Experiential Education: Just What Do We Mean?
A Forum — September 27, 1996
Sally Migliore, Executive Director, NSEE, began the forum with an overview of experiential education. Realizing that experience alone does not foster learning, advocates of experiential education promote the integration of real-world experience with other, more traditional methods of education. As a result, "experiential educators" include classroom teachers, school administrators (at all levels, including postsecondary), parents, community organizations and many other educational groups. In fact, NSEE was founded by experiential-based programs and practitioners who desired a national presence in their field.
Following Migliore's remarks, Marilynn Cunningham, Professional Development Specialist, Fayette County Public Schools, Lexington, Kentucky, led an interactive exercise that demonstrated why this learning methodology is important for young people. Forum attendees were split into groups of two or three, and were asked to come up with a list of characteristics they look for when hiring an assistant. Following these individual discussions, groups shared their observations with the larger forum, and a comprehensive list of character traits was developed.
The majority of desired characteristics were "unmeasurable" qualities, such as innovation, independent thinking, attention to detail, flexibility, self-motivation and dedication. Cunningham stated that such "skills" are not developed through standard educational curricula, but grow naturally through interaction with others and participation in real-world activities, such as work or community service. The common trait among these real-world experiences is the presence of real consequences for a person's actions, a need to set goals, an opportunity to experience trial and error, and the experience of both delegating and responding to authority. Experiencing these components is key to obtaining the "desired" job skills discussed earlier.
James Case, Assistant Vice President of Career Services, Thunderbird, The American Graduate School of International Management, Glendale, Arizona, further discussed the key differences between classroom and experiential learning, highlighting the work of Dr. James Coleman. The approach to learning in each of these methodologies, explained Case, is very different. Classroom learning educates students through books and lectures, selected and presented by "experts" whose instruction follows rigidly defined methods. Experiential learning, on the other hand, occurs in some form of a social environment, and promotes student observation, data collection and discovery to drive continual analysis, problem solving and learning.
Experiential education also requires that young people examine their emotions and values to meet challenges and solve problems, while classroom learning discusses but rarely acts upon this critical area of youth development. In addition, experiential education utilizes inductive reasoning, taking a specific issue or problem and helping young people understand its broad application. Classroom learning instead uses deductive reasoning to narrow problems and issues from the general to the specific, often leading to a loss of relevance.
Case also discussed the broader, societal impact of experiential education. As Coleman states in Differences Between Classroom and Experiential Learning, "All learners in any experiential learning environment need to examine their roles as learners, professionals, and citizens. This underscores the relationship between experiential learning and improving society." Experiential learning achieves this by connecting students directly to employers, community groups and society in general. When implemented properly, it can be much more powerful than classroom learning, as it promotes both individual and social transformation.
Following Case, attendees again broke into small groups, this time to individually examine seven core components of experiential education: establishing program goals; identifying work and service sites; establishing student goals and objectives; selecting students and placing them in real-world sites; preparing students for learning and working; monitoring, support and evaluation; and reporting on the level of learning accomplished. Following these individual sessions, Diana Hayman, President, NSEE Board of Directors, led a discussion as each group presented their key observations. The central points were similar to those discussed in the earlier group sessions--that real-world exposure is crucial to the educational experience of a young person. The challenge, according to Hayman, now lies in helping all schools to adopt experiential methodologies.