The Experiential Learning Toolkit

Blending Practice with Concepts

Colin Beard

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780749450786
• eBook ISBN: 9780749459345
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

The Experiential Learning Toolkit presents a diverse range of practical exercises based on the theory of experiential learning, which is concerned with learning through direct experience to create more effective, engaging and embedded learning. Author Colin Beard has compiled more than thirty internationally tried and tested learning 'experiences', which cover corporate training, individual and organizational development and education. Each experiential activity includes the essential practical information required to deliver the exercise. As well as design tips and further reading there are clear titles for each activity that highlight the underpinning core theoretical concepts. The Experiential Learning Toolkit includes a wide range of training needs and topics including: effective customer service training and telephone skills; outdoor learning, including service learning; negotiating and assertiveness skills; strategic and higher level thinking; effective presentation skills; developing innovative and creative minds. Trainers will find this an invaluable resource, with fresh approaches that will engage and inspire learners. The Experiential Learning Toolkit is a companion text to the internationally best-selling Experiential Learning by Colin Beard and John Wilson (also published by Kogan Page).

Part 1

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The first dimension: belonging

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Introduction

Focus

• Understanding the practical issues of working with the learning environment
• The important practice question here is: Where and in what contexts is the learning taking place?

The learning environment is the whole ‘outer world’ experience, the surrounding experiential milieu outside our mind and body. It is the ‘where’ of learning. It is concerned with our ‘being’ in a situated sense, a belonging in the world related partly to place and space, context and location. This outer world of belonging thus has a placedness. The question of where is complex, embracing the physical, social, cultural and the natural. This outer situated world affects the learning experience: it is important to attend to the following core conceptual areas.

Spaces and places

The milieu of spaces and places in which we learn is an important conceptual area that has been neglected, partly due to the fact that we can take our surroundings for granted. People experience the world very differently: a person may be in the same place as another person but each will construct and reconstruct an experience of place very differently – we observe and sense different things, and our experience of the world is informed by past experiences and future possibilities. This ‘outer world’ dimension of the learning experience can include formal or informal places and spaces, virtual or real places, natural or artificially constructed places, and from classrooms out into urban and rural communities. The learning environment also affects mood and sets the ambience. The numerous places and spaces for learning are covered in more detail in Experiential Learning: A Best Practice Handbook for Educators and Trainers by Colin Beard and John P Wilson (Kogan Page, 2006). The coverage includes learning on land and water, in sheds and on ships, in school classrooms and artificial caves, on ski slopes, climbing walls and concrete white-water rafting courses: all offer potential as places to learn. This emerging pedagogy of space and place is worthy of more consideration by experiential providers. There are many dimensions to consider in working with aspects of this ‘outer world’ experience.

Learning is literally and metaphorically breaking out of the confines of the boundaries of the traditional indoor classroom, partly aided by technology. Old classrooms were never designed by educators, facilitators or trainers, so it is not surprising that we need to create and utilize more places to learn. This is why the consideration of spaces and places for learning experiences is a relatively unexplored subject in texts on learning published before the current millennium; but this is changing apace. The design of learning space is a subject that is gaining interest. A new pedagogy of space and place is emerging. The design of indoor learning environments is beginning to receive more attention. It is no longer acceptable to delegate the responsibility to architects or facilities specialists to design spaces and places for learning. Learning, after all, is not a subject they have been professionally trained in.

Space to liberate the mind

The book and the computer screen may in fact be limiting our understanding of the world. They present information in a very limited, linear, chunked way. Fragmented portions of information on a page have to be turned over to see the next chunk. We see information presented in this linear format and our brain can sometimes struggle to reorganize it. Spatial connectivity cannot be seen through words on a screen. The film Minority Report demonstrates a glimpse of a future not so far away when large glass screens will show digital information that can easily be enhanced and manipulated. This creates the next generation of learning tools: less focused on getting information and more concerned with working with the information so that it can be seen and manipulated in different ways. Working creatively with information is therefore an area that is covered through several experiences in this book. The human brain can scan a vast array of data from the internet and elsewhere. Brain capacity will develop in both education and training. Glass surfaces have a bright future. Glass will allow technology to be superimposed onto its surface, and the world wide web of information will open up upon giant surfaces where the page and screen do not limit brain functions and abilities. A touch on the glass will convert scribbles into text or change the surface so as to let natural light into the learning when required or to block it out again when it is not wanted. The secondary function is as a window, and other functions will be contained within the glass. Powerful natural light will shine through. Light, after all, is a natural energizer.

Creativity: linking the processing brain to physical space

Using different space for different thinking modes (cognition) so as to create differing perceptual positions is an interesting concept used by the Walt Disney organization in its strategy for creativity. This strategy was based on an observation that there were actually three different Walts: Walt Disney the dreamer, Walt Disney the realist and Walt Disney the fierce critic. To prevent these inner voices fighting with each other one approach is to develop separate physical locations or spaces for each voice to be heard separately: the dreaming space, the realist space and the critic space.

This same method using physical separation according to the mental processing required is used in the reviewing experience developed by Roger Greenaway with four ace playing cards from a card pack. This activity is described in the feeling dimension experience called ‘Ace of spades’. The cards are located in four physically different spaces: diamonds for hard facts, hearts to represent emotions, spades to represent the processing that leads to digging deeper into the feelings, and finally clubs, the shape card with the three lumps in it, representing the three life choices of: 1) leave it alone and do nothing; 2) remove it, walk away from the problem, issue or event; and 3) change it or modify the situation.

Space associations: opening memory filing cabinets

Finally, an interesting memory recall situation occurred recently after a National Health Service event where experiential learning techniques were explored in order to improve health service training in a variety of areas. The fifteen or so trainer–facilitators returned from the first event after a month or so and when a recap was attempted one session could not be recaptured. Some people felt frustrated and said it was in the back of their mind, and they knew that it was useful. There was a block and then a silence. One person got up after a short while and said ‘We did it here, and we sat in a ring.’ Almost immediately everyone remembered the session. By revisiting the location of the experience, the memory released details of the experience. This illustrates how contextual memory (where) is linked to episodic memory (the ability to recall events).

The outdoors and beyond

Learning experiences can also be influenced by nature and environmental features: for example, involving the participants in a team orienteering or treasure-hunt exercise...

Table of contents

• The Experiential Learning Toolkit
• The Experiential Learning Toolkit
• Contents
• Figures and Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part 1 The first dimension: belonging
• Introduction
• 1.1 Just four steps: customer service and customer complaints
• 1.2 Coffee and papers: positive mood and reading retreats for learning
• 1.3 Edventure: learning encounters with people and place
• 1.4 Different ways to know: spatial mapping of knowledge
• 1.5 Listening to silence: experiencing silence through sensory focus
• Part 2 The second dimension: doing
• Introduction
• 2.1 Bike it!: teams, leadership and communication
• 2.2 Altering reality: negotiating skills development
• 2.3 Read all about them: an experience to develop writing skills
• 2.4 Antiques Roadshow: developing product expertise in employees
• 2.5 Hearing voices: voice work for reception and call-centre training
• Part 3 The third dimension: sensing
• Introduction
• 3.1 Brand sense: the role of senses in brand development
• 3.2 Blindfold: communication and the senses
• 3.3 Shape and colour: using the senses to generate conversations about learning and personality
• 3.4 The rucksack and the fleece: effective presentations
• 3.5 Nuts and bolts: systematic thinking – classifying and organizing
• Part 4 The fourth dimension: feeling
• Introduction
• 4.1 Ace of spades: space for reflection
• 4.2 Accessing emotions: popular metaphors
• 4.3 Reframing, rewriting, rethinking: the emotions of fear and risk
• 4.4 Unfinished statements: sentences that access the feeling dimension
• 4.5 String lines: exploring journeys in life
• Part 5 The fifth dimension: knowing
• Introduction
• 5.1 The marketplace: developing creativity and innovation
• 5.2 How to get to…: developing higher thinking
• 5.3 The Singapore obelisk: multiple intelligence (logical/mathematical)
• 5.4 Skills for researching and consulting: practitioner-researcher training
• 5.5 Walk the talk: learning to understand complexity
• Part 6 The sixth dimension: being
• Introduction
• 6.1 Cards on the table: learning to change by playing cards
• 6.2 Comic strips and newspapers: reflection and change using storylines
• 6.3 Behavioural awareness: changing individual and group behavioural interactions
• 6.4 Service learning: social and environmental responsibility
• 6.5 Unmasking: the hidden and unknown self
• Index
• Copyright Page