Experiential Education 101
Can anyone design a motivating hands-on experience in one hour or less? Yes.
Learning Outcomes
By the time you reach the bottom of this page, you will be able to:
Apply learning models and techniques used in .
Build on those models and techniques using your own life experiences.
Kick ass and take names.
Choose a Practice Topic
This lesson itself is designed as an experience. As you scroll down, you will be prompted to complete the same sequence of steps an experienced educator may use.
We encourage you to follow the shaded exercise prompts as you read along!
You will need a topic to practice with, something that is:
Here is the scenario we chose as an example: We are facilitating a board training for a small business that recently transitioned to a worker co-op model. Our clients are seven workers who, for the first time, are now serving as a board of directors. They need to learn about their new responsibilities and best practices for board meetings.
What are Learning Outcomes?
It is hard to apply experiential learning techniques if you have not specifically defined what you hope the participants will get from the experience. The third learning outcome we listed above, for example, isn't particularly helpful. But the first two outcomes are written in a way that gives us clear guardrails for what is inside and outside the scope of this lesson plan.
Here are a few tips for writing learning outcomes:
Use verbs to start each learning outcome. Carefully choose a verb that feels appropriate for the degree of learning you can achieve given the resources and time you have available.
Refer back to a learning pyramid for ensuring your outcomes are realistic. Remember that learning pyramids are prompts for outcome writing, and not a hard science or dogma.
Apply the SMART acronym once you have your learning outcomes drafted. Are your outcomes specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-appropriate?
Try this: List 3-5 learning outcomes for your practice topic that start with verbs, each one on a different index card or piece of paper. Avoid verbs targeted at recitation, like "know" or "can explain." Consider verbs that climb further up the learning pyramid.
Example: After this workshop, the new worker co-op board will be able to:
1) Apply fiduciary responsibilities to some of the most common legal pitfalls faced by directors.
2) Use consent-based decision making and identify where to find help with this practice.
3) Match their leadership strengths to board roles using the full circle leadership spectrum.
What is Scaffolding?
Scaffolding refers to the supports provided as a learner progresses from simpler to more challenging tasks or experiences. The range of experiences a learner is ready for is sometimes referred to as the zone of proximal development.
A useful technique experiential educators use is presenting a group with a challenging scenario twice. The first time, the group is given lots of support. The facilitator may even work alongside the group. The second time, the scaffolding is removed and the group is challenged to work on its own.
Try this: Arrange your learning outcomes with the skills learners most likely cannot do alone at the bottom and the skills they can do at the top. Consider whether there are smaller skills that must be practiced before the broader skill can be mastered. Finally, consider which skills are so challenging that they warrant repeated practice inside or outside of the training itself.
Example: Fiduciary responsibilities can be very nuanced. They require (at least) the following skills arranged in what may be a natural order for a workshop setting.
By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
1) Describe the three main fiduciary duties: Duty of care, duty of loyalty, and duty of obedience.
2) Match examples of governance problems to the relevant fiduciary duties.
3) Identify where to turn for help with a tricky fiduciary dilemma.
4) Work as a group to outline a set of board policies to proactively address common pitfalls.
What is Kolb's Cycle?
David A. Kolb published this learning theory in 1984. This idea is best explained visually.
When you watch children at play, you see them naturally work through this cycle. They find themselves in a situation, they experiment, they find something that works, and they explain it to their friends. Notice that the diagram has no end. It is a cycle that hints at ever-present opportunities for growth.
The critical step that is often skipped over in conventional learning environments is the debrief. Instructors often run out of time towards the end of a session and skip the debrief altogether. When you find yourself in that situation, fall back on this simple structure for a well-rounded debrief:
What happened?
So what?
Now what?
Try this: What is the status quo? What are your participants used to? Can you ask them to work through an example as a group that is likely to have a mediocre result? After that experience, ask them what happened and why. Introduce a new tool or discuss a new topic. Then ask them to repeat a similar exercise but using their new knowledge. Debrief again and ask them to compare and contrast the two experiences.
Example: We might prompt our board members to make a quick decision about a topic on an upcoming meeting agenda. We want to choose a topic that is relevant to them, rather than a silly exercise like choosing where to have lunch.
After debriefing from that experience, we would present some of the heuristics found on SociocracyForAll.org. Providing a paper handout to each participant, we would ask the group to tackle another future agenda item. A debrief question afterwards might be something like, "Now that you know the basics, what do you need for further practice?"
What are Modalities?
Learning styles or "modalities" are a hotly-debated topic. For the context of this guide, we simply view learning styles as a lens that can be useful in some situations. Like any lens, it represents only one perspective on a problem.
We simply encourage you to take a step back from time to time and consider which modality best fits each of your learning outcomes. Are you presenting information that benefits from a visual diagram? Is knowledge best experienced outdoors in nature? Are their relevant metaphors in a popular song or poem? When someone learns this skill, what tools or objects will they physically touch to perform that skill?
Try this: Consider two different modalities for one of your learning outcomes. Choose one that seems like the obvious fit. Choose another that seems like a terrible fit. Why do you prefer one over the other? Ask a friend which modality they prefer.
Example: The Full Circle Leadership model is built around a helpful visual diagram. It also contains a paragraph or two to describe each leadership role. The creator also provides an interactive self-assessment on their website. One group activity that feels appropriate could work something like this:
1) Participants line up against a wall.
2) Identifying one end of the wall as Very Much and the other as Not At All, the facilitator explains that the group will create a "human graph" or line graph as each individual moves to the end that best fits them. If they are 50/50 on the two options, they stand in the middle.
3) Ask the group to rate themselves on each leadership role. Are they very much that kind of leader? Or not at all?
What is an Adventure Wave?
An adventure wave seems to be a universal, cross-cultural phenomenon that enhances learning, teambuilding and storytelling. Various adventure waves have been proposed by educational practitioners and researchers. They share a few common elements as shown below:
The curve rises and falls as team effectiveness rises and falls. There is natural discord within most groups after the polite, get-to-know you stage. And there is natural cohesiveness in any group after they go through "norming" and their different perspectives are better understood.
The wave continues on through this briefing, activity, and debriefing cycle. The dip in effectiveness before the debriefing serves to underscore the importance of reflection - not everyone in the group will have the same perspective on why they were or were not successful. But the debriefing gives time to pool perspectives and wisdom. After each cycle most groups achieve a higher level of effectiveness or cohesiveness.
Try this: Pick a 15-20-minute icebreaker activity for your lesson's forming stage. Debrief from the activity using prompts that are likely to elicit a variety of answers. State to the group that you are welcoming conflicting ideas and aims. When you look at the core exercise of your lesson, is it a group exercise?
Example: Our group of brand new board members may benefit from several exercises that gradually become more challenging. Best not to throw them in the deep end! We may begin with activities about sharing personal strengths, like the Full Circle Leadership exercise. We may end by tackling a decision that is polarizing to the group. We will be sure to leave time for debriefing.
What is Flow?
In the field of positive psychology, the "flow state" is another term for being "in the zone." Learners self-report that this state is extremely helpful for learning. There's a great deal of debate on exactly how this works. For our context, it doesn't really matter.
What does matter is applying some common sense to your learning plans. Ask yourself, "Will this experience genuinely challenge your target audience? Will they be bored? Will they be stressed out?"
Try this: Will your experience genuinely challenge your target audience? Will they be bored? Will they be stressed out?
Example: The biggest risk for our group of new board members is that they will feel overwhelmed by their new responsibilities and feel unwelcomed in governance spaces. One preparation step we can take is to think through their hands-on scenarios before the workshop begins. Choosing a scenario on-the-fly during the workshop is not something any facilitator should do. In this case, we will be on the lookout for decisions that may have complex fiduciary or legal implications.
Let's Put It All Together
Now for the fun part! This is what we've been building towards - the final challenge or "peak" of our own adventure wave.
We are simply going to layer all those diagrams on top of each other:
Neat, huh? This diagram is the best tool we can offer experiential educators. We encourage you to save, download, or copy this diagram in your own way. Use it whenever you need to create a learning plan in a hurry or when you need to onboard a new instructor.
Try this: Grab a piece of paper or pull up a diagramming app like Miro. Draw the s-shaped curve of the adventure wave in a way stretches all the way across page. Move your lesson plan notes onto the appropriate spot on the wave. Draw any Kolb cycles you plan to use. Consider your mix of modalities. Does it seem like the group will be engaged?
Example: See below.
Let's Debrief
We challenge you to pick one of your next educational projects, set a 60 minute timer, consider each layer of the diagram above, and see what you come up with! It may take less time to plan a learning activity than to write and create visuals for a conventional presentation.
Let's practice our new debriefing skills:
What happened? Describe what you just read and experienced in your own words.
So what? Was this helpful for you? If so, in what way? Did your assumptions about experiential design match up with what was presented here? Why or why not?
Now what? Are you prepared to use these learning theories? Or do you need to find more information and/or perspectives first? Next, we encourage you to read our primer on Critical Pedagogy 101.
Repeat
Experiential design is a valuable skill that requires practice! Full disclosure: The authors of this webpage regularly use it for creating their own lesson plans! It puts us at ease. Next time you need to create a lesson plan, work through the exercises above in whichever order works best for you.
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