Tag Archives: Experiential Learning

Lesson plan on Experiential Learning: Blended, meta lesson, with happy ending!

I have been trying for a while, to develop a lesson on Kolb’s cycle that helps the participants go further from merely understanding the concept of experiential learning, but be able to actually use it for lesson planning. The last version of this session worked pretty well. Here is a sketch of the online and f2f parts of the lesson:

Online module:

  • Watch a video on EL
  • Think back on a particular learning experience from Day 1. Can you identify the 4 stages of Kolb’s cycle? [RO/AC]
  • Think about a skill you have developed in your personal/professional life. Discuss the following: [AC]
    • Have you gone through all 4 stages over the course of developing that skill?
    • What about in a single class/session? Have you gone through all stages at least once?
    • Do you feel all stages have been equally involved in your learning?

Face-to-face:

  • An overview of the 4 stages
  • Any questions/clarifications?
  • Metacognitive reflection:
    • Think back to the online module. Can you identify different stages of Kolb’s cycle as you experienced them in doing the module as a learner? Hint: one stage is missing! (the meta might need a little clarification depending on the group; could be helpful to walk them through it if they find the idea confusing: ‘you watched a video and answered a few questions. what part worked for you as CE?’ etc.)
    • Ask them to identify which stage is missing (AE)
    • ‘As you mentioned, Active Experimentation stage was missing from the module. Now, what type of activity do you think we could do to enable this stage?’ (facilitate a short, guided large-group discussion). Once they came up with a close enough idea, reveal the LOs: ‘Well, that’s exactly what we are going to do in our session today!’
  • Reveal LOs:
    • Suggest a few simple activities to enable each of the 4 stages of Kolb’s cycle for your learners
    • Re-design your Day 1 mini-lesson based on experiential learning
  • Activity 1: ‘What are some of the activities/tasks we could design for our students to help them go through each stage?’ (Suggestions revealed one by one on the slide. Additional suggestions from the group can be added directly onto PPT. A few examples are as below)
    • CE: Watch, read, do an activity, do an experiment, debate, …
    • RO: Think, reflect, summarize, identify the most important points, identify what did/didn’t work, …
    • AC: Think, discuss, analyze, compare, identify the underlying principle, …
    • AE: Plan next step, suggest improvement, discuss what you would do differently, …
  • Activity 2: Re-design your mini-lesson
    •  Revisit your Day 1 lesson
    • Can you re-design it based on experiential learning? (a handout provided with a simplified planning template and a few suggestions)
    • Share your lesson plan with people from your SG (pairs or groups of 3, depending on the time)
  • Closing: selected LG sharing, questions? (depending on the time)
  • Summary/Post-assessment: 1-minute paper.
    • 1 thing that worked best for you in this session
    • 1 thing we could change to promote experiential learning in this lesson. What stage?

 

For more details about the lesson plan, handout and slides, please e-mail me (rowshan@mail.ubc.ca)