Facilitating Experiential Learning In Higher Education

This book provides evidence-informed and practical advice on how to design, teach, and facilitate hands-on, experiential learning in practical higher education settings. With rich case studies and carefully considered analysis tasks, all underpinned by research evidence, it explores the functional aspects of teaching outside of regular classroom environments. Designed to enable university teachers to adapt strategies for teaching confidently and effectively, this must-read text focusses on enhancing learning and avoiding pitfalls whilst allowing students to develop and recognise the skills needed to excel in their chosen discipline. This book also provides: Reflection Points to enable application of the ideas into teaching practice, Action Summaries that distil the main recommendations into easily applicable solutions, Further Reading sections to allow for further exploration of key ideas. Practical and evidence-informed, the strategies within this book are useful for all educators teaching in practical settings including projects, labs, studios, in the field, and in practice placements.

This volume is designed to present a practical approach to designing and running workshops. It is meant to introduce novice facilitators as well as those with much experience to an integrated model of workshop design and development. Grounded in learning theory, this model is used to demonstrate how to design, facilitate, and direct workshops, as well as how to identify and improve existing skills. Practical, how-to sections assist readers in creating specific experiential activities designed to facilitate different types of learning. Readers also learn how to understand and attend to individual differences as well as to take all workshop participants through a universal cycle of learning. Workshops will be useful to anyone who facilitates workshops in higher education, adult education, business, health care, and other educational settings.

Experiential Education in the College Context provides college and university faculty with pedagogical approaches that engage students and support high-impact learning. Organized around four essential categories—active learning, integrated learning, project-based learning, and community-based learning—this resource offers examples from across disciplines to illustrate principles and best practices for designing and implementing experiential curriculum in the college and university setting. Framed by theory, this book provides practical guidance on a range of experiential teaching and learning approaches, including internships, civic engagement, project-based research, service learning, game-based learning, and inquiry learning. At a time when rising tuition, consumer-driven models, and e-learning have challenged the idea of traditional liberal education, this book provides a compelling discussion of the purposes of higher education and the role experiential education plays in sustaining and broadening notions of democratic citizenship. .

Praise for the previous edition: “This is a passionate and practical book” Teaching in Higher Education “This book offers valuable insights into a process for becoming a reflective learner and for developing students into reflective learners as well.” Studies in Higher Education This significantly revised edition includes the most current thinking on reflective learning as well as stories from academics and students that bring to life the practical impact of reflection in action. Based on sound theoretical concepts, the authors offer a range of solutions for different teaching situations, taking into account factors such as group size, physical space, and technology. They also offer facilitation rather than traditional teaching methods as a productive and useful skill that helps teachers and encourages students to interact and develop reflexive skills that can be used beyond their student years. Based on rigorous theories, Facilitating Reflective Learning in Higher Education offers new insights for university and college teachers seeking to enhance or diversify their practices and allows them to effectively facilitate their students’ reflective learning.

Experiential learning is a powerful and proven approach to teaching and learning that is based on one incontrovertible reality: people learn best through experience. Now, in this extensively updated book, David A. Kolb offers a systematic and up-to-date statement of the theory of experiential learning and its modern applications to education, work, and adult development. Experiential Learning, Second Edition builds on the intellectual origins of experiential learning as defined by figures such as John Dewey, Kurt Lewin, Jean Piaget, and L.S. Vygotsky, while also reflecting three full decades of research and practice since the classic first edition. Kolb models the underlying structures of the learning process based on the latest insights in psychology, philosophy, and physiology. Building on his comprehensive structural model, he offers an exceptionally useful typology of individual learning styles and corresponding structures of knowledge in different academic disciplines and careers. Kolb also applies experiential learning to higher education and lifelong learning, especially with regard to adult education. This edition reviews recent applications and uses of experiential learning, updates Kolb's framework to address the current organizational and educational landscape, and features current examples of experiential learning both in the field and in the classroom. It will be an indispensable resource for everyone who wants to promote more effective learning: in higher education, training, organizational development, lifelong learning environments, and online.

For teachers in higher education who haven’t been able to catch up with developments in teaching and learning, James Davis and Bridget Arend offer an introduction that focuses on seven coherent and proven evidence-based strategies. The underlying rationale is to provide a framework to match teaching goals to distinct ways of learning, based on well-established theories of learning. The authors present approaches that readers can readily and safely experiment with to achieve desired learning outcomes, and build confidence in changing their methods of teaching.Research on learning clearly demonstrates that learning is not one thing, but many. The learning associated with developing a skill is different from the learning associated with understanding and remembering information, which in turn is different from thinking critically and creatively, solving problems, making decisions, or change paradigms in the light of evidence. Differing outcomes involve different ways of learning and teaching strategies.The authors provide the reader with a conceptual approach for selecting appropriate teaching strategies for different types of content, and for achieving specific learning objectives. They demonstrate through examples how a focused and purposeful selection of activities improves student performance, and in the process makes for a more effective and satisfying teaching experience.The core of the book presents a chapter on each of the seven ways of learning. Each chapter offers a full description of the process, illustrates its application with examples from different academic fields and types of institutions, clearly describes the teacher’s facilitation role, and covers assessment and online use.The seven ways of learning are: Behavioral Learning; Cognitive Learning; Learning through Inquiry; Learning with Mental Models; Learning through Groups and Teams; Learning through Virtual Realities; and Experiential Learning.Along the way, the authors provide the reader with a basis for evaluating other approaches to teaching and other learning methodologies so that she or he can confidently go beyond the “seven ways” to adapt or adopt further strategies. This is the ideal companion for teachers who are beginning to explore new ways of teaching, and want to do some serious independent thinking about learning. The book can also be used to prepare graduate students for teaching, and will be welcomed by centers for teaching and learning to help continuing faculty re-examine a particular aspect of their teaching.

This edited collection offers a unique multidisciplinary perspective into the many factors that go into designing, facilitating, expanding, and assessing experiential learning (EL) from the perspective of faculty and staff educators. The editor and contributors bring decades of expertise with different forms of EL, including community-engaged learning, education abroad, internships, and more. Chapters offer case studies and reflections which highlight personal experiences and anecdotes which illuminate the realities of experiential teaching and learning. Through these stories and narratives, readers may better understand what doing EL entails on an everyday basis—both on a local and global scale—and learn how to enhance support and resources for experiential educators on college and university campuses.

Work-based learning routes are a versatile and innovative way to gain higher education qualifications. This book reflects that flexibility and prepares tutors for helping work-based students learn in a variety of ways at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Offering practical information and advice, the book covers the major aspects of work-based learning, which include: - Accreditation of prior learning (APL) - Work-based projects - Learning agreements - Relevant innovative assessment methods - Quality assurance and enhancement mechanisms - How technology can be utilised as a learning tool. Featuring activities, case studies and useful hints and tips informed by a range of international scholars, it's the ideal companion for tutors of work-based learning students.