EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION
As most educators would acknowlege, not all students learn in the same way. Some Students are "book learners"; other students need to particpate in an acitivity to fully comprehend a particular topic or subject.
Experiential education is often the best way for this latter group of learners to excel. However even for "book learners", experiential education can bring mastery to those already steeped in conventional curriculum.
Beyond this though, Experiential Education has the value of students helping others.
From our perspective, service learning and social enterprise share common imperatives/requirements. Service learning typically starts in school and goes into the community, while social enterprise often is the reverse- one comes up with an idea to serve and then finds out the adademic skills need to implement the idea.
HOW COMMON ATTRIBUTES PLUS DIFFERENT APPROACHES LEAD TO SAME OR SIMILAR POSITIVEOUTCOMES
COMMON ATTRIBUTES
Self reflection
Self discovery
Values
Skills
Knowledge
DIFFERENT APPROACHES, SIMILAR OUTCOMES
Whether using a social enterprise approach or a service learning approach, students are able to combine activities in and outside the classroom and help their communities at the same time.
Using a social enterprise approach, (right) the community is the starting point where students begin projects for which they look to classroom resources to strengthen the foundation and implementation of their project.
Using a service learning approach, (left) the classroom is the starting point where students conceive ideas related to their curriculum which they then translate into projects which provide a benefit for their communities.
