Benefits Of Experiential Education

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Field trips are events that most school children look forward to. They mean a day or a few hours away from school to explore an interesting place, what's better than that? Learning based on experience is an important part of a child's education but field trips without structure don't accomplish its benefits. We need programs that incorporate outdoor trips, personal discoveries, and team-based projects in an effective way, this is experiential education. Experiential education programs offer new standards for field trips and a different way of learning. Implementing the programs within traditional classrooms will provide more opportunities for learning.

Often, when discussing experience-based learning field trips come up. Experiential education takes simple field trips one step further. The problem with the classic field trip structure is that it often acts as a day off for the students instead of an academic experience. As defined by the Association for Experiential Education (AEE), “Experiential education is 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” (Gama 78). Programs such as STREAM (science, technology, …show more content…

But its benefits are clear in the qualitative sense. Participants feel more excited about school, those who learn better through experience have an opportunity to excel and this type of learning allows students to connect the curriculum to experiments. All of these things can be accomplished through experiential programs with clear goals and requirements, while still maintaining standardized test scores. Unfortunately, the evidence is not there to say experiential education can be the sole source of learning. The answer then is integration, this will benefit students overall and make experience learning more

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