Widening Education Accessibility Through Experiential Learning International Programs
While so-called traditional teaching methods focus on structured lectures and readings that prepare students for testing, experiential learning, on the other hand, focuses on learning by doing. With this method, tests are often replaced by a reflection period where students evaluate their own decisions and outcomes. Here, success isn’t necessarily defined, but determined more by what learners take away from the experience.
Before it was a staple in educational verbiage, experiential learning was something that everyone had …well, experienced – but may not have been able to define. Before Jedd Cohen, Knovva Academy’s lead academic curriculum designer, earned his M.Ed. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, he recalls dabbling in experiential learning before he could attach a name to it. “In 4th grade, we did a mini-society where we elected government and we had a marketplace where we made and sold things. It was very exciting to think about what I wanted to sell and make,” he said.
He credits his mini-society in helping him and his classmates learn about the basic principles of economics, how democracy works, how elections were run and even the art of persuasion at such a young age.
While Jedd sees the value in this teaching method, he also sees a place for traditional teaching and believes that experiential learning is complementary but not replacive. At Knovva Academy Jedd and his team of academic designers have worked for nearly 4 years to develop the perfect mix of the two methods with their Model G20 Program. The program, which started in Boston and now reaches high school students all over the world, combines a G20 simulation event with a full curriculum that reinforces and builds key competencies, theories, and practices that students will use during the final summit, the true experiential component of the program.
Now that there’s a name attached to this learning style, a new generation of teachers who took note of their own experiential learning growing up are looking for ways to bring it into their classroom for their students.
“Students really want this, they are tired of being fed this idea that you learn and then your life starts. That’s just not how the world works and they’re getting wise to this and want experience,” said Marth McMorran who also holds an M.Ed. from Harvard School of Education and is the lead online course creator for Knovva Academy.
While it’s clear that experiential learning is a valuable tool for students, many schools and teachers are unclear on how to work it into their classroom. “Most schools are trying to adapt to all the 21st-century education goals and are trying to produce global citizens. They all want to do that, but whether or not they can logistically do that is part of the question,” Jedd notes.
Since teachers don’t always have the time resources, freedom or energy to give their students access to this influential method, 3rd-party programs are becoming a valuable tool to educators. Knovva’s Model G20 Summit program offers teachers access to an international learning platform and can be fully integrated into classroom curriculum thanks to its inclusion of self-supported online classes that ready students for the experiential part of the program. The whole program enables students to think outside their own box and gain new perspective as they analyze and act on certain situations using the information they learned in class.
“Teachers have been planning their whole class around this program, and now we’ve been able to support them by creating an easily integrated lesson for the classroom,” said Benson Chang, Knovva Academy’s global co-founder. With the Model G20 now in 9 different countries and international classrooms, Jedd, Benson, Martha and the rest of the Knovva Academy team are sure to inspire a whole new generation of experiential learners and global leaders.
This article was submitted by guest author Rachel Lemieux, Marketing at Knovva Academy. Knovva Academy is an international education organization based in Boston, Massachusetts. Through our comprehensive online and experiential learning ecosystem, we nurture students’ ability to think critically and engage with real-world challenges. We want to see a world where young people are empowered to pursue their own actualization personally, academically and professionally, while engaging the world with a committed sense of social and global responsibility.
