The Hampton Trust, Chubut Suite, Ashurst Lodge, Southampton, SO40 7AA www.hamptontrust.org.uk (Charity Number : 1055209)
Experiential Learning
Table of Contents What is Experiential Learning?
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Background to Experiential Learning
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Example Case study How to develop an experiential learning programme
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Evaluating your programme
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Summary
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Experiential Learning
What is Experiential Learning? Experiential learning (not to be confused with experimental learning) is about providing the time and the place for people to learn through ‘hands on’ experience. Too many of us have sat through formal lessons where an educator attempted to pour information into our heads. In these situations we tried to learn things parrot fashion by repeating what we had just been told until it stuck. Through repetition we aimed to confine this knowledge to memory, probably until we could pass a test. Times tables is a good example of this style of teaching and of learning. It is questionable if this method really aids true understanding of the subject matter. Participants are not required to understand underlying structures and principles of the topic, only to be able to repeat when required. Experiential learning on the other hand is much more about self-exploration. For the learner, it is about building on what knowledge they already have. Learning takes place at a pace and level that suits them and the responsibility for learning lays with the learner themselves, rather than the educational establishment or teacher. The teacher thus moves from a position of a tutor who is required to have all the answers, to one of a facilitator. The facilitative role is much more about setting up environments or situations that act as catalysts for learning to take place.
Background to Experiential Learning Experiential learning is as old as the hills. Since the age of dawn we have passed down skills through generations and have learnt through experience. Who was the first brave soul that sat atop a horse and reflected that it must be a faster way to travel, and who was that very first person who experienced reducing a fever through the use of herbal medicines. As our technological knowledge increased, so old ways of doing almost became defunct.
Dynamic learning experiences have become less hands on and more visual or auditory. But we have been gifted with more than two senses to aid our understanding of the world. David Kolb is credited with being the first person to focus on making meaning from direct experience. He drew heavily on works by people such as Piaget, Dewey and Lewin. Please see Case Study on page 4
Aristotle noted: “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” David Kolb’s Model of Experiential Learning
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Experiential Learning
Example To illustrate experiential learning I will use examples from my own organisation. The first example is the LINX programme which targets young people showing escalating signs of violent and challenging behaviour. The young people attend 12 weekly sessions where they take part in a series of hands on and fun tasks as a group. At the end of each task they are asked to reflect on the task, how they communicated with each other, and what part they played in achieving the task. The facilitator helps each young person process the information they are learning about themselves and how they interact with others.
This process of reflection often continues on way past the session with young people returning the next time with further insights. Self-learning and insight is considered a more powerful way of effecting and sustaining positive behavioural change than by didactic methods alone.
The Hampton Trust LINX programme
Case Study The Hampton Trust runs an Ecotherapy Centre for vulnerable children. The children who come to this centre have often experienced some challenges in their lives including neglect, abuse and violence. They may have gone on to offend themselves. At the centre we use an experiential hands on approach to helping young people gain life changing insights through interaction with nature. In this programme the use of metaphor is important in helping them process what may have happened in their lives in a safe way.
This made her situation much worse. Through an experiential approach, Mia was able to touch and interact with the animals. She was able to safely process, through the use of abused animals as a metaphor, her own distress and feelings of disempowerment. Mia learned a lot about nature– but she learned more about herself. See Evaluating your Programme on page 5.
Mia had been sexually abused. She found it difficult to trust adults or to tolerate touch. Mia was offending but when arrested by the police was liable to become verbally and physically abusive at any form of touch.
The Hampton Trust is working with Kingston Prison to train ‘lifers’ to work with young people at risk of custody
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The Hampton Trust Ecotherapy Centre– learning through interaction with nature.
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Experiential Learning
How to develop an Experiential Learning Programme The first thing to do is to change any picture in your head that involves a teacher standing in front of a group providing them with information. Replace that picture with a group of people all interacting and interested in what they are doing. Now take as an example developing a behavioural change programme. The stated aim of the programme would be to assist personal development as part of a rehabilitative process. The Hampton Trust can structured programme for you.
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Although experiential learning may seem unstructured to the outsider – there is still a framework to work within, principles to be adhered to, and a very real need for skilled professionals to facilitate.
Professionals need to be skilled in working in groups and in picking up apparently small details. They need facilitating importantly ‘expert’ role
to have a sound understanding of the processing of learning. More they need to be able to give up the and become curious learners themselves.
We have found that a major advantage of experiential learning techniques is that they engage people. Especially those individuals with low literacy levels - or those who react adversely to authority.
The Hampton Trust Bike Maintenance Project
Please see our website details on page 4
Evaluating your Programme There is very little point in running a programme if an evaluation of the outcomes is not undertaken. There are varied ways of doing this, but the primary focus of the evaluation needs to be did you achieve what you set out to achieve? In this case, did the rehabilitative programme bring about lasting change or was it just fun at the time. The ideal way to approach this is to look at what behaviour was like prior to the programme using a standard format. Then use the same format again at the end of the programme to see if there has been any change in attitudes or behaviour. Then use the same format yet months after the programme to identified change has been sustained.
again three see if any
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The Logic Model of Evaluation is a useful tool for structuring any evaluation by determining what went into the programme (inputs) in relation to what came out (outputs and outcomes). It can take a lot of work to get an evaluation right but in keeping with the ethos of experiential learning the use of diaries, blogs, journals, drawing, Likert scales, photographs, and short videos by the participants are all useful considerations. By engaging people in a programme they want to be part of, you are more likely to have a positive evaluation. Please see summary on page 6
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Experiential Learning
Summary Experiential Learning is a style of education that places the learner at the centre. They direct their acquisition of information and skills. They determine the pace and what they need to build on existing knowledge. The Hampton Trust is working in conjunction programme raising awareness of domestic abuse.
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The Hampton Trust is working in conjunction with Winchester Prison to deliver a programme raising awareness of domestic abuse.
The Hampton Trust, Chubut Suite, Ashurst Lodge, Southampton, SO40 7AA www.hamptontrust.org.uk (Charity Number : 1055209)
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