Experiential Learning: A Best Practice Handbook for Educators and Trainers

Book Review: Experiential Learning: A Best Practice Handbook – by Colin Beard

Author: Colin Beard
Length: 314 pages
Intent/Focus: An educator’s guide to understanding and applying experiential (activity-based) learning for greater student engagement and retention

What You Will Learn: Concepts of experiential learning, as well as successful techniques to utilize with students

Why We Recommend It: This book is an excellent resource and teaching tool for anyone interested in the educational method closest to our hearts: experiential learning.

Summary:
“Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.‎”
~ Colin Beard

Previously known as The Power of Experiential Learning, this useful handbook by Colin Beard explores both the theory and the practice of experiential learning. Through the guidelines detailed in this book, you can bring an exciting, student-centered learning experience to your classroom.

Elements of the book include:

• Best practices, ground rules and ethics
• Descriptions of settings and best learning conditions
  • Indoor and outdoor activities
  • Artificially-created learning spaces
• Experiential learning activities
  • Innovation, resources and props
  • Adventurous journeys
  • Use of drama and role-playing
• How to help students work with the five senses
• Emotion and experiential learning
  • The power of the emotional state
  • Using humor and other positive emotions
  • The emotional quotient (EQ)
• The creative quotient (CQ)
• Personal development
• Incorporating student reflection
• Applying past learning to future experience

The book provides detailed examples and activity guidelines for successful implementation of experiential learning techniques. The Leadership and Organizational Development Journal review states that this guide is a resource for educators and trainers of all kinds, providing ideas for expanding lesson plan options, as well as “…every conceivable way to interest learners in an activity.”

As an example of the theories discussed, the book states that “to ‘learn from experience’ is to make a backward and forward connection between what we do to things and what we enjoy or suffer from things in consequence. Under such conditions, doing becomes … an experiment with the world to find out what it is like; the undergoing becomes instruction – discovery of the connection of things.‎”

A passage on student reflection explains, “Problem-posing education bases itself on creativity, and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality.” It claims that learners “are authentic only when engaged in inquiry and creative transformation.‎”

The author, Colin Beard is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, as well as a learning and development consultant, who works internationally to bring experiential learning to both corporate organizations and education.

Want to learn more about experiential learning? We’re featuring several related articles this week, including:

Experiential Learning Activities for Your Classroom
Experiential Learning Around the U.S. - Part 1 of Our New On-going Series
The Benefits of Experiential Learning

Have you read this book? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.