Beard, C., & Wilson, J.P. (2006). Experiential learning. Philadelphia, PA: Kogan Page Limited.

Experiential Learning Activities Set a target, goal or objective, where goals create an underlying state of mind Create a sense of a journey or destinationphysical movement and exercise; people, information and objects are moved from A to B Allow participants to exercise many forms of intelligence Create and sequence a theme of social, mental, psychological and physical activitiesmind, spirit, and body Adjust the elements of reality Stimulate the senses Use construction or deconstruction in activity deisgn: a physical object, eg bike, wall or raft or non-physical item, eg a clue, phrase or poem Design social collaborative or competitive strategies Create combative and/or empathetic approaches to the environment Create restrictions o Obstacles; o Sensory blocking, eg blindfolds; o Rules; o Procedures; Provide elements of real or perceived challenge or riskphysical, emotional, intellectual or material Set time constraints Allow people to deal with change, risk, success and failurestretching personal boundaries Design sorting and/or organization skillsa mass of data, information to sort or activities to do or consider Include functional skills such as surveying, juggling, map reading, know tying, etc Design quite time for reflectionphysical or mental space Allow the story of the experience to be told Experiential activities also develop skill, knowledge or awareness, and often start with specific narrow skills and then move on to aggregate or brad skills such as teamwork, communication, time management, emotional intelligence or leadership. This use of narrow activities has to be examined in the light of their function. Broader and more complex activities provide depth to the experiential learning process, as is seen from the framework in Figure 5.4. Adapting the model of Dainty and Lucas (1992), this simple framework can be created both to classify outdoor and indoor experiential learning programs and to show the sequencing of activities from play to intense self-development over the period of a program.

Narrow skills such as listening or questioning can be focused on first. These might be built on later, as they are a subset of skills for teamwork or communication, which are very broad skills. Narrow skills can also be less developmental and more functional, for example knot tying, map reading or juggling skills, and they may be included to build up to complex functional skills for a journey such as orienteering. The experiential wave:

1. 2. 3. 4.

Awaken participant enthusiasm with ice-breakers and energizers Start to focus attention with medium-sized activities and narrow skills Direct the personal experience with larger, broader skills Share participant enthusiasm using regular reviewing activities

Learning Activities: Exploring Reality In order to help people learn from experience, learning providers use a combination of activities and draw on drama, sculpting, role-play, art, stories and metaphors. They encourage learners to express thoughts and ideas about their experience. However, the degree to which these activities are perceived as real or relevant can have a significant effect on the learning experience. A Practical Case Study: Altering Reality Negotiating public access to the UK countryside skills development

The early part of the course uses narrow skills practice. Negotiating is a broad skill, involving many narrow skills such as listening, questioning, diplomacy and so on. On this course we thus deconstructed negotiating into its many narrow sub-skills such as influencing, persuasion, listening, tactics, entry, developing rapport, closing and so on. The latter part of the course then used broad skills practice, but with varying levels of reality or simulation. The exercises were as follows: From: LOW CONTENT REALITY Exercise A: Redecorating the office The material was taken from a standard loose-leaf package on negotiating. It is a paper exercise. There is no incentive. It concerns a contract price to decorate an office suite. Content reality is low. The written case material on decorating contains a review sheet that looks at the forces in use in negotiating and the approaches that can be used by the two sides. People are asked to identify opening gambits and write their answers on paper. Exercise B: Driving a bargain A written exercise about carspeople are told that this is a warm-up for a real car exercise when people can pit their wits against real negotiators! This adds to the incentive to concentrate on all exercises. Here the content reality is again lowthe people involved do not negotiate car prices in their jobs. Exercise C: Buying a new car Real cars are used. Real logbooks are used. Real car prices are offered. Car book prices are available. Cars can be inspected and faults found, both inside and outside, as they are located in the car park. The keys are made available. One is an uncleaned four-wheel drive and the other is a nicely valeted VW Polo. The brief informs people You have moved to the National Park and need a four-wheel drive for bad weather and to tow your new caravan. False money is used but a prize is offered. The people that the participants negotiate with are real trained negotiators and they are located in an office where the deals will take place. Final agreements are written in sealed envelopes so that the winners can be decided later. Content reality is again low; process reality is high. To: HIGH CONTENT REALITY Exercise D: Negotiating access to UK land on behalf of the public Here we use high content reality and high process reality. Real negotiators are again present. Real information is providedfacts and figures on sheep headage payments, ranger support, offered, wall damage payments and litter arrangements. Participants are real access officers or public rights of way officers. They are observed on video by the rest of the group. The incentive is to try to do a good job in front of their peers, to try to pull all the skills and knowledge acquired on the course into practice, and they try to meet their own pre-set prices and subsidy targets decided in their negotiating plans. They argue their case with real negotiators and are debriefed afterwards. The video is then replayed with self- and peer- assessment taking place.

Emotional Waves Significantly, this adrenalin rush can also come during mentally demanding learning. As with any adventure, the pleasure comes once you have landed safely and the relaxing opiates called endorphins gush through the body; the natural ecstasy is produced from the learning, creating strong positive experience, and it can come in many guises. But providing learners with repeated high-energy activity may produce low returns for the learners if their optimal stimulation levels are exceeded.

1. Create conditions for pre-contemplationreading, thinking, imagining 2. Awaken participant enthusiasmice breakers and energizers 3. Start to focus attention and concentrationmedium-sized activities, narrow skills 4. Direct and challenge the personal experiencelarger, broader skills 5. Share participant enthusiasmusing reviewing activities 6. Encourage quite personal reflection Aside: Discussions should be a deeper level. From Senge: As discussed earlier, event explanations are the most common in contemporary culture, and that is exactly why reactive management prevails. Systemic Structure (generative) > Patterns of Behavior (responsive) > Events (reactive)

The communication iceberg: