Author: rinaley

I believe that experiential learning is vitally important in providing students with skills that will prepare them for the real world. Experiential learning involves learning through doing an action. While we can interpret this idea purely as giving students experience in the course topic(s), I would argue that experiential learning should also consist of using the class to give students experiences to build basic communication skills. Many undergraduates are 18-21 year olds are constantly engaging with technology and information, just as they do with reading and writing. However, many of them will have had little formal training in how to use technology or the information readily available on the internet, or they may not understand the context of the training. The modern undergraduate does not need to be taught to blog- they need to be taught how to identify technological tools and the critical thinking skills to use these tools. An 18 year old may not believe determining sources’ reliability is important until their told how they could be sued for liable for printing incorrect information in a newspaper or how basing a manufacturing decision on a study from an opinion website may result in being fired. Part of experiential learning should include teaching students how to navigate through the wilds of the internet, teaching them to recognize when they’re on the well-trodden paths of peer-reviewed science and objective reporting; see biases which are hidden in the fact fronds, and teach them to be aware of the breadcrumbs of personal information that they’re leaving behind every time they click on a search engine link, accept cookies from friendly-looking sites; or post, like, or re-tweet. Colleges and universities should develop curriculum permeated with assignments intended to develop core life skills, even after the students have forgotten all the definitions required. We should develop courses which where the base assumption is that we are improving students’ abilities even as we’re testing them on chemical bonds and the War of 1812. Instructors should ask the question of their course: do the assignments teach more than just the assigned topic, and can I put my course topic in real-life contexts? Teaching students how to craft a professional email doesn’t require them to have assignments where that action is the requirement. These skills develop when course after course requires writing to be coherent, capitalized, and spelled correctly. The same idea applies to teaching technological navigation. The ability to investigate a website for credibility is a skill that will only develop with use, and the ability to read a credible resource (such as a peer-reviewed article) and be able to identify flaws or gaps through critical thinking and not expert knowledge can only come with experience. For the course content to be interrupted as experiential learning to the students, they must be told that it is. We should provide context to not only the course and course content, but the course structure and rubric choices. Explaining our objectives and how the skills developed in the course will be relevant to them later in life. Teach the students to see how course work is experiential learning.