Some Notes
on
Experiential Learning
© Dwayne Phillips
October 2007
Contents
A Passage About Experiential Learning
Jesus taught using several different methods. Some of His more famous teaching used experiential learning. One example is how he taught his disciples while feeding the five thousand (see the passage below from Matthew 14). Jesus could have fed these people in several different ways. He chose to have the disciples participate. Note how in verse 20 the disciples picked up twelve baskets of left over food – one basket per disciple. Each disciple experienced this miracle.
Matthew chapter 14 (starting at verse 15, New International Version) 15 When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a lonely place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves." 16 Jesus said, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." 17 They said to him, "We have only five loaves here and two fish." 18 And he said, "Bring them here to me." 19 Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass; and taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
There are many models of learning and education. I am not a professional educator, but I have had the blessing of working with experiential learning as both learner and "teacher."
Here is a learning cycle. There are probably many things called learning cycles, so here is one. The learning cycle explains the phases the learners experience.
Exploration
Explore a new situation. Given what seems to be a simple task, the learners find that things are not so easy. The instructor's role is to design a task that forces the students to question their existing models. This is the exercise or simulation.
Invention
The learners try to make sense of what they experienced in the exploration. The knowledge that emerges has been contructed by the learners themselves. It does not come from the "teacher." This is also the debriefing phase.
Application
The learners interact with the world once again. They now know more than before.
There are three basis parts of experiential learning. These are
Introduction (optional)
Exercise or simulation
Debrief
In the introduction, the instructor discusses the subject of the lesson. This is optional as the instructor may choose not to have a particular topic for the lesson (see the section below titled “A Blank Slate or a Definite Direction?”).
The introduction may be short such as one statement, “I would like us to consider leadership.”
The introduction may be a one-hour lecture on the many aspects of leadership (or some other topic).
The exercise or simulation is the activity that the group conducts. The role of the instructor is to create the exercise and either observe or participate in it. People learn during the exercise. Sometimes they may not realize that they are learning.
The debrief is the final part of the expereince. The next section discusses the importance of the debrief.
The amount of time given to each part can vary greatly. The introduction may be skipped, may be one sentence long, or may last an hour. The exercise can also vary greatly. I have been in exercises that lasted ten seconds and ones that lasted eight hours. I have also been in debriefs that ranged from a moment to several days.
There are many ways to do experiential learning exercises. As noted below, you could purchase a book of ice breakers and use these as exercises. That would be fun for some people and anguish for others.
The big difference in experiential learning is the debrief. This is when people in the group share what they learned in the exercise and continue to learn. An experience without a debrief is a way to "loosen up the group" and use some time. The effect, however, is slight.
Experiential learning - as with any type of education system - is not for everything, everyone, and every subject.
Experiential learning is excellent when a goal is learning a general principle instead of a procedure or specific facts (memorization). This is applicable to spiritual matters as their are many general principles - grace, forgiveness, faith, hope, servanthood, among others.
The role of the "teacher" is different. Instead of imparting a specific lesson for the student to learn, the teacher creates a learning situation and the student or learner learns what they may. The teacher is literally trying to learn the students something. Another term that I find works is "instructor" instead of "teacher."
The "teacher" often learns as much as the "students" and often more.
One of the great challenges of experience learning is that everyone has had so much time in traditional schools where there is a right answer. We will probably encounter participants that will be looking for us to give the right answer. They will be greatly frustrated by some of this. Resist politely.
Another school thing is that in school we are usually given exactly the right amount of information we need to solve the problem - no more and no less. In real life we are often given lots of information. Sometimes much of it is useless and rarely do we have enough of the right kind of information. Experiential learning gives us a great chance to provide information like we receive in real life.
A common and satisfying outcome of doing an experiential exercise is that people who have worked together for years will learn more about their co-workers in an hour or day than they have learned in ten years. Another comment is that, "I didn't know this was possible." We learned something that should us a different way to do something.
Whatever comes up is a flower. Whatever happens is a learning.
Something suggested in a discussion is the use of ice breakers. I don't like ice breakers, but the discussion brought to mind a good use of them. I think that if we combine an ice breaker with a debrief, we would have a good experiential learning event.
One good thing about this is that there are many books available filled with ice breakers. A huge supply of experiential exercises.
This is a key question for the instructor. At one end of the spectrum, the instructor enters an experiential learning with no topic in mind. You lead an exercise and debrief it. The participants learn what they learn, and you follow their energy.
At the other end of the spectrum, the instructor enters the session with a definite goal for the learning. You introduce the session talking about that goal. As you go through the exercise and the debrief, you point everything back to the goal you have.
Neither of these ends of the spectrum are wrong.
My advice is to stay flexible. Pay attention and go with what is working.
For example, at one small group meeting on a Sunday evening we did an exercise where we picked a number between 3 and 12. I wanted each person to say something about their Christian life in exactly the number of words that we selected. For example, if we picked the number 3, a statement would be "Jesus loves me" or "I love God."
We started the exercise, and each person found a phrase in their Bible that had the number of words we picked. This wasn't what I wanted, but it was only the first cycle in the exercise. We did a couple of more cycles, and each time each person found a phrase in a Bible verse with the selected number of words.
Each time someone read a verse from their Bible I caught myself thinking, "What is wrong with these people? Why don't they say something of their own? All they are doing is reading the Bible."
Oooops. Here I was all upset because people were digging through their Bibles trying to find phrases in verses that met the number of words and meant something to them.
I decided to stop being upset about this and go with what was happening. We were doing the general idea of the exercise. We weren't doing exactly what I had in mind, but the general idea was pretty good.
We did this exercise for 60 minutes - not 15 or 20 or 30, but 60 minutes. Somehow each person in attendance had intently dug through their Bible for a full hour. If I had started a session with that goal, I have no idea how I could have accomplished it.
Team building - participating in an experiential learning session with a group of people often pulls the individuals into a group or team. The people come to know one another quite well while moving through the learning cycle together.
Preparing a group for an activity - You can hold an experiential learning session complete with an exercise and a debrief. Right after that, ask, "How could we apply what we just learned to our activity we are doing next week.?"
Devote the entire first class period of a 13-week class to an experiential exercise. This will help the individuals become a group. It could dramatically change the class dynamic for the rest of the quarter.
Always remember that there are things in people's lives that are more important than the exercise I am leading.
Volunteer participation - The instructor should always tell everyone that participation is voluntary. If they do not feel comfortable doing an exercise, they may observe instead. If at any time during the exercise they want to stop participating, they may.
Safety - Particpating in exercises is different from what most people have done in class most of their lives. The instructor is asking them to do something unfamiliar and uncomfortable. This is often fearful. Do everything you can so that the participants feel safe in what they are doing.
Some people may (try to) dominate the class. Everytime you ask a question, they raise their hand first and highest. They jump in first to answer everything and talk about everything.
One way to work around such a person is to call on other people in the room.
Use a deck of cards or some other random selector.
Give each person a card (2 through 10).
When asking a question, pick a card from your deck. I picked a 3.
Ask the question of the person holding the 3 card.
You can do this with other things like colored cards, or coins with different years on them. "Who has the 1999 penny? Okay, here is the next question..."
Role Playing
It is best for the students to be themselves and not play any roles. To the extent that you are asking a participant to be anyone but themselves, they can discount any learning they have.
The instructor may play a role. It is important that when playing a role, the instructor should wear an obvious article of clothing such as a funny shirt or hat. That way the students will know that whatever the instructor says or does - however outlandish it may be - is not from the instructor.
For the instructor - stay flexible. Bring all your resources, observe, respond, use your creativity, and the energy of the learners. Center yourself and keep centering yourself. As the instructor, I am not debating or battling with anyone. I am following their energy and going with them on their journey.
As the instructor, you don't have to do your thing perfectly. Create some space for you to make mistakes. Relax a little bit.
Dealing with a stopper statement.
"I would be uncomfortable with this."
Reply, "And? Yes? So?"
"Have you ever been uncomfortable before?" Keep the conversation going.
If people are stuck in their chairs and not talking, ask everyone to stand up and move.
Double Bind - give a person a choice. What ever they choose they will do what I want them to do.
For example, do you want to go to bed now or after reading for ten minutes?
That is the childish example. There are much more sophisticated things you can do with this. Jerry's story of a really difficult person in one of his classes once.
"If you stop coming to class, I will give you full credit. If you come back to class ever again you will receive no credit." The person begged to come to class. He was learning to much to miss it. He came back and behaved.
When someone mentions something in class (they have energy behind it), give them a special assignment to track that issue through the session. For example, I asked about the question people ask in debriefing. The instructor assigned me to keep track of all such questions that come up during the week and then send a copy of it to all participants.
Trance induction - what you do when you write or create a simulation or experiential exercise.
"You're lying on the beach in the warm sun..." Some people hate the beach. Some people hate lying in the sun.
So instead say, "You're in your favorite place, the weather is just like you like it..." Try to avoid creating a simulation where people will fight the situation.
Keep things open-ended. Stay open-minded. Let the learners go their own way.
Try to have a scribe help you so that you can focus your attention on the class.
Try to avoid "why" questions.
It's not the event, it's the reaction to the event. It's not the exercise, it's the processing or debriefing of the exercise.
A basic principle - at least at the end - everything should be transparent. You can explain everything that happened. There are no hidden inside jokes or slang or other matters that you cannot explain openly to everyone.
Body language - don't interpret body language. One thing you can use is that if the body position changes that usually indicates that something has happened.
Ask the person "what is happening for you now?"
Check it out. Don't wager a guess, "I guess you are happier now, right?"
The 8 count or the significant pause. To encourage or allow the introverts to speak, have a long pause so that they have the time to say something.
As the instructor, you cannot aim the group so that they come up with the one solution that you want them to. It looks like they are trying to guess your right answer.
It is important that the people have a sense that THEY chose their own team. For the best chance of people taking responsibility in the debrief, they need to have the power to choose their own teams. Once the people feel like they have no responsibility for the team they are in, they give up and do not really take the debrief seriously.
As part of the debrief, when an unexpected yet energetic learning comes up, you can call a time out from your set debrief (like stop the park bench for a little while) and move into a discussion with the group about the unexpected learning.
Once you start the exercise, you have to go with what happens. Process it, debrief it, don't try to force the learning you expected to happen.
Go with the energy of the participants. If the students are excited about ice cream, talk about ice cream. Let them relate ice cream to the subject matter (faith, prayer, whatever).
The exercise always works if you let it and go with it.
When you do an exercise and you don't learn anything new about how you did the exercise or about the exercise, you should stop doing that exercise.
Be careful when you say, "This is good." The next exercise, if you don't say anything it means that the group didn't do good, they did whatever. The group could start playing to the teacher.
"We don't leave any bodies on the floor." If someone goes ballistic in the exercise or some other extreme, take care of it and ensure that the group sees you taking care of it.
Always deal with big events. Someone dies, someone go beserk at work, homes burn to the ground, a sniper shoots people. Take the time and energy to deal with the emotions of the people.
The inability to deal with exceptional events. There are always exceptional events. This is something you can teach in your exercises. There are unforeseen events in exercises. The same is true for life. Model dealing with exceptional events.
The Paramedic Rule - don't do anything in your exercise that you cannot explain to Paramedics.
When do you end a debrief?
You will never be able to end at exactly the right time. You will make a mistake.
Make your mistake and end early. Ending too early is correctable, ending too late is not.
The Janitor Principle - most classroom setups are that way because the janitor left them that way or the previous class left them that way. Do I want the janitor to run my class or do I want to run my class?
Learning is the main goal. For example, in the house cards exercise each team earns one point per inch of height. When it is done, each person earns 10,000 points for learning something.
Take care with questions of the form of "highest, best, most." These are optimization questions and point to extremes. To answer honestly the person must run through all their experiences of their life to find the most or best. "What is your favorite vegetable?" or "What is a vegetable that you like?" or "What vegetable would you like to eat now?"
Sometimes it is better to not have the debrief right away.
Sometimes it is best to ask, "Are you okay with what you have right now?" "Are you full and content now with the things from this exercise?"
One way to end a quiet group is to say, "I would like to leave this exercise with a thought. For my own pleasure I like to have anyone come to me later and talk."
Affect - high emotion, arousal. We remember situations of high affect. We remember situations of surprise. When we have affect and surprise, we really remember it. How can we bring about an affect in an exercise? How can I put something at stake for the participants? Strive to achieve affect in the exercise. Then do something with it.
The power is not in the message. The power is in the timing. The message came at a time when the person was in affect or in chaos.
When you hear the person say, "Huh?" you are on the cusp of great learning. That is chaos. When you go into chaos, I am about to learn something.
Be careful that your experiential exercises don't become rituals. A ritual is an exercise where you do the steps A, B, C... with no learning or no new learning. You have to reinvent things for yourself. You have to reinvent it every time you do it. Call it something else. Do it anew. I am selling me and my ability to go with the exercise, my ability to think, to listen, to adapt, to go with the energy.
Whatever exercise you do, change something about it every time you do it. You will have a new experience and continue to learn. Be careful how you market it. Suppose someone has a defining moment in an exercise. They ask you to come to their organization to do that exercise. They are disappointed that the exercise is different. Help them to understand ahead of time that the exercises are always different.
When describing an exercise to the group, read from a script. The script can be helpful:
When someone asks, "Would you repeat that?" You can repeat the instructions exactly as you stated them the first time. You can also hand the instructions to the person so they can read them. Some people are much more comfortable reading instructions instead of listening to them.
During the debrief, a participant may say, "I heard you say such and such." The script allows you to go back and read the same words again. This can bring about great learnings in how people automatically substitute some words for other words.