Experiential Learning

[EWolfe]

A few years back, when i was working for Outward Bound in Redmond, I became good friends with the Chief Instructor, who put forth what was an interesting idea to me at the time.

 

He had come from an academic background where he was struggling, and decided to become an instructor to "do" something besides studying. He took well to the struggle on the long courses, and soon was doing it full time. As he was teaching courses, he started noticing a phenomenon.

 

Many of his fellow instructors were smart, even brilliant people who had fallen out of grace/interest with traditional educational processes.

He recognized there was a different type of learning happening within outdoor education, and one that was valid enough to attract some amazing individuals!

Given the aptitude and the drive of these people, he couldn't say that the learning and teaching that was happening there was any bit less valid than a classroom education. It was just a DIFFERENT type of learning.

 

It was presented to me as "experiential learning". That is, the ability to absorb through process rather than study, experiment rather than theory, doing rather than reading about doing.

Now, certainly there is some overlap. None of us is pure experiential or pure bookworm. We do or study at some level.

But the lack of recognition of the experiential learner in modern-day schools is a major oversight !

 

These are the people (like me) who:

 

Loved the following classes in school as youngsters, cuz they could move and DO!

 

Gym

Arts and Crafts

Wood and Metal Shop

Home Economics ( many experiential men rue the fact they actually liked this class)

 

So, here's to all of you, we, experiential learners!

 

You're a brilliant bunch, and I have never met more than in the climbing community.

 

There is some combination of doing and exploring possibility that is the experiential kid in the candy store.

 

You are the best folks on this orb

[chelle]

Nice post MrE. Many adults learn best through experience much better than through wrote classroom theory.

 

For kids who need experience to stay engaged and learn, there is an alternative type of learning method available through private school education. I can't recall what it is called at the moment, I'll have to check with my sister who's an educator.

 

It's different than Montessouri but just as expensive. A friend of mine in CA truly believed in it's value for her two rambunctious but really smart boys. She shelled out about $8k each per year for elementary school.

[chelle]

I should be more like Dru and do a google search before posting a response. Here's a link to more information about the Waldorf method for anyone interested...

check it out...

[Dru]

my favourite experiential learning class was Sex Ed. the Ed stood for Edwina, she was hotttt

[sk]

I should be more like Dru and do a google search before posting a response. Here's a link to more information about the Waldorf method for anyone interested...

check it out...

waldorf is awsome! I checked it out before thing 1 started school. The cost was prohibative but it seems to me that the education is more interesting. as I read threw the schools information I could only think that I wanted to go to that school. I wish we could have swung it. I am willing to bet that is not the last time I say that as my kids go threw public education.

[Blake]

there are some smaller public schools that incorporate those type of principals into the curriculum. I'd agree that climbers in general tend to be more "experience it" types than "read about it" types.

[cracked]

Whatever. Books work well for most everything.

 

Learning from books/theory is a learned skill. If you never learn it, you'll be in trouble at some point. There has to be a balance. I don't think it's fair to say that schools ignore the needs of more hands-on oriented students. Indeed, schools are sometimes moving too far in that direction.

[EWolfe]

Whatever. Books work well for most everything.

 

Learning from books/theory is a learned skill. If you never learn it, you'll be in trouble at some point.

 

Good example of the blind misunderstanding of the traditional, and exclusivity-based education

[EWolfe]

as opposed to the inclusivity of experience

[cracked]

 

Idiot educators who worry too much about little kids' egos are the ones who come up with ideas like 'creative spelling', in which a kid finds 10 words to learn, copies them down misspelled, memorizes the wrong spelling, then spells all ten words wrong at the end of the week.

[marylou]

I like the concept. There are a lot of different ways to be smart. At one point in my life, I had two ballet dancers for roommates. Strictly speaking, in the way that our world quantifies intelligence, these two were not very bright. But, to see them dance....WOW....freaking geniuses, both of them.

 

I think to intimate that we all learn the same way is about as simplistic as the sort of Microsoft world view on what's smart and what's not. Their corporate culture (in my experience) would have you believe that if you are strong in Computer Science, you are smart, and otherwise, you are not.

[cracked]

Being intelligent doesn't include physical prowess. If you bastardize the definition of intelligence, then the term loses all meaning, because nearly everyone is quite good at SOMETHING.

[EWolfe]

Post deleted by MisterE

[cracked]

'Physical intelligence' is an oxymoron. How's the view in feel-good land?

[EWolfe]

Brain blocks response. Bye-bye.

[iain]

It seems your "experiential learning" would be limited to things that are a part of the human experience. How do you teach someone concepts that exist beyond our immediate environment? Clay models? Dance around holding hands to form a benzene ring? It would be difficult to grasp things like quantum mechanics, organic chemistry, astronomy, etc without hitting the books. There are so many new concepts to absorb, and books are a very efficient way of inserting that knowledge in the brain.

[jja]

Brain blocks response. Bye-bye.

ahh, experiential learning hits a snag

[Bug]

One more concept to incorporate into to mix is attention deficit disorder. There are a lot of kids who suffer from it to one degree or another. And it is hereditary. It can also be introduced and/or compounded by too much TV at an early age(over stimulation). The brain wanders, making intense reading inefficient. I made it through school with pretty good grades. Years later I was reading an article about ADD and realized that I was. I tried meds for it and was amazed at the RADICALLY improved ability to focus (I am not talking about speed here. Most people would not feel any effects). I am not an advocate for medicating kids unless they are truely suffering. But at some point, their lives will become much easier if they face the facts and adjust their brain chemistry. So for me, rock climbing was a natural "experiential" learning application. I would not be surprised if a lot of highly intelligent people did it, especially if they found it a uniquely mind focusing experience.

[Jason_Martin]

For six years, I taught in a traditional classroom setting at both the high school and the college level. For the last five years I've been an outdoor educator, two of those five years working as such year round as opposed to just summers...

 

That said, I think that there are things that are more easily taught from an experiential perspective. Climbing is clearly experiential. Reading about crevasse rescue in a book or the building of an anchor is helpful, but doing it will actually set it in a person's mind.

 

On the other hand, there are elements of education which cannot be taught with such a hands on approach. For example, most people will not understand philosophy or literature without some kind of traditional classroom oriented build to that understanding.

 

Classroom teachers do use experiential learning as much as possible. How often did you have to identify a part of speech in English class or complete an algebra problem in math?

 

There is no "better" means of teaching. Some people find certain techniques more effective than others.

 

Lastly, the important thing to remember about experiential learning in an outdoor setting is that most of the time everybody wants to be there and wants to learn. This is not always the case in the classroom. The result is that outdoor educators appear to be stronger teachers because they get better results... Some ARE better teachers, but then again, some aren't. Just like methods of learning, there are tremendous differences in teachers both in the outdoors and in the indoors. Some are great and some should probably go back to school...

 

Jason

[CPOly]

Multiple Intelligence Theory

 

This is a link to a page describing Multiple Intelligence Theory. I believe Howard Gardner came up with this and even has a book describing it in more detail. Pretty good theory IMO.

[Bug]

Interesting reading. It seems ethnocentric however in that it does not recognize or uniquely identify existential reasoning. Before the invention of literacy, all the societies I have read about were intimately intertwined with existential questions. Every act was based in understandings of the subject's mythology. It seems unlikely that human evolution would have resulted in such a non-existential mind as a norm.

[Dru]

At one point in my life, I had two ballet dancers for roommates. Strictly speaking, in the way that our world quantifies intelligence, these two were not very bright. But, to see them dance....WOW....freaking geniuses, both of them.

 

I can't let this one pass without comment. Being a genius is not the same being skilled at what you do. Marylou I bet you would never call your mechanic or your plumber a genius even if they fixed your drippy faucet or changed your timing belt in jig quick time no matter how "our world quantifies intelligence".

[Dru]

I should be more like Dru and do a google search before posting a response. Here's a link to more information about the Waldorf method for anyone interested...

check it out...

waldorf is awsome! I checked it out before thing 1 started school. The cost was prohibative but it seems to me that the education is more interesting. as I read threw the schools information I could only think that I wanted to go to that school. I wish we could have swung it. I am willing to bet that is not the last time I say that as my kids go threw public education.

 

muffy i am not saying necessarily you are doing this but i have seen some kids ruined in the past by the kid going to the school the parent wanted to go to rather than what was best for the kid. waldorf school, montessori school, alternative school, "strict traditional" uniformed religious school whatever

[CPOly]

Being a genius is not the same being skilled at what you do. Marylou I bet you would never call your mechanic or your plumber a genius even if they fixed your drippy faucet or changed your timing belt in jig quick time no matter how "our world quantifies intelligence".

 

I would tend to disagree with you. I'm sure that there are numerous artists whom you may call genius'. Surely you see ballet as an art and not a trade. I just feel that this is a bad example comparing dancers to plumbers.

[Dru]

 

5 entries found for genius.

gen·ius ( P ) Pronunciation Key (jnys)

n. pl. gen·ius·es

 

Extraordinary intellectual and creative power.

A person of extraordinary intellect and talent: “One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius” (Simone de Beauvoir).

A person who has an exceptionally high intelligence quotient, typically above 140.

 

A strong natural talent, aptitude, or inclination: has a genius for choosing the right words.

One who has such a talent or inclination: a genius at diplomacy.

The prevailing spirit or distinctive character, as of a place, a person, or an era: the genius of Elizabethan England.

pl. ge·ni·i (jn-) Roman Mythology. A tutelary deity or guardian spirit of a person or place.

A person who has great influence over another.

A jinni in Muslim mythology.

 

 

Ballet dance is like climbing. A physical skill. it can be creative but I wouldnt call a skilled dancer a genius any more than I would call Chris Sharma a genius, or my plumber a genius. Maybe I'd call the ballet dancer's choreographer a genius if the dance was really amazingly good.