Difference between revisions of "Experiential learning" - New World Encyclopedia

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[[Image:LearningTheCountriesOfAsia.jpg|thumb|right|200px| A [[child]] learning the countries of [[Asia]] by [[experience]] rather than by [[rote learning]].]]  
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[[Image:LearningTheCountriesOfAsia.jpg|thumb|right|250px| A [[child]] learning the countries of [[Asia]] by [[experience]] rather than by [[rote learning]].]]  
  
'''Experiential education''' (or "learning by doing") is the process of actively engaging students in an authentic [[experience]] that will have benefits and consequences. Students make discoveries and experiment with knowledge themselves instead of hearing or reading about the experiences of others. Students also reflect on their experiences, thus developing new [[skill]]s, new [[attitude]]s, and new [[theories]] or ways of [[thinking]] (Kraft & Sakofs, 1988). Experiential education is related to the [[Constructivism (learning theory)|constructivist]] learning theory.
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'''Experiential education''' (or "learning by doing") is the process of actively engaging students in an authentic [[experience]] that will have benefits and consequences. Students make discoveries and experiment with knowledge themselves instead of only hearing or reading about the experiences of others. Students also reflect on their experiences, thus developing new [[skill]]s, new [[attitude]]s, and new [[theories]] or ways of [[thinking]]. Experiential education is related to the [[Constructivism (learning theory)|constructivist]] learning theory.
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Experiential education changes [[school]]s because it requires new roles of students, teachers, and administrators. It can provide a different, more engaging way of treating academic content through the combination of action and reflection. Experiential education empowers students to take responsibility for their own learning. It can also provide a process for helping all those involved in schooling become more comfortable with the unfamiliar roles commonly proposed for restructured schools.
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{{toc}}
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While experiential education has proved itself of value in many situations, it cannot replace all forms of education. Human beings are able to learn from others, without having to repeat every discovery on their own. Equally, applying experiential learning without a clear understanding of the conceptual basis, for example by simply having students be physically active without ensuring that they are [[cognition|cognitively]] processing the information has little benefit in learning. For some types of learners, and some types of material, the active learning experience may be the optimal teaching method; for other types of learners and other types of material, however, the more traditional academic methods still have their place. A balance between different methodologies is needed to ensure the best learning opportunity for all.
  
 
==Historical development==
 
==Historical development==
[[John Dewey]], an American educational philosopher, was an early twentieth century promoter of the idea of learning through direct experience (action and reflection). Experiential education differs from much traditional education in that teachers first immerse students in action and then ask them to reflect on the experience.  
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'''Experiential education''' is a philosophy of [[education]] that focuses on the transactive process between teacher and student involved in direct experience with the learning environment and content.<ref>Christian M. Itin, [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/105382599902200206 Reasserting the Philosophy of Experiential Education as a Vehicle for Change in the 21st Century] ''The Journal of Experiential Education'' 22(2) (1999): 91-98. Retrieved May 26, 2021.</ref> The [[Association for Experiential Education]] regards experiential education "as a philosophy and methodology in which educators purposefully engage with learners in direct experience and focused reflection in order to increase knowledge, develop skills and clarify values."<ref>[https://www.aee.org/what-is-ee What is experiential education?] ''Association for Experiential Education''. Retrieved May 26, 2021.</ref>
  
In traditional education, teachers set the knowledge to be learnt (including analysis and synthesis) before students. They hope students will subsequently find ways to apply the knowledge.  
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[[John Dewey]] was the most famous proponent of experiential education, perhaps paving the course for all future activities in his seminal ''[[Experience and Education]],'' first published in 1938. Dewey's fame during that period rested on relentlessly critiquing public education and pointing out that the [[authoritarian]], strict, pre-ordained knowledge approach of modern traditional education was too concerned with delivering knowledge, and not enough with understanding students' actual experiences.  
  
Despite the efforts of many efforts at progressive educational reform, reports by researchers such as Goodlad (1984) and Sizer (1984) suggest that most teaching, particularly at the high school level, still involves the teacher as purveyor of knowledge and the student as passive recipient.  
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Experiential education differs from much traditional education in that teachers first immerse students in action and then ask them to reflect on the experience. In traditional education, teachers set the knowledge to be learned (including analysis and synthesis) before students. They hope students will subsequently find ways to apply the knowledge. Dewey's work went on to influence dozens of other influential experiential education models and advocates, including [[Foxfire Fund|Foxfire]],<ref>B.A. Starnes, The Foxfire Approach to Teaching and Learning: John Dewey, Experiential Learning, and the Core Practices ''ERIC Digests'', 1999.</ref> [[service learning]],<ref>Dwight E. Giles, Jr. and Janet Eyler, [https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1152&context=slceslgen Theoretical roots of service learning in John Dewey: Toward a theory of service learning] ''Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning'' (Fall 1994): 77-85. Retrieved May 26, 2021.</ref> [[Kurt Hahn]] and [[Outward Bound]],<ref>Mike Gass, [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/105382590302500323 Kurt Hahn address 2002 AEE International Conference] ''Journal of Experiential Education'' 25(3) (2003): 363-371. Retrieved May 26, 2021.</ref> among others.
  
== Examples ==
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[[Paulo Freire]], a [[Brazil]]ian educator and the father of modern [[critical pedagogy]], is often cited in relationship to experiential education.<ref>A. Bing, (1989) "Peace Studies as Experiential Education." ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'' 504: 48-60.</ref> Freire was largely focused on the active involvement in students in real experience, [[radical democracy]], and the creation of [[praxis]] among learners.
Examples of experiential education abound in all disciplines. In her [[1991]] book ''[[Living Between the Lines]]'', [[Lucy Calkins]] states,  
 
"If we asked our students for the highlight of their school careers, most would choose a time when they dedicated themselves to an endeavor of great importance...I am thinking of youngsters from P.S. 321, who have launched a save-the-tree campaign to prevent the oaks outside their school from being cut down. I am thinking of children who write the school newspaper, act in the school play, organize the playground building committee.... On projects such as these, youngsters will work before school, after school, during lunch. Our youngsters want to work hard on endeavors they deem significant."
 
  
There are other examples. High school English classes in Rabun Gap, Georgia have published the [[Foxfire books]] and magazines for over 25 years (Wigginton, 1985). Students research the culture of the Appalachian mountains through taped interviews and then write and edit articles based upon their interviews. Foxfire has inspired hundreds of similar cultural journalism projects around the country.  
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Despite the efforts of many efforts at progressive educational reform, reports by researchers such as Goodlad<ref>J. Goodlad, ''A Place Called School: Prospects for the Future'' (New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 1984, ISBN 978-0070236271).</ref> and Sizer <ref>T. Sizer, ''Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School'' (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004, ISBN 978-0618516063).</ref> suggest that most teaching, particularly at the high school level, still involves the teacher as purveyor of knowledge and the student as passive recipient.  
  
One widely adopted form of experiential education is learning through service to others (Kielsmeier & Willits, 1989). An example is Project OASES (Occupational and Academic Skills for the Employment of Students) in the [[Pittsburgh]] public schools. Eighth graders, identified as potential [[dropout]]s, spend three periods a day involved in renovating a [[homeless shelter]] as part of a service project carried out within their industrial arts class. Students in programs such as these learn enduring skills such as planning, communicating with a variety of age groups and types of people, and group decisionmaking. In carrying out their activities and in the reflection component afterward, they come to new insights and integrate diverse knowledge from fields such as English, [[political science]], mathematics, and sociology.
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==Theoretical underpinnings==
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===John Dewey===
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In ''Democracy and Education,'' [[John Dewey]] attempted to synthesize, criticize, and expand upon the democratic or proto-democratic educational philosophies of [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]] and [[Plato]]. He saw Rousseau as overemphasizing the individual and Plato as overemphasizing the society in which the individual lived. For Dewey, this distinction was, by and large, a false one; like [[Lev Vygotsky]], he viewed the mind and its formation as communal process. Thus, the individual is only a meaningful concept when regarded as an inextricable part of his or her society, and the society has no meaning apart from its realization in the lives of its individual members. However, as evidenced in his later ''Experience and Nature,'' Dewey recognizes the importance of the subjective experience of individual people in introducing revolutionary new ideas.
  
Other approaches at the university level include laboratory courses in social sciences and humanities that seek to parallel laboratory courses in the natural sciences.  In social science laboratory courses, students combine theory with tests of the theory in field settings and often develop their own social models in disciplines as far ranging as history and philosophy to economics, political science and anthropology (Lempert, 1996).
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As a [[pragmatism|pragmatist]], Dewey felt it was vitally important that education not be the teaching of mere dead fact but that the skills and knowledge that students learn be integrated fully into their lives as persons, citizens, and human beings. At the Laboratory Schools that Dewey and his wife Alice ran at the [[University of Chicago]], children learned much of their early chemistry, physics, and biology by investigating the natural processes that went into cooking breakfast&mdash;an activity they did in their classes. Dewey firmly held that one does not learn solely through memorization of theories and facts, but through experience. Thus he coined the term “learning by doing.
  
[[Friends World Program]], a four-year international study program operating out of [[Long Island University]], operates entirely around self-guided, experiential learning while immersed in foreign cultures. Regional centers employ mostly advisors rather than teaching faculty; these advisors guide the individual students in preparing a "portfolio of learning" each semester to display the results of their experiences and projects.
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His ideas were quite popular but were never really integrated into the practices of American public schools, though some of his values and terms were widespread. Progressive education (both as espoused by Dewey, and in the more popular and inept forms of which Dewey was critical) was essentially scrapped during the [[Cold War]], when the dominant concern in education was creating and sustaining a scientific and technological elite for military purposes. In the post-Cold War period, however, progressive education has reemerged in many school reform and [[education]] theory circles as a thriving field of inquiry.
  
Other projects and "capstone" programs have included everything from student teams writing their own international development plans and presenting them to Presidents and foreign media and publishing their studies as textbooks, in development studies, to running their own businesses, NGOs, or community development banks (Lempert, 1996).
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===Carl Rogers===
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[[Carl Rogers]] made significant contributions to the field of [[education]] with his theory of [[experiential learning]]. He maintained that all human beings have a natural desire to learn. Therefore, failure to learn is not due to the person's inability to learn, but rather to problems with the learning situation.
  
At the professional school level, experiential education is often integrated into curricula in "clinical" courses following the medical school model of "See one, Do one, Teach one" in which students learn by practicing medicine.  This approach is now being introduced in other professions in which skills are directly worked into courses to teach every concept (starting with interviewing, listening skills, negotiation, contract writing and advocacy, for example) to larger scale projects in which students run legal aid clinics or community loan programs, write legislation or community development plans.
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Rogers defined two categories of learning: cognitive (meaningless) learning, which involves academic knowledge, such as multiplication tables, and experiential (significant) learning, which is applied knowledge, such as how to repair a car. The key distinction is that experiential learning addresses the needs and wants of the learner, and thus has the qualities of personal involvement, self-initiation, self-evaluation, and long-lasting effects.
  
==Change in Roles and Structures==
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To Rogers, experiential learning is equivalent to personal development. In his view, all human beings posses the natural propensity to learn, and it is the teacher's role to facilitate that learning by encouraging, clarifying, and organizing learning resources, but not to impose their own view of knowledge on their students. Rogers suggested that learning is facilitated
Whether teachers employ experiential education in cultural journalism, [[service learning]], [[environmental education]], or more traditional school subjects, its key idea involves engaging [[student voice]] in active roles for the purpose of learning. Students participate in a real activity with real consequences for the purpose of meeting learning objectives.  
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#when the student participates in the learning process, having control over its nature and direction
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#when learning is primarily based on confrontation with real problems, whether they be social, personal, scientific, or practical
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#when students are required to use self-evaluation to assess their progress.<ref>Carl R. Rogers, ''Freedom to Learn: A View of What Education Might Become'' (C.E. Merrill Pub. Co., 1969, ISBN 0675095190.</ref>
  
Some experts in the field make the distinction between "democratic experiential education" in which students help design curricula and run their own projects and even do their own grading (through objective contracted standards) and other forms of "experiential education" that put students in existing organizations in inferior roles (such as service learning and internships) or in which faculty design the field work (Lempert, 1996).
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Experiential education, or "learning by doing," is the process of actively engaging students in an authentic experience that has benefits and consequences. Students make discoveries and experiment with knowledge themselves, instead of hearing or reading about the experiences of others. Students also reflect on their experiences, thus developing new skills, [[attitude]]s, and ways of [[thinking]].<ref>D. Kraft, and M. Sakofs, (eds.) ''The Theory of Experiential Education'' (Boulder, CO: Association for Experiential Education, 1988).</ref>
  
Experiential learning uses various tools like games, simulations, role plays, stories in classrooms. The experiential learning mindset changes the way the teachers and students view knowledge. Knowledge is no longer just some letters on a page. It becomes active, something that is transacted with in life or life-like situations. It starts to make teachers experience providers, and not just transmitters of the written word. Students become knowledge creators (for themselves) as well as knowledge gatherers.
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Experiential education empowers students to take responsibility for their own learning. Whether [[teaching|teacher]]s employ experiential education in [[service learning]], environmental education, or more traditional school subjects, it involves engaging student "voice" in active roles for the purpose of learning.
  
Besides changing student roles, experiential education requires a change in the role of teachers. When students are active learners, their endeavors often take them outside the classroom walls. Because action precedes attempts to synthesize knowledge, teachers generally cannot plan a curriculum unit as a neat, predictable package. Teachers become active learners, too, experimenting together with their students, reflecting upon the learning activities they have designed, and responding to their students' reactions to the activities. In this way, teachers themselves become more active; they come to view themselves as more than just recipients of school district policy and curriculum decisions.  
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The caveat in the experiential learning situation is that while the content of much of what we need to learn is desirable and amenable to the experiential approach, there are many things that people, especially children, may not want to learn, but are necessary in order to function fully as adults in human society. Allowing children to decide that certain "meaningless" knowledge need not be learned, reduces the job of teachers to mere supports in their students' learning process, taking away their role in guiding education to fulfill the larger purpose determined by society.
  
As students and teachers take on new roles, the traditional organizational structures of the school also may meet challenges (Zemelman, Daniels, & Hyde, 1998). For example, at the Challenger Middle School in [[Colorado Springs]], [[Colorado]], service activities are an integral part of the academic program. Such nontraditional activities require teachers and administrators to look at traditional practices in new ways. For instance, they may consider reorganizing time blocks. They may also teach research methods by involving students in investigations of the community, rather than restricting research activities to the library (Rolzinski, 1990). At the University Heights Alternative School in [[the Bronx]], the Project Adventure experiential learning program has led the faculty to adopt an all-day time block as an alternative to the traditional 45-minute periods. The faculty now organizes the curriculum by project instead of by separate disciplines. Schools that promote meaningful student involvement actively engage students as partners in education improvement activities. These young people learn while planning, researching, teaching, and making decisions that affect the entire education system.
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===David Kolb===
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David Kolb's experiential learning model focuses on the learning process for the individual. One example of experiential learning is going to the [[zoo]] and learning through observation and interaction with the zoo environment, as opposed to reading about [[animal]]s from a [[book]]. Thus, one makes discoveries and experiments with knowledge firsthand, instead of hearing or reading about others' experiences. Likewise, in [[business school]], [[internship]], and [[Job shadow|job-shadowing]], opportunities in a student's field of interest can provide valuable experiential learning which contributes significantly to the student's overall understanding of the real-world environment.<ref>P.R. McCarthy and H.M. McCarthy, [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3200/JOEB.81.4.201-204 When Case Studies Are Not Enough: Integrating Experiential Learning Into Business Curricula], ''Journal of Education for Business'' 81(4) (2006): 201–204. Retrieved May 27, 2021.</ref>
  
At the university level, including universities like Stanford and the University of California Berkeley, students are often the initiators of courses and demand more role in changing the curriculum and making it truly responsive to their needs. In some cases, universities have offered alternatives for student-designed faculty approved courses. In other cases, students have formed movements or even their own NGOs like Unseen America Projects, Inc., to promote democratic experiential learning and to design and accredit their own alternative curricula (Lempert, 1996).
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A third example of experiential learning involves learning how to ride a [[bicycle|bike]],<ref>R.G. Kraft, "Bike riding and the art of learning." In Louis B. Barnes, C. Roland Christensen, and Abby J. Hansen, ''Teaching and the Case Method'' (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 1994, ISBN 978-0875844039).</ref> a process which can illustrate the four-step experiential learning model (ELM) as set forth by Kolb and outlined in Figure 1 below. Following this example, in the "concrete experience" stage, the learner physically interacts with the bike in the "here and now".<ref name=kolb>David Kolb, ''Experiential Learning: Experience as the source of learning and development'' (Pearson FT Press, 2014, ISBN 978-0133892406).</ref> This experience forms "the basis for observation and reflection" and the learner has the opportunity to consider what is working or failing (reflective observation), and to think about ways to improve on the next attempt made at riding (abstract conceptualization). Every new attempt to ride is informed by a cyclical pattern of previous experience, thought and reflection (active experimentation).<ref name=kolb />
  
== Helping with the transition ==
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'''Figure 1 – David Kolb's Experiential Learning Model (ELM)'''<ref>[http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/gradschool/training/resources/teaching/theories/kolb Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle] ''University of Leicester''. Retrieved May 27, 2021.</ref>
  
At first, these new roles and structures may seem unfamiliar and uncomfortable to both students and adults in the school. Traditionally, students have most often been rewarded for competing rather than cooperating with one another. Teachers are not often called upon for collaborative work either. Teaching has traditionally been an activity carried out in isolation from one's peers, behind closed doors. Principals, used to the traditional hierarchical structure of schools, often do not know how to help their teachers constitute self-managed work teams or how to help teachers coach students to work in cooperative teams. The techniques of experiential education can help students and staff adjust to teamwork, an important part of the process of reforming schools.
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{| align=center style="border:1px solid gray; padding:4px"
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|-
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|||<big>⮣</big> || align=center | Concrete Experience || <big>⮧</big>|| 
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|-
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|Active Experimentation||||                  ||||Reflective Observation
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|-
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|||<big>⮤</big> || Abstract Conceptualization || <big>⮠</big> ||
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|}
  
[[Adventure education]] is one form of experiential education that is highly effective in developing team and group skills in both students and adults (Rohnke, 1989). Initially, [[group]]s work to solve problems that are unrelated to the problems in their actual [[school]] environment. For example, in a [[ropes course]] designed to build the skills required by [[teamwork]], a faculty or student [[team]] might work together to get the entire [[group]] over a 12-foot wall or through an intricate web of rope. After each challenge in a series of this kind, the group looks at how it functioned as a team. Who took the [[leadership]] roles? Did the [[planning]] process help or hinder progress? Did people listen to one another in the [[group]] and use the strengths of all group members? Did everyone feel that the group was a [[support]]ive environment in which they felt comfortable making a contribution and taking [[risks]]?
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Experiential learning can occur without a teacher and relates solely to the [[meaning-making]] process of the individual's direct experience. However, though the gaining of knowledge is an inherent process that occurs naturally, a genuine learning experience requires certain elements. According to Kolb, knowledge is continuously gained through both personal and environmental experiences.<ref>Sharan B. Merriam and Lisa M. Baumgartner, ''Learning in Adulthood: A Comprehensive Guide'' (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2020, ISBN 978-1119490487).</ref> Kolb states that in order to gain genuine knowledge from an experience, the learner must have four abilities:
  
The wall or web of rope can becomes a [[metaphor]] for the [[classroom]] or [[school]] environment. While the problems and challenges of the [[classroom]] or [[school]] are different from the physical challenges of the adventure activity, many skills needed to respond successfully as a team are the same in both settings.  
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*The learner must be willing to be actively involved in the experience;
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*The learner must be able to reflect on the experience;
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*The learner must possess and use analytical skills to conceptualize the experience; and
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*The learner must possess decision making and problem solving skills in order to use the new ideas gained from the experience.
  
These skills &mdash; [[listening]], recognizing each other's strengths, and [[support]]ing each other through difficulties &mdash; can apply equally well to academic [[problem-solving]] or to schoolwide improvement efforts.  
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==Application==
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The efficacy of active instructional techniques has been questioned by several researchers.<ref name=mayer>Richard E. Mayer, [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14736316/ Should there be a three-strikes rule against pure discovery learning? The case for guided methods of instruction] ''American Psychologist'' 59(1) (2004): 14-19. Retrieved May 27, 2021.</ref><ref name=kirschner>Paul A. Kirschner, John Sweller, and Richard E. Clark, [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15326985ep4102_1 Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: an analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching] ''Educational Psychologist'' 41(2) (2006): 75-86. Retrieved May 27, 2021.</ref> Certainly practicing procedural skills is a necessity for learning to be automated. But while these activities may be motivating for learners, unguided situations can in fact leave learners less competent than when they began the activity.<ref name=kirschner/> 
  
For example, the Kane School in [[Lawrence, Massachusetts|Lawrence]], [[Massachusetts]] has been using adventure as a tool for [[school]] restructuring. The entire faculty &mdash; particularly the Faculty Advisory Council, which shares the decisionmaking responsibilities with the principal &mdash; has honed group skills through experiential education activities developed by [[Project Adventure]]. These skills include open [[communication]], methods of [[conflict resolution]], and mechanisms for [[decision making]] (High Strides, 1990).
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Should practice happen before, or even during initial learning? Unfortunately, some instructors develop unguided course activities and expect novice learners to learn from these experiences. Those promoting ‘Active learning’ strategies assume learners need little guidance. However, guidance is a necessary part of instruction, and provides a more efficient learning experience for novice learners.  
  
== Summary ==
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Self guided instruction may be arduous and clumsy, and often less than efficient.<ref name=swellercooper>John Sweller, and Graham A. Cooper, [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s1532690xci0201_3 The use of worked examples as a substitute for problem solving in learning algebra] ''Cognition and Instruction'' 2(1) (1985): 59-89. Retrieved May 27, 2021.</ref> Sweller suggests learners should study worked-examples because this is a more efficient method of ''initial'' instruction,<ref name=sweller>John Sweller, [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0364021388900237 Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning] ''Cognitive Science'' 12(1) (1988): 257-285. Retrieved May 27, 2021.</ref> finding that learners who studied worked examples performed significantly better than learners who actively solved problems.<ref name=swellercooper/> This was later called the "worked example effect."<ref>Ruth C. Clark, Frank Nguyen, and John Sweller, ''Efficiency in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load'' (San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer, 2005. ISBN 978-0787977283).</ref> It relies upon strong guidance from the instructor, as opposed to the minimally guided situations, often found in "active learning" based instruction.<ref name=kirschner/>
  
Experiential education can change schools because it requires new roles of students, teachers, and administrators. It can provide a different, more engaging way of treating academic content through the combination of action and reflection. Experiential education empowers students to take responsibility for their own learning. Experiential education can also provide a process for helping all those involved in schooling become more comfortable with the unfamiliar roles commonly proposed for restructured schools.
+
===Change in Roles and Structures===
 +
Whether teachers employ experiential education in cultural journalism, [[service learning]], [[environmental education]], or more traditional school subjects, its key idea involves engaging [[student voice]] in active roles for the purpose of learning. Students participate in a real activity with real consequences for the purpose of meeting learning objectives.  
  
==References==
+
Some experts in the field make the distinction between "democratic experiential education" in which students help design curricula and run their own projects and even do their own grading (through objective contracted standards) and other forms of "experiential education" that put students in existing organizations in inferior roles (such as service learning and internships) or in which faculty design the field work.<ref name=lempert>D. Lempert, ''Escape From the Ivory Tower: Student Adventures in Democratic Experiential Education'' (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1995, ISBN 978-0787901363)</ref>
*Calkins, L. (1991). Living between the lines. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books, Inc.
 
*Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Collier Books.
 
*Educational Writers Association. (1990). Lawrence grows its own leaders. High Strides: Bimonthly Report on Urban Middle Grades, 2 (12). Washington, DC: Author.
 
*Fletcher, A. (2005). Meaningful student involvement: Students as partners in school change. Olympia, WA: HumanLinks Foundation.
 
*Freire, P. (1971). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. NY: Continuum.
 
*Goodlad, J. (1984). A place called school: Prospects for the future. NY: McGraw Hill.
 
*Kielsmeier, J., & Willits, R. (1989). Growing hope: A sourcebook on integrating youth service into the curriculum. St. Paul, MN: National Youth Leadership Council, University of Minnesota.
 
*Kraft, D., & Sakofs, M. (Eds.). (1988). The theory of experiential education. Boulder, CO: Association for Experiential Education.
 
*Lempert, D. and others (1996).  Escape from the ivory tower: Student adventures in democratic experiential education.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
 
*Rohnke, K. (1989). Cowstails and cobras II. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.
 
*Rolzinski, C. (1990). The adventure of adolescence: Middle school students and community service. Washington, DC: Youth Service America.
 
*Sizer, T. (1984). Horace's compromise. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
 
*Wigginton, E. (1985). Sometimes a shining moment: The Foxfire experience. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday.
 
*Zemelman, S., Daniels, H. & Hyde, A. (1998). Best Practice: New Standards for Teaching and Learning in America's Schools. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
 
  
==External links==
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Experiential learning uses various tools like [[game]]s, [[simulation]]s, role plays, [[stories]] in classrooms. The experiential learning mindset changes the way the teachers and students view [[knowledge]]. Knowledge is no longer just some letters on a page. It becomes active, something that is transacted with in life or life-like situations. It starts to make teachers experience providers, and not just transmitters of the written word. Students become knowledge creators (for themselves) as well as knowledge gatherers.
  
* [http://www.aee.org Association for Experiential Education]
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Besides changing student roles, experiential education requires a change in the role of teachers. When students are active learners, their endeavors often take them outside the classroom walls. Because action precedes attempts to synthesize knowledge, teachers generally cannot plan a curriculum unit as a neat, predictable package. Teachers become active learners, too, experimenting together with their students, reflecting upon the learning activities they have designed, and responding to their students' reactions to the activities. In this way, teachers themselves become more active; they come to view themselves as more than just recipients of school district policy and [[curriculum]] decisions.  
* [http://www.wilderdom.com/experiential Experiential Learning & Experiential Education: Philosophy, Theory, Practice & Resources]
 
* [http://www.ericdigests.org/1992-3/changing.htm Changing Schools through Experiential Education. ERIC Digest.] The original version of this Wikipedia article is based on the public domain text at this site.
 
* [http://groups.google.com/group/Experiential-Learning Experiential Learning] - Discussion list.
 
* [http://www.ericdigests.org/1997-4/higher.htm Experiential Learning in Higher Education: Linking Classroom and Community. ERIC Digest.]
 
* [http://www.ericdigests.org/2000-4/voice.htm Incorporating Student Voice into Teaching Practice. ERIC Digest.]
 
* [http://www.ericdigests.org/1995-2/improving.htm Improving Evaluation in Experiential Education. ERIC Digest.]
 
* [http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-2/outdoor.html Outdoor, Experiential, and Environmental Education: Converging or Diverging Approaches? ERIC Digest.]
 
* [http://newhorizons.org/voices/fletcher.htm Broadening the Bounds of Involvement: Transforming Schools With Student Voice. New Horizons for Learning.]
 
* [http://ottervalleyexperientialhighschool.org Otter Valley Experiential High School: Experience Your Education...Experience Your Life.]
 
* [http://www.experiential-learning-games.com Experiential learning through games...Maximize learning through fun experiences]
 
  
[[Cooperative education]] is a structured method of combining academic education with practical work experience.  
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As students and teachers take on new roles, the traditional organizational structures of the school also may meet challenges.<ref>S. Zemelman, H. Daniels, and A. Hyde, ''Best Practice: New Standards for Teaching and Learning in America's Schools'' (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998, ISBN 978-0325000916).</ref> For example, at the Challenger Middle School in [[Colorado Springs]], [[Colorado]], service activities are an integral part of the academic program. Such nontraditional activities require teachers and administrators to look at traditional practices in new ways. For instance, they may consider reorganizing time blocks. They may also teach research methods by involving students in investigations of the community, rather than restricting research activities to the library.<ref>C. Rolzinski, ''The Adventure of Adolescence: Middle School Students and Community Service'' (Washington, DC: Youth Service America, 1990).</ref> At the University Heights Alternative School in [[the Bronx]], the Project Adventure experiential learning program has led the faculty to adopt an all-day time block as an alternative to the traditional 45-minute periods. The faculty now organizes the curriculum by project instead of by separate disciplines. Schools that promote meaningful student involvement actively engage students as partners in education improvement activities. These young people learn while planning, researching, teaching, and making decisions that affect the entire education system.
  
Research indicates that one of the attributes employers value most in newly hired employees is work experience. A cooperative education experience, commonly know as a "co-op", provides academic credit for career work.
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At the university level, including universities like Stanford and the University of California Berkeley, students are often the initiators of courses and demand more role in changing the curriculum and making it truly responsive to their needs. In some cases, universities have offered alternatives for student-designed faculty approved courses.  In other cases, students have formed movements or even their own NGOs like Unseen America Projects, Inc., to promote democratic experiential learning and to design and accredit their own alternative curricula.<ref name=lempert/>
  
Cooperative education is taking on new importance in [[school-to-work transition]], [[service learning]], and [[experiential learning]] initiatives.  
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=== Helping with the transition ===
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At first, these new roles and structures may seem unfamiliar and uncomfortable to both students and adults in the school. Traditionally, students have most often been rewarded for competing rather than cooperating with one another. Teachers are not often called upon for collaborative work either. Teaching has traditionally been an activity carried out in isolation from one's peers, behind closed doors. Principals, used to the traditional hierarchical structure of schools, often do not know how to help their teachers constitute self-managed work teams or how to help teachers coach students to work in cooperative teams. The techniques of experiential education can help students and staff adjust to teamwork, an important part of the process of reforming schools.  
  
This article explores the factors helping and hindering co-op at this juncture in its history, examines how it is being reconceived to meet contemporary needs, and identifies implications for the broader school-to-work (STW) enterprise.
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[[Adventure education]] is one form of experiential education that is highly effective in developing team and group skills in both students and adults.<ref>K. Rohnke, ''Cowstails and cobras II'' (Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1989, ISBN 978-0840354341).</ref> Initially, [[group]]s work to solve problems that are unrelated to the problems in their actual [[school]] environment. For example, in a [[ropes course]] designed to build the skills required by [[teamwork]], a faculty or student [[team]] might work together to get the entire group over a 12-foot wall or through an intricate web of rope. After each challenge in a series of this kind, the group looks at how it functioned as a team. Who took the [[leadership]] roles? Did the [[planning]] process help or hinder progress? Did people listen to one another in the group and use the strengths of all group members? Did everyone feel that the group was a [[support]]ive environment in which they felt comfortable making a contribution and taking [[risks]]?
  
== History of cooperative education ==
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The wall or web of rope can becomes a [[metaphor]] for the [[classroom]] or [[school]] environment. While the problems and challenges of the classroom or school are different from the physical challenges of the adventure activity, many skills needed to respond successfully as a team are the same in both settings.  
===Herman Schneider and the University of Cincinnati===
 
While at [[Lehigh University]] at the beginning of the 20th Century, Herman Schneider ([[1872]]-[[1939]]), engineer, architect, and educator, concluded that the traditional classroom was insufficient for technical students.  (Smollins 1999) Schneider observed that several of the more successful Lehigh graduates had worked to earn money prior to graduation.  Gathering data through interviews of employers and graduates, he devised the framework for cooperative education (1901).  About that time, Carnegie Technical School, now [[Carnegie Mellon University]], opened and thereby minimized the need for Schneider's co-op plan in the region around Lehigh University.  However, in 1903 the [[University of Cincinnati]] appointed Schneider to their faculty, and later, 1906, allowed him an experimental year to implement his plan.  Following that year, the University of Cincinnati gave him full permission for the co-op program.
 
  
Schneider, beginning from the rank of Assistant Professor, would rise through the rank of Dean of Engineering (1906-1928) to become President (1929-32) of the University of Cincinnati, based largely upon the strength of the co-op program.  Throughout his career, he was an advocate for the co-op framework.  His thirty years of service to the University of Cincinnati are partly credited for that institution's worldwide fame.  
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These skills &mdash; [[listening]], recognizing each other's strengths, and [[support]]ing each other through difficulties &mdash; can apply equally well to academic [[problem-solving]] or to school wide improvement efforts.
  
In 1965, [http://www.ceiainc.org/ The Cooperative Education and Internship Association (CEIA)] created "The Dean Herman Schneider Award" in honor of the contributions made by Dean Schneider in cooperative education. The award is given annually to an outstanding educator from faculty or administration.
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== Examples ==
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Examples of experiential education abound in all disciplines. In her 1991 book ''Living Between the Lines,'' [[Lucy Calkins]] noted,
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<blockquote>If we asked our students for the highlight of their school careers, most would choose a time when they dedicated themselves to an endeavor of great importance… I am thinking of youngsters from P.S. 321, who have launched a save-the-tree campaign to prevent the oaks outside their school from being cut down. I am thinking of children who write the school newspaper, act in the school play, organize the playground building committee…. On projects such as these, youngsters will work before school, after school, during lunch. Our youngsters want to work hard on endeavors they deem significant.<ref>Lucy Calkins, ''Living between the Lines'' (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books, Inc., 1991).</ref></blockquote>
  
===Post-Cincinnati evolutions===
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At the professional school level, experiential education is often integrated into curricula in "clinical" courses following the medical school model of "See one, Do one, Teach one" in which students learn by practicing medicine.  This approach is now being introduced in other professions in which skills are directly worked into courses to teach every concept (starting with interviewing, listening skills, negotiation, contract writing and advocacy, for example) to larger scale projects in which students run legal aid clinics or community loan programs, write legislation or community development plans.
  
In [[1909]], seeing the possibility of co-op education, [[Northeastern University]] began using co-op in their engineering program, becoming only the second institution to do so in this country. By 1919, [[Antioch College]] had adapted the co-op practices to their liberal arts curricula, for which reason many called co-op the "Antioch Plan."
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Learning by teaching is integrating behaviorism and cognitivism and offers a coherent frame of theory and practice.
  
In [[1922]], [[Northeastern University]] emphasized its commitment to co-op by extending it to the College of Business Administration. As new colleges opened at Northeastern, such as the College of Liberal Arts (1935) and College of Education (1953), they became co-op schools as well. By the 1980s, Northeastern was the acknowledged leader in co-op education across the world, a distinction that remained throughout the 1990s. (Smollins 1999)
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[[Outdoor education]] happens through organized learning activities occurring in the outdoors, utilizing environmental experiences as a learning tool.<ref>Victor Walsh and Gerald Golins, [https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED144754 The exploration of the Outward Bound process] ''ERIC''. Retrieved May 27, 2021.</ref> [[Service learning]] is the combination of [[community service]] with stated learning goals, relying on experience as the foundation to provide meaning in service.<ref name=furco>Andrew Furco, [https://www.shsu.edu/academics/cce/documents/Service_Learning_Balanced_Approach_To_Experimental_Education.pdf Service-Learning: A Balanced Approach to Experiential Education] ''Expanding Boundaries: Serving and Learning'' (1996}: 1-6. Retrieved May 27, 2021.</ref> [[Cooperative learning]] alters [[heterogeneous]] grouping in order to support diverse [[learning styles]] and needs within a group. [[Active learning]], a term popular in US education circles in the 1980s, places the responsibility of learning on learners themselves, requiring their experience in education to inform their process of learning.<ref name=bonwell>C. Bonwell, and J. Eison, ''Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom'' (Washington, DC: Jossey-Bass, 1991, ISBN 1878380087).</ref> [[Environmental education]] are efforts to educate learners about relationships within the natural environment and how those relationships are interdependent. The experience of being outdoors and learning through doing makes this learning relevant to students.<ref>Joy Palmer, ''Environmental Education in the 21st Century: Theory, Practice, Progress, and Promise'' (New York: Routledge, 1998, ISBN 978-0415131964).</ref>
  
In [[1926]], Dean Schneider invited those interested in forming an Association of Co-operative Colleges (ACC) to the University of Cincinnati for the first convention. The idea took hold, and was followed by three more annual conventions. In 1929, the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, now called [[American Society for Engineering Education]] (ASEE), formed the Division of Cooperative Engineering Education, incorporating the membership of the ACC. (Auld 1972)
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===Active learning===
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'''Active learning''' is an umbrella term that refers to several models of instruction that focus the responsibility of learning on learners. Bonwell popularized this approach to instruction, discussing a variety of methodologies for promoting "active learning."<ref name=bonwell/> However according to Mayer, strategies like “active learning" developed out of the work of an earlier group of theorists—those promoting [[discovery learning]].<ref name=mayer/>
  
In 1961, the Ford and Edison Foundations commissioned a study of co-operative education, published as ''Work-study college programs; appraisal and report of the study of cooperative education,'' (James Warner Wilson and Edward H Lyons, New York: Harper).  The result of that study resulted in the formation of the National Commission for Cooperative Education (NCCE). NCCE remains today to promote and lobby for co-operative education in the United States. Its membership is comprised of sponsoring corporations and organizations (not individuals) from academia and business.
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Active learning is based on the idea that students who actively engage with the material are more likely to recall information later.<ref>Jerome S. Bruner, "The act of discovery" ''Harvard Educational Review'' 31(1) (1961):21–32. </ref> However, simple physical interaction as an aid to learning is not well supported by the literature.<ref name=mayer/><ref name=kirschner/> Rather than being behaviorally active during learning, Mayer suggests learners should be [[cognition|cognitively]] active.<ref name=mayer/>
  
By 1962, about 150 academic institutions used co-op education, in one form or another, many were outside of engineering. The need for professional support of non-engineering programs became obvious, and the membership of ASEE, in 1963, began the Cooperative Education Association. To reflect its membership more accurately, it was eventually (sometime in the 1990s or early 2000s) named the Cooperative Education and Internship Association, it remains today as the professional association for co-operative education outside of ASEE.
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====Active learning exercises====
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Bonwell and Eison suggested learners work in pairs, discuss materials while [[role-playing]], [[debate]], engage in [[case study]], take part in [[cooperative learning]], or produce short written exercises, and so forth.<ref name=bonwell/> While it makes sense to use these techniques as a "follow up" exercise, it does not make sense to use them to introduce material. However it is suggested that instructors guide their students during the early stages of learning, and then later, let them practice their new learned skills or apply new information.
  
Much of that early efforts of NCCE focused on lobbying and promotion of co-operative education.  In 1965, the federal Higher Education Act provided support specifically for co-operative education. Funding continued from the federal government through 1992, when Congress ended its support of co-operative education. In all, a total of over $220 million was appropriated by the federal government toward co-operative education. (Carlson 1999)
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Active learning exercises are only suggested as a review of previously covered subject matter, and should only be used with students that already have a good understanding of the material. They should not be used as an introduction to new material. Examples of "active learning" activities include:
  
In 1979, educators from Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States (Northeastern's President, Kenneth Ryder), met to discuss work-related programs in their respective countries.  In 1981 and 1982, this group, headed by President Ryder, convened an international conference on cooperative education.  In 1983, several college and university presidents, educational specialists, and employers from around the world (including Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, the Philippines, the United States and the United Kingdom) formed the World Council and Assembly on Cooperative Education to foster co-operative education around the world. In 1991, it renamed itself the World Association for Cooperative Education (WACE).  By 2005, that Association boasted a membership of over 1,000 individuals from 43 different countries.
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* A '''class discussion''' may be held in person or in an online environment. Certainly all would agree that these discussions be held between prepared, knowledgeable participants.
  
==Co-op models==
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* A '''think-pair-share''' activity is when learners take a minute to ponder the previous lesson, later to discuss it with one or more of their peers, finally to share it with the class as '''part''' of a formal discussion. It is during this formal discussion that the instructor should clarify misconceptions.
From its beginnings in Cincinnati in 1906, cooperative education has evolved into a program offered at the secondary and postsecondary levels in two predominant models (Grubb and Villeneuve 1995). In one model, students alternate a semester of academic [[coursework]] with an equal amount of time in paid employment, repeating this cycle several times until graduation. The parallel method splits the day between school (usually in the morning) and work (afternoon). Thus, like school-to-work (STW), the co-op model includes school-based and work-based learning and, in the best programs, "connecting activities" such as seminars and teacher-coordinator worksite visits. These activities help students explicitly connect work and learning.  
 
  
Co-op's proponents identify benefits for students (including motivation, career clarity, enhanced employability, vocational maturity) and employers (labor force flexibility, recruitment/retention of trained workers, input into curricula) as well as educational institutions and society (ibid.). Beyond informal and anecdotal evidence, however, a familiar refrain in the literature is the lack of well-done research that empirically demonstrates these benefits (Barton 1996; Wilson, Stull, and Vinsonhaler 1996). Barton (1996) identifies some of the research problems for secondary co-op as follows: federal data collection on high school co-op enrollments and completions ceased in the 1980s; some studies use data in which co-op was not isolated from other work experience programs. Ricks et al. (1993) describe other problems: due to lack of a clear or consistent definition of cooperative education, researchers cannot accurately identify variables and findings cannot be compared; theory is not well developed; theory, research, and practice are not integrated; and co-op research does not adhere to established standards.  
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* A '''short written exercise''' that is often used is the "one minute paper." This is a good way to review materials.
  
Another set of problems involves perceptions of the field and its marginalization. Because of its "vocational" association, co-op is not regarded as academically legitimate; rather, it is viewed as taking time away from the classroom (Crow 1997). Experiential activities are not necessarily rewarded in postsecondary promotion and tenure systems, and co-op faculty may be isolated from other faculty (Crow 1997; Schaafsma 1996). Despite the current emphasis on contextual learning, work is not recognized as a vehicle for learning (Ricks et al. 1993). Schaasfma (1996) and Van Gyn (1996) agree that the field places too much emphasis on placements rather than learning. Wilson, Stull, and Vinsonhaler (1996) also decry the focus on administration, logistics, placements, and procedures.  
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While practice is useful to reinforce learning, problem solving is not always suggested. [[John Sweller]] suggested solving problems can even have negative influence on learning, instead he suggests that learners should study worked-examples, because this is a more efficient method of schema acquisition.<ref name=sweller/> So instructors are cautioned to give learners some basic or initial instruction first, perhaps to be followed up with an activity based upon the above methods.
  
Some institutions are fully dedicated to the co-op ideal (such as [[Rochester Institute of Technology|RIT]], [[Kettering University]], and [[LaGuardia Community College]]). In others, the co-op program may be viewed as an add-on and therefore is vulnerable to cost cutting (Wilson et al. 1996). Even where co-op programs are strong they can be threatened, as at Cincinnati Technical College when it became a comprehensive community college (Grubb and Villeneuve 1995) or [[LaGuardia Community College|LaGuardia]] during a budget crisis (Grubb and Badway 1998). For students, costs and time to degree completion may be deterrents to co-op participation (Grubb and Villeneuve 1995).
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====Active learning method: Learning by teaching====
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A efficient way to mix guidance and active learning is "Learning by teaching." The students teach the new contents each other. Of course they have to be supported by the teachers very accurately. This method was developed in the early 1980s especially in [[Germany]].<ref>Sascha Stollhans, [https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED566918.pdf Learning by Teaching: Developing transferable skills] In Erika Corradini, Kate Borthwick, and Angela Gallagher-Brett (eds.), ''Employability for Languages: A handbook'' (Dublin: Researchpublishing.net, 2016, 978-1908416377).</ref>
  
== Redesigning a co-op for current realities ==
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===Cooperative Education===
Although this is a gloomy picture, there are reasons for optimism about the future of co-op. "Social, economic, and historic forces are making cooperative education more relevant than ever" (ibid., p. 17), including emphasis on university-industry-government cooperation, a fluid and demanding workplace, new technology, the need for continuous on-the-job learning, globalization, and demands for accountability (John, Doherty, and Nichols 1998). Federal investments in school-to-work and community service have resulted in a number of initiatives designed to provide "learning opportunities beyond the classroom walls" (Furco 1996, p. 9). Because this has always been a principle of co-op, the field is in a position to capitalize on its strengths and the ways it complements other experiential methods in the effort to provide meaningful learning opportunities for students. To do this, however, cooperative education must be redesigned.  
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'''Cooperative education''' is a structured method of combining academic education with practical work experience.  
  
For Wilson, Stull, and Vinsonhaler (1996), a new vision involves conceiving, defining, and presenting co-op "as a curriculum model that links work and academics-a model that is based on sound learning theory" (p. 158). Ricks (1996) suggests affirming the work-based learning principles upon which co-op is based. These principles assert that cooperative education fosters self-directed learning, reflective practice, and transformative learning; and integrates school and work learning experiences that are grounded in adult learning theories.  
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The cooperative model originated when Herman Schneider (1872-1939), engineer, architect, and educator at [[Lehigh University]], concluded that the traditional classroom was insufficient for technical students. Schneider observed that several of the more successful Lehigh graduates had worked to earn money prior to graduation. Gathering data through interviews of employers and graduates, he devised the framework for cooperative education. In 1903 the [[University of Cincinnati]] appointed Schneider to their faculty, and later, 1906, allowed him an experimental year to implement his plan. Following that year, the University of Cincinnati gave him full permission for the co-op program. During his thirty years of service to that institution, in which he rose through the rank of Dean of Engineering (1906-1928) to become President (1929-1932), he was an advocate for the co-op framework. His work at the University of Cincinnati is partly credited for that institution's worldwide fame.  
  
Schaafsma (1996) also focuses on learning, seeing a need for a paradigm shift from content learning to greater understanding of learning processes, including reflection and critical thinking. Co-op is an experiential method, but learning from experience is not automatic. Therefore, Van Gyn (1996) recommends strengthening the reflective component that is already a part of some co-op models. "If co-op is only a vehicle for experience to gain information about the workplace and to link technical knowledge with workplace application, then its effectiveness is not fully developed" (p. 125).  
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In 1909, seeing the possibility of co-op education, [[Northeastern University]] began using co-op in their engineering program, becoming only the second institution to do so in this country. By 1919, [[Antioch College]] had adapted the co-op practices to their liberal arts curricula, for which reason many called co-op the "Antioch Plan."
  
== Integrating experiential methods ==
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In 1922, [[Northeastern University]] emphasized its commitment to co-op by extending it to the College of Business Administration. As new colleges opened at Northeastern, such as the College of Liberal Arts (1935) and College of Education (1953), they became co-op schools as well. By the 1980s, Northeastern was the acknowledged leader in co-op education across the world, a distinction that remained throughout the 1990s.
  
School-to-work and service learning have also been promoted as ways to link theory and practice through meaningful experiential learning experiences. Furco (1996) outlines the similarities between school-to-work and service learning. Although school-to-work, service learning, and co-op have different goals, each of his points also applies to cooperative education:
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By 1962, about 150 academic institutions used co-op education, in one form or another, many were outside of engineering. The need for professional support of non-engineering programs became obvious, and the membership of ASEE, in 1963, began the Cooperative Education Association. To reflect its membership more accurately, it was eventually named the Cooperative Education and Internship Association, and it remains today as the professional association for co-operative education outside of ASEE.
  
Based on the philosophy that learners learn best through active engagement in meaningful activities  
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====Co-op models====
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From its beginnings in Cincinnati in 1906, cooperative education has evolved into a program offered at the secondary and postsecondary levels in two predominant models.<ref name=grubbv>W.N. Grubb, and J.C. Villeneuve, ''Co-operative Education in Cincinnati.'' (Berkeley, CA: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, 1995).</ref> In one model, students alternate a semester of academic [[coursework]] with an equal amount of time in paid employment, repeating this cycle several times until graduation. The parallel method splits the day between school (usually in the morning) and work (afternoon). Thus, like school-to-work (STW), the co-op model includes school-based and work-based learning and, in the best programs, "connecting activities" such as seminars and teacher-coordinator worksite visits. These activities help students explicitly connect work and learning.
  
--View of students as active learners and producers of knowledge
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Co-op's proponents identify benefits for students (including motivation, career clarity, enhanced employability, vocational maturity) and employers (labor force flexibility, recruitment/retention of trained workers, input into curricula) as well as educational institutions and society. Beyond informal and anecdotal evidence, however, a familiar refrain in the literature is the lack of well-done research that empirically demonstrates these benefits.<ref name=barton>P.E. Barton, ''Cooperative Education in High School: Promise and Neglect'' (Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 1996).</ref><ref name=wilson>J.W. Wilson, W.A. Stull, and J. Vinsonhaler, "Rethinking Cooperative Education." ''Journal of Cooperative Education'' 31(2-3) (Winter-Spring 1996): 154-165.</ref> 
  
Use of such instructional strategies as contextual learning and application of knowledge to real situations
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Another set of problems involves perceptions of the field and its marginalization. Because of its "vocational" association, co-op is not regarded as academically legitimate; rather, it is viewed as taking time away from the classroom.<ref name=crow>C. Crow, "Cooperative Education in the New Millennium" ''Cooperative Education Experience'' (Columbia, MD: Cooperative Education Association, 1997), 1-5.</ref> Experiential activities are not necessarily rewarded in postsecondary promotion and tenure systems, and co-op faculty may be isolated from other faculty.<ref name=crow/> Despite the current emphasis on contextual learning, work is not recognized as a vehicle for learning.<ref name=ricks>F. Ricks, "Principles for Structuring Cooperative Education Programs" ''Journal of Cooperative Education'' 31(2-3) (Winter-Spring 1996): 8-22.</ref> It may be that the field places too much emphasis on placements rather than learning. Wilson also decries the focus on administration, logistics, placements, and procedures.<ref name=wilson/>
  
Requirement for schools to establish formal partnerships with outside entities
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==== Integrating experiential methods ====
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School-to-work and service learning have also been promoted as ways to link [[theory]] and practice through meaningful experiential learning experiences. Furco outlined the similarities between school-to-work and service learning.<ref name=furco/> Although school-to-work, service learning, and co-op have different goals, each of his points also applies to cooperative education:
  
Concern for integrating school experiences and external experiences  
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*Based on the philosophy that learners learn best through active engagement in meaningful activities
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*View of students as active learners and producers of knowledge
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*Use of such instructional strategies as contextual learning and application of knowledge to real situations
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*Requirement for schools to establish formal partnerships with outside entities
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*Concern for integrating school experiences and external experiences  
  
The Community Service Scholarship Program at California State University-Fresno combines cooperative education with service learning. Students receive co-op/internship credit and scholarships for completing a placement at a community service site (Derousi and Sherwood 1997). As in traditional co-op work placements, students get real-world training, opportunities to explore career options, and enhanced employability skills such as communication, problem solving, and leadership as well as awareness of community and social problems. Combining co-op and service learning thus prepares students for roles as workers and citizens.  
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The Community Service Scholarship Program at California State University-Fresno combines cooperative education with service learning. Students receive co-op/internship credit and scholarships for completing a placement at a community service site.<ref>P. Derousi and C.S. Sherwood, "Community Service Scholarships: Combining Cooperative Education with Service Learning" ''Journal of Cooperative Education'' 33(1) (Fall 1997): 46-54.</ref> As in traditional co-op work placements, students get real-world training, opportunities to explore career options, and enhanced employability skills such as communication, problem solving, and leadership as well as awareness of community and social problems. Combining co-op and service learning thus prepares students for roles as workers and citizens.  
  
Research on highly successful co-op programs in Cincinnati (Grubb and Villeneuve 1995) and at LaGuardia Community College (Grubb and Badway 1998) shows that they share the basic philosophy and fundamental characteristics of the educational strategy of school-to-work. The reconceptualization of co-op should recognize and build upon this connection. At the same time, lessons from successful co-op programs can benefit the broader STW movement.  
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Research on highly successful co-op programs in Cincinnati<ref name=grubbv/> and at LaGuardia Community College<ref name=grubbb>W.N. Grubb, and N. Badway, ''Linking School-Based and Work-Based Learning: The Implications of LaGuardia's Co-op Seminars for School-to-Work Programs'' (Berkeley, CA: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, 1998).</ref> Grubb showed that they share the basic philosophy and fundamental characteristics of the educational strategy of school-to-work. The reconceptualization of co-op should recognize and build upon this connection. At the same time, lessons from successful co-op programs can benefit the broader STW movement.  
  
There is a need for broader definition of acceptable models for integrating work and learning. Barton (1996) and Wilson et al. (1996) identify a variety of work-based learning activities taking different names: co-op, internships, externships, apprenticeship, career academies, etc. Work-based learning programs should look for connections and develop collaborative relationships. The alternating and parallel co-op models may not meet the needs of returning adult students and dislocated workers needing retraining (Varty 1994). Alternatives such as extended-day programs emphasizing mentoring should be considered.  
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There is a need for broader definition of acceptable models for integrating work and learning. Barton and Wilson identified a variety of work-based learning activities taking different names: co-op, internships, externships, [[apprenticeship]], career academies, and so forth.<ref name=barton/><ref name=wilson/> Work-based learning programs should look for connections and develop collaborative relationships. The alternating and parallel co-op models may not meet the needs of returning adult students and dislocated workers needing retraining<ref>J.W. Varty, "Cooperative Education for the '90s and Beyond" ''Co-op/Experience/Co-op'' 5(1) (March 1994)</ref>. Alternatives such as extended-day programs emphasizing mentoring should be considered.  
  
Connecting activities to integrate school- and work-based learning are an essential part of STW. At LaGuardia, the required co-op seminar helps students make connections by giving them a structure within which to reinforce employability skills, examine larger issues about work and society, and undertake the crucial activities of critical reflection (Grubb and Badway 1998).  
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Connecting activities to integrate school- and work-based learning are an essential part of STW. At LaGuardia, the required co-op seminar helps students make connections by giving them a structure within which to reinforce employability skills, examine larger issues about work and society, and undertake the crucial activities of critical reflection.<ref name=grubbb/>
  
Grubb and Badway (1998) and Grubb and Villeneuve (1995) found that the value of cooperative education is embedded in the culture of the institution (LaGuardia) and the region (Cincinnati). In this supportive culture, employer support does not have to be repeatedly obtained and there are clearly understood long-term expectations on all sides (schools, employers, students). This "informal culture of expectations around work-based learning may be more powerful in the long run than a complex set of regulations and bureaucratic requirements" (Grubb and Villeneuve 1995, p. 27).  
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Grubb found that the value of cooperative education is embedded in the culture of the institution (LaGuardia)<ref name=grubbb/> and the region (Cincinnati).<ref name=grubbv/> In this supportive culture, employer support does not have to be repeatedly obtained and there are clearly understood long-term expectations on all sides (schools, employers, students). This "informal culture of expectations around work-based learning may be more powerful in the long run than a complex set of regulations and bureaucratic requirements."<ref name=grubbv/>
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However, even LaGuardia has found it difficult to sustain co-op culture over time.<ref name=grubbb/> "The only way in which STW programs can find a permanent place in schools and colleges is for the work-based component to become so central to the educational purposes of the institutions that it becomes as unthinkable to give it up as it would be to abandon math, English, or science."<ref name=grubbb/>
  
However, even LaGuardia has found it difficult to sustain co-op culture over time (Grubb and Badway 1998). "The only way in which STW programs can find a permanent place in schools and colleges is for the work-based component to become so central to the educational purposes of the institutions that it becomes as unthinkable to give it up as it would be to abandon math, English, or science" (ibid., p. 28).  
+
Finn believes that the answer lies in going beyond reconceiving co-op as an "educational strategy, pedagogy, model, methodology, or curriculum."<ref name=finn> K.L. Finn, "The Spaces Between: Toward a New Paradigm for Cooperative Education" ''Journal of Cooperative Education'' 32 (2) (Winter 1997): 36-45.</ref> She asserts that it is time for cooperative education to develop and define its body of knowledge, investigate its unique phenomena-for example, the concept of learning from experience, and clarify and strengthen the qualifications of co-op practitioners. For Ricks, cooperative education is inherently committed to improving the economy, people's working lives, and lifelong learning abilities.<ref name=ricks/> It can thus position itself to serve the experiential learning needs of students into the twenty-first century.
  
Finn (1997) believes that the answer lies in going beyond reconceiving co-op as an "educational strategy, pedagogy, model, methodology, or curriculum" (Finn 1997, p. 41). She asserts that it is time for cooperative education to develop and define its body of knowledge, investigate its unique phenomena-e.g., the concept of learning from experience, and clarify and strengthen the qualifications of co-op practitioners. For Ricks (1996), cooperative education is inherently committed to improving the economy, people's working lives, and lifelong learning abilities. It can thus position itself to serve the experiential learning needs of students into the 21st century.
+
==== Other examples====
 +
*University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada has the largest co-operative education program in North America, with more than 11,000 students enrolled in co-op programs and more than 3,000 active co-op employers.
 +
*Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts has the largest co-operative education program in the United States of America, and is known as one of the only five-year universities in the United States. Northeastern's Co-Op program has been ranked #1 in the Co-Op and Internships category by [[U.S. News and World Report]].
 +
*Kettering University in Flint, Michigan enrolls students in co-operative education from their first year on campus, specializing in engineering, science, and management degree programs.
  
== See also ==
+
===Service Learning===
*[[University of Waterloo]] in [[Waterloo, Ontario]]  has the largest co-operative education program in North America, with more than 11,000 students enrolled in co-op programs and more than 3,000 active co-op employers.
+
{{Main|Service learning}}
*[[Northeastern University, Boston|Northeastern University]] in [[Boston, MA]] has the largest co-operative education program in the United States of America, and is known as one of the only five-year universities in the United States. Northeastern's Co-Op program has been ranked #1 in the Co-Op and Internships category by [[U.S. News and World Report]].
+
One widely adopted form of experiential education is learning through service to others<ref>J. Kielsmeier and R. Willits, ''Growing Hope: A Sourcebook on Integrating Youth Service into the Curriculum'' (St. Paul, MN: National Youth Leadership Council, University of Minnesota, 1989).</ref>. An example is Project OASES (Occupational and Academic Skills for the Employment of Students) in the [[Pittsburgh]] public schools. Eighth graders, identified as potential [[dropout]]s, spend three periods a day involved in renovating a [[homeless shelter]] as part of a service project carried out within their industrial arts class. Students in programs such as these learn enduring skills such as planning, communicating with a variety of age groups and types of people, and group decision making. In carrying out their activities and in the reflection component afterward, they come to new insights and integrate diverse knowledge from fields such as English, [[political science]], mathematics, and sociology.
*[[Kettering University]] in [[Flint, Michigan]] enrolls students in co-operative education from their first year on campus, specializing in engineering, science, and management degree programs.
 
  
== References ==
+
==Notes==
 +
<references/>
  
Auld, R. B. "The Cooperative Education Movement: Association of Cooperative Colleges." Journal of Cooperative Education (ISSN: 0022-0132), vol. 8, pp. 24-27, 1972.
+
==References==
 +
*Barnes, Louis B., C. Roland Christensen, and Abby J. Hansen. ''Teaching and the Case Method''. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 1994. ISBN 0875844030
 +
* Barton, P.E. ''Cooperative Education in High School: Promise and Neglect.'' Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 1996. 
 +
* Bonwell, C., and J. Eison. ''Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom.'' (AEHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No.1). Washington, DC: Jossey-Bass, 1991. ISBN 1878380087
 +
* Calkins, Lucy. ''Living between the lines.'' Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books, Inc., 1991.
 +
* Clark, Ruth C, Frank Nguyen, and John Sweller. ''Efficiency in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load.'' San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer, 2005. ISBN 978-0787977283
 +
* Corradini, Erika, Kate Borthwick, and Angela Gallagher-Brett (eds.). ''Employability for Languages: A handbook''. Dublin: Researchpublishing.net, 2016. ISBN 978-1908416377
 +
* Dewey, John. ''Experience and Education.'' New York, NY: Free Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0684838281
 +
* Freire, Paulo. ''Pedagogy of the Oppressed.'' New York, NY: Continuum, 2000. ISBN 978-0826412768
 +
* Goodlad, J. ''A Place Called School: Prospects for the Future.'' New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 1984. ISBN 978-0070236271
 +
* Grubb, W.N., and N. Badway. ''Linking School-Based and Work-Based Learning: The Implications of LaGuardia's Co-op Seminars for School-to-Work Programs.'' Berkeley, CA: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, 1998. 
 +
* Grubb, W.N., and J. C. Villeneuve. ''Co-operative Education in Cincinnati.'' Berkeley, CA: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, 1995.
 +
* Kielsmeier, J., and R. Willits. ''Growing Hope: A Sourcebook on Integrating Youth Service into the Curriculum.'' St. Paul, MN: National Youth Leadership Council, University of Minnesota, 1989.
 +
* Kolb, David. ''Experiential Learning: Experience as the source of learning and development''. Pearson FT Press, 2014. ISBN 978-0133892406
 +
* Kraft, D., and M. Sakofs (eds.). ''The Theory of Experiential Education.'' Boulder, CO: Association for Experiential Education, 1988.
 +
* Lempert, D. ''Escape from the Ivory Tower: Student Adventures in Democratic Experiential Education.'' San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1995. ISBN 978-0787901363
 +
* Merriam, Sharan B., and Lisa M. Baumgartner. ''Learning in Adulthood: A Comprehensive Guide''. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2020. ISBN 1119490480
 +
* Palmer, Joy. ''Environmental Education in the 21st Century: Theory, Practice, Progress, and Promise''. New York: Routledge, 1998. ISBN 978-0415131971
 +
* Rogers, Carl R. ''Freedom to Learn: A View of What Education Might Become.'' C.E. Merrill Pub. Co., 1969. ISBN 978-0675095198
 +
* Rohnke, K. ''Cowstails and cobras II.'' Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1989. ISBN 978-0840354341
 +
* Rolzinski, C. ''The Adventure of Adolescence: Middle School Students and Community Service.'' Washington, DC: Youth Service America, 1990.
 +
* Sizer, T. ''Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School.'' Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. ISBN 978-0618516063
 +
* Zemelman, S., H. Daniels, and A. Hyde. ''Best Practice: New Standards for Teaching and Learning in America's Schools.'' Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998. ISBN 978-0325000916
  
Barton, P. E. Cooperative Education in High School: Promise and Neglect. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 1996. (ED 400 413)
+
==External links==
 
+
All links retrieved March 23, 2024.
Carlson, A. Co-op Planet: Organizations at N.U. Plant Co-op's Seeds Far and Wide. Northeastern University Magazine. Boston, MA: Northeastern University (Office of University Relations). May 1992. Downloaded July 12, 2005, from http://www.numag.neu.edu/9905/wase.html.
 
 
 
Crow, C. "Cooperative Education in the New Millennium." Cooperative Education Experience, pp. 1-5. Columbia, MD: Cooperative Education Association, 1997. (ED 414 433)
 
 
 
Derousi, P., and Sherwood, C. S. "Community Service Scholarships: Combining Cooperative Education with Service Learning." Journal of Cooperative Education 33, no. 1 (Fall 1997): 46-54. (EJ 565 927)
 
 
 
Finn, K. L. "The Spaces Between: Toward a New Paradigm for Cooperative Education." Journal of Cooperative Education 32, no. 2 (Winter 1997): 36-45. (EJ 542 265)
 
 
 
Freeland, R. M.; Marini, R. C.; and Weighart, S. "Moving Partnerships between Co-op Institutions and Co-op Employers into the Next Century." Journal of Cooperative Education 33, no. 2 (Winter 1998): 17-27.
 
 
 
Furco, A. "Service Learning and School-to-Work." Journal of Cooperative Education 32, no. 1 (Fall 1996): 7-14.
 
 
 
Grubb, W. N., and Badway, N. Linking School-Based and Work-Based Learning: The Implications of LaGuardia's Co-op Seminars for School-to-Work Programs. Berkeley, CA: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, 1998. (ED 418 230)
 
 
 
Grubb, W. N., and Villeneuve, J. C. Co-operative Education in Cincinnati. Berkeley, CA: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, 1995.
 
 
 
John, J. E. A.; Doherty, D. J.; and Nichols, R. M. "Challenges and Opportunities for Cooperative Education." Journal of Cooperative Education 33, no. 2 (Winter 1998): 10-16.
 
 
 
Ricks, F. "Principles for Structuring Cooperative Education Programs." Journal of Cooperative Education 31, nos. 2-3 (Winter-Spring 1996): 8-22. (EJ 524 105)
 
 
 
Ricks, F.; Cutt, J.; Branton, G.; Loken, M.; and Van Gyn, G. "Reflections on the Cooperative Education Literature." Journal of Cooperative Education 29, no. 1 (Fall 1993): 6-23. (EJ 475 316)
 
 
 
Schaafsma, H. "Reflections of a Visiting Co-op Practitioner." Journal of Cooperative Education 31, nos. 2-3 (Winter-Spring 1996): 83-100. (EJ 524 109)
 
 
 
Smollins, J.P.  "The Making of the History: Ninety Years of Northeastern Co-op."  Northeastern University Magazine.  Boston, MA: Northeastern University (Office of University Relations).  May, 1999.  Downloaded July 12, 2005, from http://www.numag.neu.edu/9905/history.html.
 
 
 
Van Gyn, G. H. "Reflective Practice: The Needs of Professions and the Promise of Cooperative Education." Journal of Cooperative Education 31, nos. 2-3 (Winter-Spring 1996): 103-131. (EJ 524 110)
 
 
 
Varty, J. W. "Cooperative Education for the '90s and Beyond." Co-op/Experience/Co-op 5, no. 1 (March 1994): 10-11. (EJ 478 859)
 
 
 
Wilson, J. W.; Stull, W. A.; and Vinsonhaler, J. "Rethinking Cooperative Education." Journal of Cooperative Education 31, nos. 2-3 (Winter-Spring 1996): 154-165. (EJ 524 112)
 
 
 
== External links ==
 
*[http://www.ceiainc.org/ Cooperative Education and Internship Association (CEIA)].
 
 
 
*[http://www.co-op.edu/ National Commission for Cooperative Education (NCCE)]
 
 
 
*[http://www.profpractice.gatech.edu/ced/ Cooperative Education Division (CED)] of the [http://www.asee.org/ American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE)]
 
 
 
* [http://www.ericdigests.org/2000-2/new.htm New Directions for Cooperative Education. ERIC Digest.] The original version of this Wikipedia article is based on the public domain text at this site.
 
* [http://www.ratemycoop.com Co-op Student Reviews]
 
 
 
* [http://www.numag.neu.edu/9905/history.html Ninety Years of Northeastern Co-op.]
 
 
 
* [http://www.wisdomworld.org/additional/ListOfCollatedArticles/IntuitiveEducators.html ''Theosophy,'' Vol. 43, No. 5, March, 1955 (Pages 218-225) Intuitive Educators: Herman Schneider 1872—1939.]
 
 
 
'''Active learning''', as the name suggests, is a process whereby learners are actively engaged in the learning process, rather than "passively" absorbing lectures.  Active learning involves [[Reading (activity)|reading]], [[writing]], discussion, and engagement in solving problems, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
 
 
 
Active learning often involves '''team-based learning''', also known as '''cooperative learning''', wherein partners or group members work together to solve problems. This ensures that students really understand the concepts being covered. Team learning is especially beneficial in that ‘weaker’ students are presented with the material from a source other than the professor (i.e. their partner/group mates) and ‘stronger’ students reinforce their knowledge by explaining the material to others.
 
 
 
==Why is active learning important?==
 
 
 
Research has consistently shown that traditional lecture methods, in which [[professor]]s talk and [[student]]s listen, dominate [[college]] and [[university]] classrooms. It is therefore important to know the nature of active learning, the [[empirical]] research on its use, the common obstacles and barriers that give rise to [[Faculty (university)|faculty]] members' resistance to interactive instructional techniques, and how faculty, faculty developers, administrators, and educational researchers can make real the promise of active learning.
 
 
 
Until recently there has been no common definition of "active learning." Consequently, many believe that all learning is [[inherently]] active and that students are therefore "actively involved" while listening to formal presentations in the classroom.
 
 
 
Research suggests that the use of active learning techniques (as defined in the introduction) may have a positive impact upon students' learning. For example, several studies have shown that students prefer strategies that promote active learning rather than [[traditional]] lectures. Other research evaluating students' achievement has demonstrated that many strategies promoting active learning are comparable to lectures in promoting the mastery of content but superior to lectures in promoting the development of students' skills in thinking and writing.
 
 
 
Further, some cognitive research has shown that a significant number of individuals have learning styles best served by [[pedagogical]] techniques other than lecturing. Development and implementation of these techniques requires that teachers become knowledgeable about active learning strategies and alternative approaches to instruction.
 
 
 
==How can active learning be incorporated in the classroom?==
 
 
 
The modification of traditional lectures (Penner 1984) is one way to incorporate active learning in the classroom. Research has demonstrated, for example, that if a faculty member allows students to consolidate their notes by pausing three times for two minutes each during a lecture, students will learn significantly more information (Ruhl, Hughes, and Schloss 1987). Two other simple yet effective ways to involve students during a lecture are to insert brief demonstrations or short, ungraded writing exercises followed by class discussion.
 
 
 
Certain alternatives to the lecture format further increase student level of engagement: (1) the '''feedback lecture''', which consists of two minilectures separated by a small-group study session built around a study guide, and (2) the '''guided lecture''', in which students listen to a 20- to 30-minute presentation without taking notes, followed by their writing for five minutes what they remember and spending the remainder of the class period in small groups clarifying and elaborating the material.
 
 
 
Discussion in class is one of the most common strategies promoting active learning, with good reason. If the objectives of a course are to promote long-term retention of information, to motivate students toward further learning, to allow students to apply information in new settings, or to develop students' thinking skills, then discussion is preferable to lecture (McKeachie et al. 1986). Research has suggested, however, that to achieve these goals faculty must be knowledgeable of alternative techniques and strategies for questioning and discussion (Hyman 1980) and must create a supportive intellectual and emotional environment that encourages students to take risks (Lowman 1984).
 
 
 
Several additional strategies promoting active learning have been similarly shown to favorably influence students' attitudes and achievement. [[Visual]]-based instruction, for example, can provide a helpful focal point for other interactive techniques. In-class writing is another way to involve students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing. Two popular instructional strategies based on problem-solving model include the case study method of instruction and '''Guided Design'''. Other active learning pedagogies include [[debate]]s, [[drama]], [[role playing]] and [[simulation]], and peer teaching.
 
 
 
It may be implemented by giving students topics they could research and make papers about it.
 
 
 
==What are the barriers?==
 
 
 
Certain specific obstacles are associated with the use of active learning, including limited class time; a possible increase in preparation time; the potential difficulty of using active learning in large classes; and a lack of needed materials, equipment, or resources.
 
 
 
Perhaps the single greatest barrier of all, however, is the fact that faculty members' efforts to employ active learning involve risk—the risks that students will not participate, use higher-order thinking, or learn sufficient content, that faculty members will feel a loss of control, lack necessary skills, or be criticized for teaching in unorthodox ways. Each obstacle or barrier and type of risk, however, can be successfully overcome through careful, thoughtful planning.
 
 
 
==What conclusions should be drawn, and what recommendations made?==
 
  
An excellent first step is to select strategies promoting active learning that one can feel comfortable with. Such low-risk strategies are typically of short duration, structured and planned, focused on subject matter that is neither too abstract nor too controversial, and familiar to both the faculty member and the students.
+
* [https://experientiallearninginstitute.org/resources/what-is-experiential-learning/ What Is Experiential Learning?] ''Institute for Experiential Learning''
 
+
* [https://www.aee.org/ Association for Experiential Education]  
Faculty developers can help stimulate and support faculty members' efforts to change by highlighting the instructional importance of active learning in the newsletters and publications they distribute. Further, the use of active learning should become both the subject matter of faculty development workshops and the instructional method used to facilitate such programs. And it is important that faculty developers recognize the need to provide follow-up to, and support for, faculty members' efforts to change.
+
* [http://www.bu.edu/ctl/guides/experiential-learning/ Experiential Learning] ''Center for Teaching & Learning'', Boston University.
 
+
* [https://www.wgu.edu/blog/experiential-learning-theory2006.html#openSubscriberModal Experiential learning theory] ''Western Governors University''
Academic administrators can help these initiatives by recognizing and rewarding excellent teaching in general and the adoption of instructional innovations in particular. Comprehensive programs to demonstrate this type of administrative commitment (Cochran 1989) should address institutional employment policies and practices, the allocation of adequate resources for instructional development, and the development of strategic administrative action plans.
+
* [http://www.experiential-learning-games.com/ Experiential learning Games]
 
 
Equally important is the need for more rigorous research to provide a scientific foundation to guide future practices in the classroom. Currently, most published articles on active learning have been descriptive accounts rather than empirical investigations, many are out of date, either chronologically or methodologically, and a large number of important conceptual issues have never been explored. New qualitative and quantitative research should examine strategies that enhance students' learning from presentations; explore the impact of previously overlooked, yet educationally significant, characteristics of students, such as gender, different learning styles, or stage of intellectual development; and be disseminated in journals widely read by faculty.
 
 
 
In retrospect, it appears that previous classroom initiatives and written materials about active learning have all too often been isolated and fragmented. The resulting pedagogical efforts have therefore lacked coherence, and the goal of interactive classrooms has remained unfulfilled. Through the coordinated efforts of individual faculty, faculty developers, academic administrators, and educational researchers, however, higher education in the coming decade CAN make real the promise of active learning!
 
 
 
 
 
==Selected References==
 
*Chickering, Arthur W., and Zelda F. Gamson. March 1987. "Seven Principles for Good Practice." AAHE Bulletin 39: 3-7. ED 282 491. 6 pp. MF-01; PC-01.
 
Cochran, Leslie H. 1989. Administrative Commitment to Teaching. Cape Girardeau, Mo.: Step Up, Inc.
 
*Hyman, Ronald T. 1980. Improving Discussion Leadership. New York: Columbia Univ., Teachers College Press.
 
*Lorenzen, Michael. 2001. Active Learning and Library Instruction. Illinois Libraries, 83, no. 2: 19-24.
 
*Lowman, Joseph. 1984. Mastering the Techniques of Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
 
*McKeachie, Wilbert J., Paul R. Pintrich, Yi-Guang Lin, and David A.F. Smith. 1986. Teaching and Learning in the College Classroom: A Review of the Research Literature. Ann Arbor: Regents of The Univ. of Michigan. ED 314 999. 124 pp. MF-01; PC-05.
 
*Penner, Jon G. 1984. Why Many College Teachers Cannot Lecture. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas.
 
*Ruhl, Kathy L., Charles A. Hughes, and Patrick J. Schloss. Winter 1987. "Using the Pause Procedure to Enhance Lecture Recall." Teacher Education and Special Education 10: 14-18.
 
 
 
==External links==
 
* [http://www.ericdigests.org/1992-4/active.htm Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom. ERIC Digest.] The original version of this article is from this public domain site.
 
* [http://www.ericdigests.org/2000-2/new.htm New Directions for Cooperative Education. ERIC Digest.]
 
* [http://www.ericdigests.org/1995-1/elements.htm The Essential Elements of Cooperative Learning in the Classroom. ERIC Digest.]
 
* [http://www.geoffpetty.com/activelearning.html Active learning section of Geoff Petty's practical guide on improving teaching and learning.]
 
* [http://www.libraryinstruction.com/active.html Active Learning and Library Instruction]
 
  
 +
===Active Learning===
 +
* Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom ''ERIC Digest''.
 +
* [http://geoffpetty.com/for-teachers/active-learning/ Active learning] Geoff Petty's practical guide on improving teaching and learning
  
 +
===Cooperative Education===
 +
* New Directions for Cooperative Education ''ERIC Digests''.
 +
* [https://www.ericdigests.org/1995-1/elements.htm The Essential Elements of Cooperative Learning in the Classroom] ''ERIC Digests''.
 +
*[https://www.ceiainc.org/ Cooperative Education and Internship Association (CEIA)].
 +
* [https://www.ericdigests.org/1995-1/elements.htm The Essential Elements of Cooperative Learning in the Classroom] ''ERIC Digests''.
  
{{Credit3|Experiential_education|47697610|Cooperative_education|44821172|Active_learning|47022084|}}
+
{{Credit3|Experiential_education|47697610|Cooperative_education|44821172|Active_learning|174000804|}}

Latest revision as of 23:56, 24 March 2024


A child learning the countries of Asia by experience rather than by rote learning.

Experiential education (or "learning by doing") is the process of actively engaging students in an authentic experience that will have benefits and consequences. Students make discoveries and experiment with knowledge themselves instead of only hearing or reading about the experiences of others. Students also reflect on their experiences, thus developing new skills, new attitudes, and new theories or ways of thinking. Experiential education is related to the constructivist learning theory.

Experiential education changes schools because it requires new roles of students, teachers, and administrators. It can provide a different, more engaging way of treating academic content through the combination of action and reflection. Experiential education empowers students to take responsibility for their own learning. It can also provide a process for helping all those involved in schooling become more comfortable with the unfamiliar roles commonly proposed for restructured schools.

While experiential education has proved itself of value in many situations, it cannot replace all forms of education. Human beings are able to learn from others, without having to repeat every discovery on their own. Equally, applying experiential learning without a clear understanding of the conceptual basis, for example by simply having students be physically active without ensuring that they are cognitively processing the information has little benefit in learning. For some types of learners, and some types of material, the active learning experience may be the optimal teaching method; for other types of learners and other types of material, however, the more traditional academic methods still have their place. A balance between different methodologies is needed to ensure the best learning opportunity for all.

Historical development

Experiential education is a philosophy of education that focuses on the transactive process between teacher and student involved in direct experience with the learning environment and content.[1] The Association for Experiential Education regards experiential education "as a philosophy and methodology in which educators purposefully engage with learners in direct experience and focused reflection in order to increase knowledge, develop skills and clarify values."[2]

John Dewey was the most famous proponent of experiential education, perhaps paving the course for all future activities in his seminal Experience and Education, first published in 1938. Dewey's fame during that period rested on relentlessly critiquing public education and pointing out that the authoritarian, strict, pre-ordained knowledge approach of modern traditional education was too concerned with delivering knowledge, and not enough with understanding students' actual experiences.

Experiential education differs from much traditional education in that teachers first immerse students in action and then ask them to reflect on the experience. In traditional education, teachers set the knowledge to be learned (including analysis and synthesis) before students. They hope students will subsequently find ways to apply the knowledge. Dewey's work went on to influence dozens of other influential experiential education models and advocates, including Foxfire,[3] service learning,[4] Kurt Hahn and Outward Bound,[5] among others.

Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator and the father of modern critical pedagogy, is often cited in relationship to experiential education.[6] Freire was largely focused on the active involvement in students in real experience, radical democracy, and the creation of praxis among learners.

Despite the efforts of many efforts at progressive educational reform, reports by researchers such as Goodlad[7] and Sizer [8] suggest that most teaching, particularly at the high school level, still involves the teacher as purveyor of knowledge and the student as passive recipient.

Theoretical underpinnings

John Dewey

In Democracy and Education, John Dewey attempted to synthesize, criticize, and expand upon the democratic or proto-democratic educational philosophies of Rousseau and Plato. He saw Rousseau as overemphasizing the individual and Plato as overemphasizing the society in which the individual lived. For Dewey, this distinction was, by and large, a false one; like Lev Vygotsky, he viewed the mind and its formation as communal process. Thus, the individual is only a meaningful concept when regarded as an inextricable part of his or her society, and the society has no meaning apart from its realization in the lives of its individual members. However, as evidenced in his later Experience and Nature, Dewey recognizes the importance of the subjective experience of individual people in introducing revolutionary new ideas.

As a pragmatist, Dewey felt it was vitally important that education not be the teaching of mere dead fact but that the skills and knowledge that students learn be integrated fully into their lives as persons, citizens, and human beings. At the Laboratory Schools that Dewey and his wife Alice ran at the University of Chicago, children learned much of their early chemistry, physics, and biology by investigating the natural processes that went into cooking breakfast—an activity they did in their classes. Dewey firmly held that one does not learn solely through memorization of theories and facts, but through experience. Thus he coined the term “learning by doing.”

His ideas were quite popular but were never really integrated into the practices of American public schools, though some of his values and terms were widespread. Progressive education (both as espoused by Dewey, and in the more popular and inept forms of which Dewey was critical) was essentially scrapped during the Cold War, when the dominant concern in education was creating and sustaining a scientific and technological elite for military purposes. In the post-Cold War period, however, progressive education has reemerged in many school reform and education theory circles as a thriving field of inquiry.

Carl Rogers

Carl Rogers made significant contributions to the field of education with his theory of experiential learning. He maintained that all human beings have a natural desire to learn. Therefore, failure to learn is not due to the person's inability to learn, but rather to problems with the learning situation.

Rogers defined two categories of learning: cognitive (meaningless) learning, which involves academic knowledge, such as multiplication tables, and experiential (significant) learning, which is applied knowledge, such as how to repair a car. The key distinction is that experiential learning addresses the needs and wants of the learner, and thus has the qualities of personal involvement, self-initiation, self-evaluation, and long-lasting effects.

To Rogers, experiential learning is equivalent to personal development. In his view, all human beings posses the natural propensity to learn, and it is the teacher's role to facilitate that learning by encouraging, clarifying, and organizing learning resources, but not to impose their own view of knowledge on their students. Rogers suggested that learning is facilitated

  1. when the student participates in the learning process, having control over its nature and direction
  2. when learning is primarily based on confrontation with real problems, whether they be social, personal, scientific, or practical
  3. when students are required to use self-evaluation to assess their progress.[9]

Experiential education, or "learning by doing," is the process of actively engaging students in an authentic experience that has benefits and consequences. Students make discoveries and experiment with knowledge themselves, instead of hearing or reading about the experiences of others. Students also reflect on their experiences, thus developing new skills, attitudes, and ways of thinking.[10]

Experiential education empowers students to take responsibility for their own learning. Whether teachers employ experiential education in service learning, environmental education, or more traditional school subjects, it involves engaging student "voice" in active roles for the purpose of learning.

The caveat in the experiential learning situation is that while the content of much of what we need to learn is desirable and amenable to the experiential approach, there are many things that people, especially children, may not want to learn, but are necessary in order to function fully as adults in human society. Allowing children to decide that certain "meaningless" knowledge need not be learned, reduces the job of teachers to mere supports in their students' learning process, taking away their role in guiding education to fulfill the larger purpose determined by society.

David Kolb

David Kolb's experiential learning model focuses on the learning process for the individual. One example of experiential learning is going to the zoo and learning through observation and interaction with the zoo environment, as opposed to reading about animals from a book. Thus, one makes discoveries and experiments with knowledge firsthand, instead of hearing or reading about others' experiences. Likewise, in business school, internship, and job-shadowing, opportunities in a student's field of interest can provide valuable experiential learning which contributes significantly to the student's overall understanding of the real-world environment.[11]

A third example of experiential learning involves learning how to ride a bike,[12] a process which can illustrate the four-step experiential learning model (ELM) as set forth by Kolb and outlined in Figure 1 below. Following this example, in the "concrete experience" stage, the learner physically interacts with the bike in the "here and now".[13] This experience forms "the basis for observation and reflection" and the learner has the opportunity to consider what is working or failing (reflective observation), and to think about ways to improve on the next attempt made at riding (abstract conceptualization). Every new attempt to ride is informed by a cyclical pattern of previous experience, thought and reflection (active experimentation).[13]

Figure 1 – David Kolb's Experiential Learning Model (ELM)[14]

Concrete Experience
Active Experimentation Reflective Observation
Abstract Conceptualization

Experiential learning can occur without a teacher and relates solely to the meaning-making process of the individual's direct experience. However, though the gaining of knowledge is an inherent process that occurs naturally, a genuine learning experience requires certain elements. According to Kolb, knowledge is continuously gained through both personal and environmental experiences.[15] Kolb states that in order to gain genuine knowledge from an experience, the learner must have four abilities:

  • The learner must be willing to be actively involved in the experience;
  • The learner must be able to reflect on the experience;
  • The learner must possess and use analytical skills to conceptualize the experience; and
  • The learner must possess decision making and problem solving skills in order to use the new ideas gained from the experience.

Application

The efficacy of active instructional techniques has been questioned by several researchers.[16][17] Certainly practicing procedural skills is a necessity for learning to be automated. But while these activities may be motivating for learners, unguided situations can in fact leave learners less competent than when they began the activity.[17]

Should practice happen before, or even during initial learning? Unfortunately, some instructors develop unguided course activities and expect novice learners to learn from these experiences. Those promoting ‘Active learning’ strategies assume learners need little guidance. However, guidance is a necessary part of instruction, and provides a more efficient learning experience for novice learners.

Self guided instruction may be arduous and clumsy, and often less than efficient.[18] Sweller suggests learners should study worked-examples because this is a more efficient method of initial instruction,[19] finding that learners who studied worked examples performed significantly better than learners who actively solved problems.[18] This was later called the "worked example effect."[20] It relies upon strong guidance from the instructor, as opposed to the minimally guided situations, often found in "active learning" based instruction.[17]

Change in Roles and Structures

Whether teachers employ experiential education in cultural journalism, service learning, environmental education, or more traditional school subjects, its key idea involves engaging student voice in active roles for the purpose of learning. Students participate in a real activity with real consequences for the purpose of meeting learning objectives.

Some experts in the field make the distinction between "democratic experiential education" in which students help design curricula and run their own projects and even do their own grading (through objective contracted standards) and other forms of "experiential education" that put students in existing organizations in inferior roles (such as service learning and internships) or in which faculty design the field work.[21]

Experiential learning uses various tools like games, simulations, role plays, stories in classrooms. The experiential learning mindset changes the way the teachers and students view knowledge. Knowledge is no longer just some letters on a page. It becomes active, something that is transacted with in life or life-like situations. It starts to make teachers experience providers, and not just transmitters of the written word. Students become knowledge creators (for themselves) as well as knowledge gatherers.

Besides changing student roles, experiential education requires a change in the role of teachers. When students are active learners, their endeavors often take them outside the classroom walls. Because action precedes attempts to synthesize knowledge, teachers generally cannot plan a curriculum unit as a neat, predictable package. Teachers become active learners, too, experimenting together with their students, reflecting upon the learning activities they have designed, and responding to their students' reactions to the activities. In this way, teachers themselves become more active; they come to view themselves as more than just recipients of school district policy and curriculum decisions.

As students and teachers take on new roles, the traditional organizational structures of the school also may meet challenges.[22] For example, at the Challenger Middle School in Colorado Springs, Colorado, service activities are an integral part of the academic program. Such nontraditional activities require teachers and administrators to look at traditional practices in new ways. For instance, they may consider reorganizing time blocks. They may also teach research methods by involving students in investigations of the community, rather than restricting research activities to the library.[23] At the University Heights Alternative School in the Bronx, the Project Adventure experiential learning program has led the faculty to adopt an all-day time block as an alternative to the traditional 45-minute periods. The faculty now organizes the curriculum by project instead of by separate disciplines. Schools that promote meaningful student involvement actively engage students as partners in education improvement activities. These young people learn while planning, researching, teaching, and making decisions that affect the entire education system.

At the university level, including universities like Stanford and the University of California Berkeley, students are often the initiators of courses and demand more role in changing the curriculum and making it truly responsive to their needs. In some cases, universities have offered alternatives for student-designed faculty approved courses. In other cases, students have formed movements or even their own NGOs like Unseen America Projects, Inc., to promote democratic experiential learning and to design and accredit their own alternative curricula.[21]

Helping with the transition

At first, these new roles and structures may seem unfamiliar and uncomfortable to both students and adults in the school. Traditionally, students have most often been rewarded for competing rather than cooperating with one another. Teachers are not often called upon for collaborative work either. Teaching has traditionally been an activity carried out in isolation from one's peers, behind closed doors. Principals, used to the traditional hierarchical structure of schools, often do not know how to help their teachers constitute self-managed work teams or how to help teachers coach students to work in cooperative teams. The techniques of experiential education can help students and staff adjust to teamwork, an important part of the process of reforming schools.

Adventure education is one form of experiential education that is highly effective in developing team and group skills in both students and adults.[24] Initially, groups work to solve problems that are unrelated to the problems in their actual school environment. For example, in a ropes course designed to build the skills required by teamwork, a faculty or student team might work together to get the entire group over a 12-foot wall or through an intricate web of rope. After each challenge in a series of this kind, the group looks at how it functioned as a team. Who took the leadership roles? Did the planning process help or hinder progress? Did people listen to one another in the group and use the strengths of all group members? Did everyone feel that the group was a supportive environment in which they felt comfortable making a contribution and taking risks?

The wall or web of rope can becomes a metaphor for the classroom or school environment. While the problems and challenges of the classroom or school are different from the physical challenges of the adventure activity, many skills needed to respond successfully as a team are the same in both settings.

These skills — listening, recognizing each other's strengths, and supporting each other through difficulties — can apply equally well to academic problem-solving or to school wide improvement efforts.

Examples

Examples of experiential education abound in all disciplines. In her 1991 book Living Between the Lines, Lucy Calkins noted,

If we asked our students for the highlight of their school careers, most would choose a time when they dedicated themselves to an endeavor of great importance… I am thinking of youngsters from P.S. 321, who have launched a save-the-tree campaign to prevent the oaks outside their school from being cut down. I am thinking of children who write the school newspaper, act in the school play, organize the playground building committee…. On projects such as these, youngsters will work before school, after school, during lunch. Our youngsters want to work hard on endeavors they deem significant.[25]

At the professional school level, experiential education is often integrated into curricula in "clinical" courses following the medical school model of "See one, Do one, Teach one" in which students learn by practicing medicine. This approach is now being introduced in other professions in which skills are directly worked into courses to teach every concept (starting with interviewing, listening skills, negotiation, contract writing and advocacy, for example) to larger scale projects in which students run legal aid clinics or community loan programs, write legislation or community development plans.

Learning by teaching is integrating behaviorism and cognitivism and offers a coherent frame of theory and practice.

Outdoor education happens through organized learning activities occurring in the outdoors, utilizing environmental experiences as a learning tool.[26] Service learning is the combination of community service with stated learning goals, relying on experience as the foundation to provide meaning in service.[27] Cooperative learning alters heterogeneous grouping in order to support diverse learning styles and needs within a group. Active learning, a term popular in US education circles in the 1980s, places the responsibility of learning on learners themselves, requiring their experience in education to inform their process of learning.[28] Environmental education are efforts to educate learners about relationships within the natural environment and how those relationships are interdependent. The experience of being outdoors and learning through doing makes this learning relevant to students.[29]

Active learning

Active learning is an umbrella term that refers to several models of instruction that focus the responsibility of learning on learners. Bonwell popularized this approach to instruction, discussing a variety of methodologies for promoting "active learning."[28] However according to Mayer, strategies like “active learning" developed out of the work of an earlier group of theorists—those promoting discovery learning.[16]

Active learning is based on the idea that students who actively engage with the material are more likely to recall information later.[30] However, simple physical interaction as an aid to learning is not well supported by the literature.[16][17] Rather than being behaviorally active during learning, Mayer suggests learners should be cognitively active.[16]

Active learning exercises

Bonwell and Eison suggested learners work in pairs, discuss materials while role-playing, debate, engage in case study, take part in cooperative learning, or produce short written exercises, and so forth.[28] While it makes sense to use these techniques as a "follow up" exercise, it does not make sense to use them to introduce material. However it is suggested that instructors guide their students during the early stages of learning, and then later, let them practice their new learned skills or apply new information.

Active learning exercises are only suggested as a review of previously covered subject matter, and should only be used with students that already have a good understanding of the material. They should not be used as an introduction to new material. Examples of "active learning" activities include:

  • A class discussion may be held in person or in an online environment. Certainly all would agree that these discussions be held between prepared, knowledgeable participants.
  • A think-pair-share activity is when learners take a minute to ponder the previous lesson, later to discuss it with one or more of their peers, finally to share it with the class as part of a formal discussion. It is during this formal discussion that the instructor should clarify misconceptions.
  • A short written exercise that is often used is the "one minute paper." This is a good way to review materials.

While practice is useful to reinforce learning, problem solving is not always suggested. John Sweller suggested solving problems can even have negative influence on learning, instead he suggests that learners should study worked-examples, because this is a more efficient method of schema acquisition.[19] So instructors are cautioned to give learners some basic or initial instruction first, perhaps to be followed up with an activity based upon the above methods.

Active learning method: Learning by teaching

A efficient way to mix guidance and active learning is "Learning by teaching." The students teach the new contents each other. Of course they have to be supported by the teachers very accurately. This method was developed in the early 1980s especially in Germany.[31]

Cooperative Education

Cooperative education is a structured method of combining academic education with practical work experience.

The cooperative model originated when Herman Schneider (1872-1939), engineer, architect, and educator at Lehigh University, concluded that the traditional classroom was insufficient for technical students. Schneider observed that several of the more successful Lehigh graduates had worked to earn money prior to graduation. Gathering data through interviews of employers and graduates, he devised the framework for cooperative education. In 1903 the University of Cincinnati appointed Schneider to their faculty, and later, 1906, allowed him an experimental year to implement his plan. Following that year, the University of Cincinnati gave him full permission for the co-op program. During his thirty years of service to that institution, in which he rose through the rank of Dean of Engineering (1906-1928) to become President (1929-1932), he was an advocate for the co-op framework. His work at the University of Cincinnati is partly credited for that institution's worldwide fame.

In 1909, seeing the possibility of co-op education, Northeastern University began using co-op in their engineering program, becoming only the second institution to do so in this country. By 1919, Antioch College had adapted the co-op practices to their liberal arts curricula, for which reason many called co-op the "Antioch Plan."

In 1922, Northeastern University emphasized its commitment to co-op by extending it to the College of Business Administration. As new colleges opened at Northeastern, such as the College of Liberal Arts (1935) and College of Education (1953), they became co-op schools as well. By the 1980s, Northeastern was the acknowledged leader in co-op education across the world, a distinction that remained throughout the 1990s.

By 1962, about 150 academic institutions used co-op education, in one form or another, many were outside of engineering. The need for professional support of non-engineering programs became obvious, and the membership of ASEE, in 1963, began the Cooperative Education Association. To reflect its membership more accurately, it was eventually named the Cooperative Education and Internship Association, and it remains today as the professional association for co-operative education outside of ASEE.

Co-op models

From its beginnings in Cincinnati in 1906, cooperative education has evolved into a program offered at the secondary and postsecondary levels in two predominant models.[32] In one model, students alternate a semester of academic coursework with an equal amount of time in paid employment, repeating this cycle several times until graduation. The parallel method splits the day between school (usually in the morning) and work (afternoon). Thus, like school-to-work (STW), the co-op model includes school-based and work-based learning and, in the best programs, "connecting activities" such as seminars and teacher-coordinator worksite visits. These activities help students explicitly connect work and learning.

Co-op's proponents identify benefits for students (including motivation, career clarity, enhanced employability, vocational maturity) and employers (labor force flexibility, recruitment/retention of trained workers, input into curricula) as well as educational institutions and society. Beyond informal and anecdotal evidence, however, a familiar refrain in the literature is the lack of well-done research that empirically demonstrates these benefits.[33][34]

Another set of problems involves perceptions of the field and its marginalization. Because of its "vocational" association, co-op is not regarded as academically legitimate; rather, it is viewed as taking time away from the classroom.[35] Experiential activities are not necessarily rewarded in postsecondary promotion and tenure systems, and co-op faculty may be isolated from other faculty.[35] Despite the current emphasis on contextual learning, work is not recognized as a vehicle for learning.[36] It may be that the field places too much emphasis on placements rather than learning. Wilson also decries the focus on administration, logistics, placements, and procedures.[34]

Integrating experiential methods

School-to-work and service learning have also been promoted as ways to link theory and practice through meaningful experiential learning experiences. Furco outlined the similarities between school-to-work and service learning.[27] Although school-to-work, service learning, and co-op have different goals, each of his points also applies to cooperative education:

  • Based on the philosophy that learners learn best through active engagement in meaningful activities
  • View of students as active learners and producers of knowledge
  • Use of such instructional strategies as contextual learning and application of knowledge to real situations
  • Requirement for schools to establish formal partnerships with outside entities
  • Concern for integrating school experiences and external experiences

The Community Service Scholarship Program at California State University-Fresno combines cooperative education with service learning. Students receive co-op/internship credit and scholarships for completing a placement at a community service site.[37] As in traditional co-op work placements, students get real-world training, opportunities to explore career options, and enhanced employability skills such as communication, problem solving, and leadership as well as awareness of community and social problems. Combining co-op and service learning thus prepares students for roles as workers and citizens.

Research on highly successful co-op programs in Cincinnati[32] and at LaGuardia Community College[38] Grubb showed that they share the basic philosophy and fundamental characteristics of the educational strategy of school-to-work. The reconceptualization of co-op should recognize and build upon this connection. At the same time, lessons from successful co-op programs can benefit the broader STW movement.

There is a need for broader definition of acceptable models for integrating work and learning. Barton and Wilson identified a variety of work-based learning activities taking different names: co-op, internships, externships, apprenticeship, career academies, and so forth.[33][34] Work-based learning programs should look for connections and develop collaborative relationships. The alternating and parallel co-op models may not meet the needs of returning adult students and dislocated workers needing retraining[39]. Alternatives such as extended-day programs emphasizing mentoring should be considered.

Connecting activities to integrate school- and work-based learning are an essential part of STW. At LaGuardia, the required co-op seminar helps students make connections by giving them a structure within which to reinforce employability skills, examine larger issues about work and society, and undertake the crucial activities of critical reflection.[38]

Grubb found that the value of cooperative education is embedded in the culture of the institution (LaGuardia)[38] and the region (Cincinnati).[32] In this supportive culture, employer support does not have to be repeatedly obtained and there are clearly understood long-term expectations on all sides (schools, employers, students). This "informal culture of expectations around work-based learning may be more powerful in the long run than a complex set of regulations and bureaucratic requirements."[32] However, even LaGuardia has found it difficult to sustain co-op culture over time.[38] "The only way in which STW programs can find a permanent place in schools and colleges is for the work-based component to become so central to the educational purposes of the institutions that it becomes as unthinkable to give it up as it would be to abandon math, English, or science."[38]

Finn believes that the answer lies in going beyond reconceiving co-op as an "educational strategy, pedagogy, model, methodology, or curriculum."[40] She asserts that it is time for cooperative education to develop and define its body of knowledge, investigate its unique phenomena-for example, the concept of learning from experience, and clarify and strengthen the qualifications of co-op practitioners. For Ricks, cooperative education is inherently committed to improving the economy, people's working lives, and lifelong learning abilities.[36] It can thus position itself to serve the experiential learning needs of students into the twenty-first century.

Other examples

  • University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada has the largest co-operative education program in North America, with more than 11,000 students enrolled in co-op programs and more than 3,000 active co-op employers.
  • Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts has the largest co-operative education program in the United States of America, and is known as one of the only five-year universities in the United States. Northeastern's Co-Op program has been ranked #1 in the Co-Op and Internships category by U.S. News and World Report.
  • Kettering University in Flint, Michigan enrolls students in co-operative education from their first year on campus, specializing in engineering, science, and management degree programs.

Service Learning

Main article: Service learning

One widely adopted form of experiential education is learning through service to others[41]. An example is Project OASES (Occupational and Academic Skills for the Employment of Students) in the Pittsburgh public schools. Eighth graders, identified as potential dropouts, spend three periods a day involved in renovating a homeless shelter as part of a service project carried out within their industrial arts class. Students in programs such as these learn enduring skills such as planning, communicating with a variety of age groups and types of people, and group decision making. In carrying out their activities and in the reflection component afterward, they come to new insights and integrate diverse knowledge from fields such as English, political science, mathematics, and sociology.

Notes

  1. Christian M. Itin, Reasserting the Philosophy of Experiential Education as a Vehicle for Change in the 21st Century The Journal of Experiential Education 22(2) (1999): 91-98. Retrieved May 26, 2021.
  2. What is experiential education? Association for Experiential Education. Retrieved May 26, 2021.
  3. B.A. Starnes, The Foxfire Approach to Teaching and Learning: John Dewey, Experiential Learning, and the Core Practices ERIC Digests, 1999.
  4. Dwight E. Giles, Jr. and Janet Eyler, Theoretical roots of service learning in John Dewey: Toward a theory of service learning Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning (Fall 1994): 77-85. Retrieved May 26, 2021.
  5. Mike Gass, Kurt Hahn address 2002 AEE International Conference Journal of Experiential Education 25(3) (2003): 363-371. Retrieved May 26, 2021.
  6. A. Bing, (1989) "Peace Studies as Experiential Education." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 504: 48-60.
  7. J. Goodlad, A Place Called School: Prospects for the Future (New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 1984, ISBN 978-0070236271).
  8. T. Sizer, Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004, ISBN 978-0618516063).
  9. Carl R. Rogers, Freedom to Learn: A View of What Education Might Become (C.E. Merrill Pub. Co., 1969, ISBN 0675095190.
  10. D. Kraft, and M. Sakofs, (eds.) The Theory of Experiential Education (Boulder, CO: Association for Experiential Education, 1988).
  11. P.R. McCarthy and H.M. McCarthy, When Case Studies Are Not Enough: Integrating Experiential Learning Into Business Curricula, Journal of Education for Business 81(4) (2006): 201–204. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  12. R.G. Kraft, "Bike riding and the art of learning." In Louis B. Barnes, C. Roland Christensen, and Abby J. Hansen, Teaching and the Case Method (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 1994, ISBN 978-0875844039).
  13. 13.0 13.1 David Kolb, Experiential Learning: Experience as the source of learning and development (Pearson FT Press, 2014, ISBN 978-0133892406).
  14. Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle University of Leicester. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  15. Sharan B. Merriam and Lisa M. Baumgartner, Learning in Adulthood: A Comprehensive Guide (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2020, ISBN 978-1119490487).
  16. 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 Richard E. Mayer, Should there be a three-strikes rule against pure discovery learning? The case for guided methods of instruction American Psychologist 59(1) (2004): 14-19. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  17. 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 Paul A. Kirschner, John Sweller, and Richard E. Clark, Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: an analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching Educational Psychologist 41(2) (2006): 75-86. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  18. 18.0 18.1 John Sweller, and Graham A. Cooper, The use of worked examples as a substitute for problem solving in learning algebra Cognition and Instruction 2(1) (1985): 59-89. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  19. 19.0 19.1 John Sweller, Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning Cognitive Science 12(1) (1988): 257-285. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  20. Ruth C. Clark, Frank Nguyen, and John Sweller, Efficiency in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load (San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer, 2005. ISBN 978-0787977283).
  21. 21.0 21.1 D. Lempert, Escape From the Ivory Tower: Student Adventures in Democratic Experiential Education (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1995, ISBN 978-0787901363)
  22. S. Zemelman, H. Daniels, and A. Hyde, Best Practice: New Standards for Teaching and Learning in America's Schools (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998, ISBN 978-0325000916).
  23. C. Rolzinski, The Adventure of Adolescence: Middle School Students and Community Service (Washington, DC: Youth Service America, 1990).
  24. K. Rohnke, Cowstails and cobras II (Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1989, ISBN 978-0840354341).
  25. Lucy Calkins, Living between the Lines (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books, Inc., 1991).
  26. Victor Walsh and Gerald Golins, The exploration of the Outward Bound process ERIC. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  27. 27.0 27.1 Andrew Furco, Service-Learning: A Balanced Approach to Experiential Education Expanding Boundaries: Serving and Learning (1996}: 1-6. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  28. 28.0 28.1 28.2 C. Bonwell, and J. Eison, Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom (Washington, DC: Jossey-Bass, 1991, ISBN 1878380087).
  29. Joy Palmer, Environmental Education in the 21st Century: Theory, Practice, Progress, and Promise (New York: Routledge, 1998, ISBN 978-0415131964).
  30. Jerome S. Bruner, "The act of discovery" Harvard Educational Review 31(1) (1961):21–32.
  31. Sascha Stollhans, Learning by Teaching: Developing transferable skills In Erika Corradini, Kate Borthwick, and Angela Gallagher-Brett (eds.), Employability for Languages: A handbook (Dublin: Researchpublishing.net, 2016, 978-1908416377).
  32. 32.0 32.1 32.2 32.3 W.N. Grubb, and J.C. Villeneuve, Co-operative Education in Cincinnati. (Berkeley, CA: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, 1995).
  33. 33.0 33.1 P.E. Barton, Cooperative Education in High School: Promise and Neglect (Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 1996).
  34. 34.0 34.1 34.2 J.W. Wilson, W.A. Stull, and J. Vinsonhaler, "Rethinking Cooperative Education." Journal of Cooperative Education 31(2-3) (Winter-Spring 1996): 154-165.
  35. 35.0 35.1 C. Crow, "Cooperative Education in the New Millennium" Cooperative Education Experience (Columbia, MD: Cooperative Education Association, 1997), 1-5.
  36. 36.0 36.1 F. Ricks, "Principles for Structuring Cooperative Education Programs" Journal of Cooperative Education 31(2-3) (Winter-Spring 1996): 8-22.
  37. P. Derousi and C.S. Sherwood, "Community Service Scholarships: Combining Cooperative Education with Service Learning" Journal of Cooperative Education 33(1) (Fall 1997): 46-54.
  38. 38.0 38.1 38.2 38.3 38.4 W.N. Grubb, and N. Badway, Linking School-Based and Work-Based Learning: The Implications of LaGuardia's Co-op Seminars for School-to-Work Programs (Berkeley, CA: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, 1998).
  39. J.W. Varty, "Cooperative Education for the '90s and Beyond" Co-op/Experience/Co-op 5(1) (March 1994)
  40. K.L. Finn, "The Spaces Between: Toward a New Paradigm for Cooperative Education" Journal of Cooperative Education 32 (2) (Winter 1997): 36-45.
  41. J. Kielsmeier and R. Willits, Growing Hope: A Sourcebook on Integrating Youth Service into the Curriculum (St. Paul, MN: National Youth Leadership Council, University of Minnesota, 1989).

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Barnes, Louis B., C. Roland Christensen, and Abby J. Hansen. Teaching and the Case Method. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 1994. ISBN 0875844030
  • Barton, P.E. Cooperative Education in High School: Promise and Neglect. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 1996.
  • Bonwell, C., and J. Eison. Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom. (AEHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No.1). Washington, DC: Jossey-Bass, 1991. ISBN 1878380087
  • Calkins, Lucy. Living between the lines. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books, Inc., 1991.
  • Clark, Ruth C, Frank Nguyen, and John Sweller. Efficiency in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer, 2005. ISBN 978-0787977283
  • Corradini, Erika, Kate Borthwick, and Angela Gallagher-Brett (eds.). Employability for Languages: A handbook. Dublin: Researchpublishing.net, 2016. ISBN 978-1908416377
  • Dewey, John. Experience and Education. New York, NY: Free Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0684838281
  • Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum, 2000. ISBN 978-0826412768
  • Goodlad, J. A Place Called School: Prospects for the Future. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 1984. ISBN 978-0070236271
  • Grubb, W.N., and N. Badway. Linking School-Based and Work-Based Learning: The Implications of LaGuardia's Co-op Seminars for School-to-Work Programs. Berkeley, CA: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, 1998.
  • Grubb, W.N., and J. C. Villeneuve. Co-operative Education in Cincinnati. Berkeley, CA: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, 1995.
  • Kielsmeier, J., and R. Willits. Growing Hope: A Sourcebook on Integrating Youth Service into the Curriculum. St. Paul, MN: National Youth Leadership Council, University of Minnesota, 1989.
  • Kolb, David. Experiential Learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Pearson FT Press, 2014. ISBN 978-0133892406
  • Kraft, D., and M. Sakofs (eds.). The Theory of Experiential Education. Boulder, CO: Association for Experiential Education, 1988.
  • Lempert, D. Escape from the Ivory Tower: Student Adventures in Democratic Experiential Education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1995. ISBN 978-0787901363
  • Merriam, Sharan B., and Lisa M. Baumgartner. Learning in Adulthood: A Comprehensive Guide. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2020. ISBN 1119490480
  • Palmer, Joy. Environmental Education in the 21st Century: Theory, Practice, Progress, and Promise. New York: Routledge, 1998. ISBN 978-0415131971
  • Rogers, Carl R. Freedom to Learn: A View of What Education Might Become. C.E. Merrill Pub. Co., 1969. ISBN 978-0675095198
  • Rohnke, K. Cowstails and cobras II. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1989. ISBN 978-0840354341
  • Rolzinski, C. The Adventure of Adolescence: Middle School Students and Community Service. Washington, DC: Youth Service America, 1990.
  • Sizer, T. Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. ISBN 978-0618516063
  • Zemelman, S., H. Daniels, and A. Hyde. Best Practice: New Standards for Teaching and Learning in America's Schools. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998. ISBN 978-0325000916

External links

All links retrieved March 23, 2024.

Active Learning

  • Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom ERIC Digest.
  • Active learning Geoff Petty's practical guide on improving teaching and learning

Cooperative Education

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