Experiential Learning is where students learn through doing, through experiencing things in the classroom and outside of it. This sort of learning is incredibly impactful on students and tends to stick with them for a long time, and ground their learning in hands-on interactive lessons.

 

Experiential learning is core to my teaching philosophy, as I believe students learn best through doing and experimenting, and being active in their learning. Not only does this sort of learning allow for greater retention of learning, but it allows for students to be more engaged with their learning and interested in their classes. I hope that over time, my practice will grow to include this more and more, as I find new ways to create experiential learning opportunities for my students.

 

 

Some experiential learning opportunities I have been lucky enough to participate in, learning to scrape moose hide and a blanket exercise.

 

Learning about nature in nature! Especially fun was learning more about archery and hunting in a target course. Archery used to be a passion of mine, and in my youth I competed in both the B.C. Winter Games and B.C. Summer Games, bringing home a gold and silver medal in the Winter Games and placing well in the Summer Games.

 

In my first practicum I taught Photoshop in Photography 10-12. Students were encouraged to stretch their creativity in graphic design, and on the left we can see a student’s custom album cover, on the right is a custom logo design. Olaf was used to teach students about layering and how to effectively hide a character behind objects in a scene, we all had fun hiding Olaf in various locations of our snowy mountain scene.

In my final practicum I focused on including Experiential learning as much as possible. In my AP Lit 12 course we explored Shakespeare’s The Tempest through the lens of the stage and the importance of acting out the play for understanding. In my poetry units we ventured outdoors to read local nature poetry and discuss the importance of writing about your experiences and the places you know.