Paul McAfee (Learning and Instruction)

Zoom Link https://buffalo.zoom.us/j/98996630753?pwd=MDFGNGdJcXAvTWttNFpIMDJwWnNvdz09

I would like to participate in a panel of other GSE graduate students to explore the uses of experiential learning pedagogies in higher education, or perhaps in grades 10-12 plus higher education.

My exploratory phenomenological dissertation research evaluated students’, instructors’, and administrators’, definitions, and perceived value of experiential learning pedagogies. The research comprised interviews in late 2018 and early 2019 within a program run by a large public American university on its Singapore campus (pseudonym AmUAsia).

At the time of this research, the Singapore Ministry of Education was actively promoting the inclusion of educational methods that moved beyond lectures and exams (Meng, 2018; Ministry of Education, 2021). Mr. Ng Chee Meng, stated, “Students learn through experimentation—they try, fail, try, learn from it and try again (Meng, 2018, Paragraph 40). It is within this Singapore national education context that AmUAsia operates.

With each of the interview groups—students, instructors, and administrators—the research questions explored the definitions of experiential learning, personal descriptions of instances of experiential learning at AmUAsia, and assessment of the value of experiential learning. The conceptual framework incorporated Dewey (1938), Lave (1991), and Lave and Wenger (1991), with focus on the contrast between learning through lecturers alone and learning through experiential activities, usually when combined with lectures. The data analysis lens was the Kolb (2015) Experiential Learning Theory (KELT) model, but with modifications from Bergsteiner et al. (2010) to account for the continuum from student as receiver to student as actor.

The data from this research indicated that every student participant could share examples of experiential learning. Every AmUAsia instructor used some form of experiential learning method. The three AmUAsia administrators all discussed positive value for experiential learning. However, most instructors gave little or no thought to their teaching methods with respect to experiential learning. The students had not heard about experiential learning before I interviewed them.