Reflections for P4/2
Drawing from these exemple of experiential learning, Mr Lee said: "You have to think of new ways to get (students) to engage, to do something and, by doing something, to hoist in an indelible experience."
The examples given were about learning outside the classroom. Some parents ask: Can't something similar be done in-class too?
Most classes in most places are taught along the lines of "I'll tell you what you need to know, and you'll need to learn that". Right now, there are too many students whose minds are not engaged in what or how they are being taught.
Research shows that experiential learning does enhance the ability of students to think, use and retain what is learnt. As Dr Lang related, at the end of the whole course on creative management, students were able to recount what they had learnt at each weekly class because lessons linked to concrete experiences were recalled quite easily. Or, as the late John Dewey, arguably 20th century's most influential educationist, said: "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand."
Yet this has not quite taken off.
Why? First, "teach less, learn more" means more offline work for the teacher, not less. It calls for an inordinate amount of class preparation as the instructor must scrounge around for relevant stories and interesting visuals to use, then creatively embed a teaching objective in each exercise which he must construct around each story.
Thinking up role-play scripts to embody a teaching objective and preparing simple props for these exercises take effort too. Finally, you have to ascertain that the exercise does deliver the lesson. If it does not, it is back to the draw board — and more work.
By contrast, lecturing is easy. The instructor just stands up class and talks. It is still the manufacturing production model of education based on the notion that you pour knowledge into waiting vessels.
Done
