:: GAMEPLAN ::: Class Organization for Experiential Learning Classes

Muhammad Fadhli b. Mohd Diah (AP 040127)

Mohd Khairi b. Nordin@Baharuddin (AP 040117)

Class Organization for Experiential Learning Classes

As we are talking about experiential learning, we know that it is about letting the students to have hands-on experience for their learning. But what actually is experiential learning? Learning from experience by yourself might be called "nature's way of learning". As mentioned by Houle, (1980, p. 221, quoted in Smith, 2003) it is "education that occurs as a direct participation in the events of life". It includes learning that comes about through reflection on everyday experiences. Experiential learning by yourself is also known as "informal education" and includes learning that is organised by learners themselves. We can consider experiential learning as a learner-centered education. Learner-centered teaching strategies are those that focus instruction on the needs, preferences, and interests of the learner. Students are given multiple opportunities to discover knowledge and practice skills in an environment designed to appeal to them.

Classroom organization or management for experiential learning is very important and as teacher, they will act as facilitators of the learning process, providing direction and feedback rather than just instruction. Teachers have to facilitate the students to fulfill the tasks given and expect them to achieve the objectives stated rather than just want to finish the task.

Students' seating arrangement plays an important role in encouraging learner to learn and it will effect the interaction in the classroom. For experiential learning, where students are encourage to discover and experience the learning process themselves, they should be able to interact with their peers and friends in the classroom to enhance their interest and capabilities in sharing any new information they gained from the teaching and learning process. Chitravelu (2005, p. 290) stated that "a change in seating arrangement could improve things." From what Chitravelu have said, we can assume that by changing seating arrangement there are a few tings that we may be able to improve. One of the things is students' interaction and students' participation in the classroom. Maybe by changing their seating arrangements, teachers are able to change passive students to becoming active students.

The noise level of students is also one of the important criteria of classroom managements. The noise level will depend on the type of activity selected or used by teacher. In experiential learning, students will do the task to gain experience from the learning. So there are a big probability of the high level of noise may be produces along the way. How could a teacher manage the noise level produced by students then? There a few ways of how to control classroom noise at a manageable level. Some of the ways are; teacher divide students into a few smaller group to make them easy to control, then appointing a leader for each group (if it is involving group activities and the leader task is to manage his or her group from creating noisy situation), the other way is to encouraging students to speak but with low voice level (audible to their immediate audiences or respective target member only.

When we have games or experiential activities in the classroom, we are likely to have "hitchhiking" or "sleeping passenger". One way to detect and discourage hitchhiking is to have team members individually or collectively distribute the total points for an assignment among themselves in proportion to the effort each one put in. Students want to be nice to one another and so may agree to put names on assignments of teammates who barely participated, but they are less likely to credit them with high levels of participation. Another technique is to call randomly on individual team members to present sections of project reports or partial solutions to problems, with everyone in the group getting a grade based on the selected student's response. The best students will then make it their business to see that their teammates all understand the complete solutions, and they will also be less inclined to put a hitchhiker's name on the written product and risk having him or her be the designated presenter.

Teacher plays vital role in her own class management or organization. As quoted from Chitravelu (2005, p. 291), "effective class management depends on the teacher. Know what you want and communicate it effectively to your students."

References

1. Chitravelu et. Al. (2003). ELT Methodology: Principle and Practice.Penerbit Fajar Bakti. Selangor

2. Smith, M. K. (2003). Introduction to informal education. the encyclopedia of informal education,http://www.infed.org/i-intro.htm