Experiential Learning at Odyssey: It’s Not Just Field Trips!
By Lisa Hakamiun, History Teacher
“We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflection on experience.” John Dewey
One concern students may have when beginning at Odyssey is feeling disconnected from their learning community. Odyssey strives to ensure that this isn’t the case by providing multiple ways for students to connect inside and outside of the classroom. We pride ourselves on the support we provide for students and one of the most critical aspects of that support is our school-wide embrace of experiential learning.
Experiential learning at its simplest is learning by doing. This can look like many things, including field trips, labs, debates, and project-based learning based on real-world scenarios. Experiential learning puts the student in the driver's seat rather than having a solely teacher-centered mode of instruction. It is correlated with not only improving learner outcomes but also increasing student motivation (Kong, 2021). Experiential learning can be a challenge in an online setting, but Odyssey Online has built several avenues to ensure students reap the benefits of experiential learning.
In-Person Field Trips
Odyssey offers many in-person field trips throughout the school year designed to build community, have fun, and learn all in one! Students at Odyssey have had the benefit of so many awesome field trips, including visiting the SC State Legislature, and the SC State Museum, conducting a DNA fingerprinting lab, and enjoying Frankie’s Fun Park. This year, we have already had a trip to Wonderworks STEM Day, a college fair tour, and many opportunities to come, including a Fort Sumter tour, and Boone Hall outing. All costs are covered by the school for students and families, so please make sure to sign up for as many trips as you can to reap the benefits of experiential learning.
Online Activities
Besides in-person options, virtual field trips have produced significant increases in learning outcomes and student engagement, according to research conducted by Klipper, et al in 2019. Virtual field trips provide an immersive experience through a variety of topics, whether it be touring a Civil War battle site or viewing famous works in an art gallery. Students learn through all of the senses and virtual field trips enable them to move at their own pace and focus on their interests as they navigate the site.
Odyssey Online Learning’s goal is to ensure students have opportunities to learn in ways that best suit them, so you will see activities across the curricula designed to address students’ different learning styles. Students can engage in a live workout session in PE class, practice their speaking skills in Spanish, or participate in live discussions about literature in English class.
A 2019 study published by Harvard University researchers found that students retain far more information from experiential activities than through lectures, even though many thought they learned best through lecture (Deslauriers, et al.) This demonstrates the importance of engaging in activities to help cement learning and not passively sitting through live lessons. Jump in the chat box with questions, participate in break-out rooms, dive into your Kahoot reviews and you will see the benefits of experiential learning at Odyssey Online Learning.
Reflection
Besides the experience itself, reflection is a critical component of experiential learning. In order to be effective, experiential learning should be conducted in tandem with a reflection component. This can look like so many things, including journals, surveys, discussion posts, word clouds, or even emojis or a chatbox message. No matter what form of experiential learning, students benefit most from taking a moment to reflect upon the experience and what they gained from it. This intentionality marks the difference between passive and active learning and puts students in charge of their growth as lifelong learners.
Works Cited
Klippel, A., Zhao, J., Oprean, D. et al. The value of being there: toward a science of immersive virtual field trips. Virtual Reality 24, 753–770 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10055-019-00418-5
Kong Y. The Role of Experiential Learning on Students' Motivation and Classroom Engagement. Front Psychol. 2021 Oct 22;12:771272. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.771272
Louis Deslauriers, Logan S McCarty, Kelly Miller, Kristina Callaghan, and Greg Kestin. 2019. “Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116, 39, Pp. 19251–19257.
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