LP LIX--Experiential Learning and Paperfree Teaching

A few words on teaching in London. I was assigned two classes to teach and one class to monitor. Since one of my classes was an evening class, I did not have a normal classroom in which to teach. Furthermore with the emphases on experiential learning, it became advantageous to go throughout London supporting and discovering the learning outcomes for the classes. Unlike a typical college class of lecture and tests, these classes were more field-based, hands-on approaches to the learning process. When a teacher has a city like London with unlimited academic resources within reach, it makes sense to take a holistic educational philosophy in methodology and in pedagogy. In a way, it becomes less reliant on teacher personality or teacher driven learning, and, instead, becomes about the student discovering a vibrant academic culture.

With this in mind, I designed two courses that could be taught without the use of paper. The classroom was the world of London and in two cases, the entire United Kingdom, and the assessment and assignments were done electronically. Additional material was available through digital means, resulting in a paper free course. Utilizing the public transport system and lots of walking, we learned through our experiences and we experienced a new brand of learning. Being that a college course is designed as about 45 hours of instruction, there is no mandate on what "instruction" means. Most teachers view that as lecture time with students taking notes to be recalled later in some kind of assessment. This is the traditional model that has room for variation to include presentations, research, projects, discussion, and all the techniques that make education viable and meaningful.

Embracing the reality of experience and broad-based education, I approached the classes with the idea that experiencing learning first-hand has infinitely more value than any kind of abstract discussion. While a discussion on the Baroque master artist Peter Paul Rubens may have some strength, and certainly a teacher's expertise and insights can enhance the learning of Rubens, actually seeing an original Rubens has more strength and educational merit than simply discussing the work. A student can then follow up on the experience by supplementing his/her learning through research and critical application. This makes for the learning to be active and vital rather than abstract. Experience it first, understand it second, synthesize it third.

A stunning lecture full of information, moments of discussion, and critical application in a classroom certainly has merit and is often the best way to create a learning environment. But at some point, a teacher may need to accept and acknowledge that experiencing the same information in an active and outstanding environment may be superior than anything verbal the teacher has to offer. For Music Appreciation, we had a discussion on instruments of the orchestra and how they independently and congruently in performance. My knowledge of the subject matter is strong and I delivered a thorough and precise lecture on the subject. And yet, until we sat in an auditorium listening to the London Symphony in all its musical and artistic glory, it was still abstract knowledge. As we listened to the instruments, they took on a life of their own and the students found themselves in a world of cognitive application of the sound of the instruments creating music in one of the finest orchestras in the world. We experienced the knowledge and poured in deep into our minds and hearts in a lasting way. They may not remember every detail of what I said about string instruments, but they will never forget the sound of London Symphony strings playing Symphony No. 2 by Brahms.

In thinking about education and college work, I realized that I could not recall any lectures from my undergraduate time. As excellent as they were, the content offered by the professors did not make a lasting impression on my education. What I do remember, however, were the experiences from those courses and from the process of learning. We learn better through action and through concrete events. From those events we then learn to apply the experience to a new level of cognition and perhaps even a deep emotional level. This makes the learning process have lasting value rather than falling into an abstract bottomless hole of knowledge with no purpose, with no end.

As I developed the learning outcomes for the classes, I integrated those with vibrant, active experiences in London. Trying to avoid excessive cognition apart from the learning that involves the senses, I designed the entire coursework around the experiences surrounding us. The wealth of first hand experiences is vast and robust, unparalleled anywhere else for teaching and learning, particularly in the arts and literature. As often said, "the world is my stage" but for me I would say, "London is our classroom." While this has pedagogical strength and educational merit, it does not escape some problems however.

The lack of a traditional classroom took some getting used to as students had to take notes while walking and looking rather than sitting at a desk. In addition, the dissemination of papers was cumbersome and made for an unnecessary complexity to the educational process. With this in mind, I set upon a path of making the courses paper free. All assignments and all research was digital and grading was handled through email and dropbox. I used a mental system of CDEF (calendar, dropbox, email, facebook) for communication and for immediate assessment. Ideal for teaching and learning, I still had the problem of how to assess the broad knowledge of the students.

Thinking through this, I realized it was time to put examinations online requiring a login and password. While I monitored the process and created a randomization to the questions, it was still entirely on a computer in the digital world. By the end of the courses, students had a portfolio of essays detailing and supplementing their learning experiences as well as an objective and comprehensive assessment of the learning outcomes. As it came together, and in spite of minor gaps in learning, I realized the students had gained a tremendous amount of knowledge of the subject matter that went beyond cognition and into application. The experiment worked. We remained paper free with vital, life-changing experiences while keeping our learning outcomes in the forefront. Their learning was active, their supplemental work digital, and their growth in the subject matter robust. While much of this system was dependent on having a classroom such as London, there are many things to glean from this type of pedagogical approach to teaching.