Experiential Education Making The Most Of Learning Outside The Classroom

Educators at the cutting edge of the experiential learning movement share their insights and experiences at colleges and universities nationwide This book provides college faculty and administrators with strategies for the successful design, construction, funding, and assessment of experiential education. Featuring edited contributions written by educators at the leading edge of the experiential education movement nationwide, it addresses the realities of experiential education while providing detailed descriptions of everything from the design of individual courses to entire programs. The authors weigh the various pros and cons of the experiential approach, and they offer pointers on how to engage colleagues and stakeholders to help them understand the manifold benefits of the approach.

This book describes how to change the way in which educators conduct business in the classroom. Our current educational systems lack ways to reach today's learners in relevant, meaningful ways. The five approaches in this book inspire and motivate students to learn. The authors provide in-depth descriptions into these overlapping approaches for experiential learning: active learning, problem-based learning, project-based learning, service learning, and place-based education. Each of these five approaches includes an element of student involvement and attempts to engage students in solving problems. The chapters are presented in a consistent, easy-to-read format that provides descriptions, history, research, ways to use the approach, and resources. This book will help educators transform their classrooms into dynamic learning environments.

While research and common sense tells us that experiential learning is more effective than the more traditional process of information assimilation (where teachers lecture, test, and grade), high school, college, and university teachers continue to use paper-and-pencil tests as their primary grading and assessment tool. Many students fail to see the relevance of these sort of tests and are bored with passive methods of learning. Using Experiential Learning in the Classroom: Practical Ideas for All Educators explains what experiential learning is, why it works, and how it can be used in both high school and post-secondary educational settings. Tools for assessing experiential learning are also provided. A must-have resource for high school teachers and college professors.

This anthology is a compilation of 59 articles that includes items previously published in the "Journal of Experiential Education" and presentations given at conventions of the Association for Experiential Education. Based on John Dewey's belief that "all genuine education comes through experience," this book aims to inform educators, administrators, and researchers in schools and institutions of higher education as they seek to put experiential education into practice. Section One covers theoretical assumptions, experiential curriculum design, and the place of experiential education in national school reform efforts. Section Two includes articles on community service and service learning, outdoor and environmental education, internships, apprenticeships, and working in multicultural and cross-cultural settings. Section Three examines applications of experiential education in the classroom, including general educational strategies, history projects, mathematics and science projects, language arts activities, working with special populations, cooperative learning, games, and working with young children. Section Four covers experiential components in college courses, teacher education, research and evaluation methods, and summaries of research and evaluation findings on experiential education. A combined reference list contains over 400 references. Includes author profiles and an index of original publication dates. (SV)

This book adds to the theoretical development of the emerging fields of experiential learning and outdoor education by examining the central concept, 'experience', and interrogating a central claim of experiential learning: whether, and if so how, a short-term singular experience can transform a participant’s life as a whole and in a permanent way. While such a possibility has been corroborated by the personal testimonies of participants, and the activities of instructors over many years, the book argues that we must go beyond this kind of ‘evidence’. In comparing Anglophone and continental approaches and drawing on the work of Dewey, Dilthey and Merleau-Ponty in the philosophy of experience, Experiential Learning and Outdoor Education presents the first detailed review of the concept of ‘experience’ in European philosophy, as applied to outdoor experiential learning. A vital insight into the field, this is important reading for students and researchers working in the philosophy of sport, and pedagogical theory, especially in areas relating to the outdoors, but also to experiential education more generally.

"EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION "This book brings a thoughtful and refreshing perspective on experiential education. Educators interested in outdoor learning, service learning, and place-based learning will find in Roberts' analysis a critical understanding of what learning by doing means." Dilafruz Williams, Portland State University What is experiential education? What are its theoretical roots? Where does this approach come from? Offering a fresh and distinctive take, this book is about going beyond "learning by doing" through an exploration of its underlying theoretical currents. As an increasingly popular pedagogical approach, experiential education encompasses a variety of curriculum projects from outdoor and environmental education to service learning and place-based education. While each of these sub-fields has its own history and particular approach, they draw from the same progressive intellectual taproot. Each, in its own way, evokes the power of "learning by doing" and "direct experience" in the educational process. By unpacking the assumed homogeneity in these terms to reveal the underlying diversity of perspectives inherent in their usage, this book allows readers to see how the approaches connect to larger conversations and histories in education and social theory, placing experiential education in social and historical context. Combining a critical philosophical approach with practical examples from the field, Beyond Learning by Doing gives readers both an excellent summary of the theoretical histories of experiential education and a thesis-driven argument about the current state of the field and its future possibilities and limitations Jay W. Roberts is Associate Professor of Education and Environmental Studies, Earlham College"-- Provided by publisher.