education, active learning, service learning, cooperative learning and expeditionary learning (Miano, n.d.). 

Experiential learning is important because it makes learning relatable to students. It builds on what they already know, and provides avenues for students to connect new information with what they already know. It gives learners opportunities for hands-on learning, which has been linked with increased engagement and memory retention as the learning is linked with memories and feelings (Carlton University, 2020). 

Learning Resource Connections

While there are some components of experiential learning that fit into my pod’s learning resource, we chose to focus more on inquiry-based learning. Anna, one of my pod members, has a great post about inquiry learning that can be found here! We are designing our resource for a grade 1 Science class, for a unit on dinosaurs. Given the young age of the students, we have chosen to approach the resource through an inquiry-based learning lens. We believe that this approach will give students an introduction into a new topic while building their curiosity and deepening their understanding of one of the BC Curriculum’s Big Ideas for Grade 1 Science: [l]iving things have features and behaviours that help them survive in their environment” (BC Ministry of Education, n.d.). I think that experiential learning is an important approach to take in education, and would be incredibly beneficial in a science unit designed for a slightly older grade that has a larger base of knowledge and the metacognitive skills for reflective observation. 

References

Bates, A. (2015). 3.6 Experiential learning: Learning by doing. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/4-4-models-for-teaching-by-doing/ 

BC Ministry of Education. (n.d.). BC’s New Curriculum. Retrieved October 12, 2020, from https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/science/1 

Carlton University. (2020). Educational Development Centre. Retrieved from https://carleton.ca/experientialeducation/what-is-experiential-education/

Miano, A. (n.d.). What is EE. Retrieved from https://www.aee.org/what-is-ee