EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING, DONE RIGHT

Every person on the planet instinctively knows and understands that when something is learnt via an activity it is far more effective. It is such a universal truth that most people really don’t pay it much heed.

Being a part of a company that supplies Montessori and preschool learning materials for 18 years, every single school owner/ teacher who came to us to buy would vouch for activity based learning. So in our minds was ingrained that experiential learning was the foundation for every preschool.

Stepping into the Affordable Early Education space apprehensively, assuming experiential learning may not be accepted, we found to our pleasant surprise that every school owner recognized its value and many teachers declared they were already doing some amount of it.

Why then are our learning outcomes so low in budget schools. And what can we do to better it?

Let us look at the varied interpretations of activity based learning conducted in schools in Early Years, especially where numbers are marginally large in not just APS (Affordable Private Schools), but most K-12 schools.

1.     FUN TIME: Activity time is usually seen as the “fun” time of the day, hence resulting in both the teachers and children not taking it very seriously, but seeing it merely as doing something “extra-curricular” that supports learning in some obscure way. An example could be rolling dice and colouring the sum, an addition activity

The teachers look upon this as not so important, and give it little heed. The real learning will happen when we are doing Maths worksheets of course.

The parents are told by the child, “We had fun rolling and colouring”. The “involved” parents are then frustrated with the school not knowing what really happened. Over a period of time this disenchantment leads them to putting pressure on schools, and schools slowly reducing the activity based learning component.

2.     LACK OF TLM’S TO IMPLEMENT THE ACTIVITIES: Most activity based learning curricula are designed with open ended activities. So in majority of the cases it is left to teachers to define the methods and outcome to whatever extent possible. An example of this – Ask the teacher to gather different leaves to explain shapes. Now the teacher does this a few times and then gets tired of collecting things each time and gives up after a point. While the curriculum still says “Activity based”

3.     HANDMADE TOOLS: The more innovative and artistic teachers create beautiful charts, puppets and come up with the most imaginative teaching tools. After a point the handmade tool tears/ fades/ breaks, no one wants to make replacements. Some Activity based learning which happened briefly stops, however schools continue to say that they are using activity based learning.

4.     LACK OF CLEAR OBJECTIVES: Schools go to a nearby toyshop / material supplier and buy toys that look meaningful or take their fancy with no clear thought on what objective they hoped to achieve. The same toy is sometimes used for colours, sometimes for counting, sometimes for addition leaving children confused and teachers even more confused.

After 2 months, teachers realize that they have to spend much time with the child using it, and yet they are not sure what the child is learning. Hence the toys get safely locked away in cupboards to be taken at during PTM’s to tell parents activity based learning is being followed.

5.     GROUP DEMONSTRATIONS AND NOT ACTIVITY: Then there are schools where there are Learning Aids and there is some activity time each week, but done in a medium to large group size (10 + children at a time). By the time the 3rd child gets a chance, the rest are super bored of passively sitting and seeing the same activity done again and again, and decide to give it a skip and create noisy diversions instead. Guess what, passive observation of an activity being done by other children for long periods is NOT called activity based learning.

Result teacher finds it too difficult to continue this, switches to singing rhymes where she can keep every child “under control”

6.     UTTER CHAOS: Teachers often think activity time means complete freedom, and being disorganized. Lack of ground rules, and total abandonment of process results in children running around helter-skelter confused and unruly. Result: Experiential learning written off as a failure assuming it creates chaos!

7.     REGIMENTED ACTIVITY: There are schools where teachers will only “show” the activity and then completely control the activity, amount of time that the child spends on the activity, and everything is rigidly conducted. The more regimented or teacher driven the activity is, the less likely that it will yield results. Result: Experiential learning written off as a failure due to excessive control

8.     MY TEACHER QUIT, NOW NO ONE KNOWS! Some schools actually have some decent equipment procured with some thought and care, but the teacher who procured it has quit and the rest do not know what to do with it. With attrition rates in early Years being significantly high, this is a rampant problem. Result: Materials locked up again in the cupboard.

9.     UNTRAINED TEACHERS: Many companies offer materials/ activity based learning solutions. The "trained" teacher while trained on child psychology and some methods, has not been trained on this solution. She/ he is not very sure how to use these materials. The half-baked solution that the school invested in now seems set up for failure. Result: The entire category of experiential learning gets maligned leaving a bad taste in school principals and owners. They vehemently tell you they “tried” it and failed.

10.  TECH IS NOT ACTIVITY: Some higher end K-12 schools actually refer to tech apps as activity based learning. Disaster of the worst kind. Children get numbed, stop thinking and are set with poor learning ability very early in life.

How than we can make experiential learning, which is by far the most effective learning method, succeed. It needs a systemic approach that involves all stakeholders. An effective experiential learning solution must ensure:

• The materials/ learning tools used for experiential learning are simple and have clarity of objective, then it is likely that children will enjoy it over and over again each time relishing the purpose, just like they would go down a slide.
• Teachers are trained to use tools effectively, so that they become the strongest propagators since they are the first to see the visible results in the child, and they see their workload reducing. They must learn to offer freedom to the child to work but with ground rules well in place. (Did Dr Montessori really discover this a hundred years ago, What a genius!!)
• Parents start seeing the change in learning. So activity based learning must produce tangible results. Then parents become its strongest advocates.
• School owners must not get burdened with – find trained teachers, now you figure how to do things, the system must take care of all learning requirements. The owners then get appreciated at running a well-oiled system, and they are happy that the investment in activity based learning has produced results and continue to support it.
• And most importantly, children must have the right tools that delight them and entice them to explore, absorb and discover. Children use their hands and fingers to practice it as many times as they like and finally reflect and draw inferences from their experiences.

Finally, when the "right" Experiential Learning is followed by "write" and "read" in a connected manner, then of course it completes the cycle, this is the practical to theory process that is universally applicable. We will then have an Early Education system that is fool-proof, and sure to transform the way education is delivered, creating analytical thinkers who are life-long learners.

So here we are at Kreedo, poised on a journey to do just this, fingers crossed and hoping to transform India.

May the force be with us to make this transformation!!