Buzzwords #5 - Experiential Learning

Welcome to this episode of Your Morning Boost, brought to you by AWB Education. AWB Education is your partner in school leadership and is here to help you with your educational programming needs. You can find more episodes like this one, along with our offerings of support and consultation at AWB education dot org. Here is your host, Adam Bush. Our final buzzword topic this week is experiential learning. Now this sounds fun, doesn't it. I add to do a little research to make sure I fully understood this concept. As to be quite frank, this actual term is it's kind of new in my neck of the woods. But a Carnegie Learning post posted in Maya this year defines this as learning by doing wow hack. I've got that Defoors and Company book on my bookshelf. I've plowed through the PLC at Work pages many a times. But I also know that when I talk with teachers about releasing the ownership of learning onto their students, they typically want to release their breakfast onto my shoes. Sorry for the metaphor, but it's super scary for us to give up control of learning. So to find the way to wade those waters while still feeling comfortable with the tide is super super important. Putting a heavy emphasis on student engagement and hands on task oriented learning opportunities certainly builds upon the problem solving skills of our learners. This is also a great way to analyze, evaluate, and create, you know, all of those words that make the biggest Bloom supporters so super proud. But it also comes with a lot of well established routines and expectations in the learning environment to be ultimately successful. So this sounds so good. How do I lead my team into what could be unchartered waters for some of my staff? Well, it starts with that trust of culture and vulnerability probably two words we could have talked about this week. But it also takes that ability to allow teachers the chance to take a risk on this type of learning. It's about giving up control and that is so oo so hard for a lot of us to do. It is it is safe when I have control of everything. When I turn this over to students, it could come crashing down. You're right, it could, But that's okay. We have to learn from it, take the time to laugh about it sometimes too, and then and then move on. I had a middle school principle one time, say to me after a school Dan said, Hey, we had a middle school event and it ended without anyone being hurt. I don't care what happened. That's a success. She was right. Even in failure, we learn, and sometimes we have so much control of our learning that students can't fail without working extremely hard to get out of the straight line we've created. To actually fail, getting it wrong is learning. We have to give them the chance. The same thing applies to our teaching staff. They have to be allowed to fail. That's okay, that's how we get better. Hate to tell everyone we are already failing if we if we think we have this all figured out, we probably need to think again. Maybe we need a little experimental learning on our end to It just takes the knowledge that it is okay to try something new and see how it goes. Maybe it'll be the next greatest thing. Maybe it'll be the ticket to traveling across the world and sharing your story. Maybe it'll be the ticket that finally gets that student in the back of the room that always has their earbuds in to finally see their future and a way to get there. Maybe, just maybe, thanks for listening today. This has been your morning boost brought to you by AWB Education. Find us at AWB education dot org to find out how we can help you with your educational programming needs. If you enjoy this episode, please take a quick minute to leave a rating and review to help us reach even more people. Otherwise, enjoy the workday. Lead with your heart and we will see you next time.