How to Engage Students With Experiential Learning in Your Classroom

As a principal, school administrator, or department head, your number one priority (after safely getting the kids out of the hallways and into a classroom) is to ensure that learning actually takes place in between the ringing bookends of your bell schedule.

As a veteran teacher, with over 18 years of classroom experience (including one surprisingly enjoyable summer school now under my belt), I can tell you that I feel sorry for the students that had to endure my first year of employment back in 1993 - a date that now seems ages ago.

I was enthusiastic and well educated, and I established a good rapport while maintaining a disciplined environment - but I feel I utterly failed when it came to delivering lessons that actually STUCK with my students for more than a few days after their scantron tests were graded.

My problem then, and the problem of so many teachers that truly care about and take responsibility for educating their students, was that I did exactly that - I DELIVERED the information in nice, easily digestible chunks of notes and review games, but I seldom provided opportunities for them to actually experience the information.

I know now, as many of you do from the wealth of research that is available, that memorization or lecture style delivery does little to inspire any long-term learning. For our students, as ourselves, to actually recall and feel and internalize any information or insight, it must be attached to a meaningful and memorable personal experience.

Experiential Learning is the best way to engage the attention of those students your teachers are responsible for, and it provides a significantly better return in terms of recall and application of knowledge and skills.

So, in order to impress upon you the importance of exposing your staff to this teaching tool and its many benefits, I would like to share a little background information about the history of Experiential Learning and then provide you with examples that your faculty could implement easily and effectively.

So, what is TEACHING? Is it just telling, or does it require that learning occurs?

I believe that the job of a great teacher is to facilitate his/her students' movement from where they are to where he/she wants them to be regarding specific skills, information, and behaviors.