Guest: Dr Colin Beard, Professor of Experiential Learning at Sheffield Business School, part of Sheffield Hallam University and National Teaching Fellow – Sheffield, United Kingdom.
Host: René Stevens, CEO/Owner ATELIER V real estate + Founder/Host The ‘E’ of real estate podcast – Amersfoort, The Netherlands/ Colwyn Bay, United Kingdom.
Content
How to facilitate teachers make the learning environment work in the 21st century?
“If you are a fish the last thing you would discover is the water. In higher education, we have not given sufficient thought to our surroundings of teaching & learning, and yet they are fundamental for the process of learning. We have to wake up and realise that we are no longer fish where we ever haven’t thought about the water or in our case the places where we teach and learn.” (Prof Dr Colin Beard).
Definition of Experiential Learning:
- When the experience takes centre stage.
- The design of the experience takes centre stage in the learning (experience centred).
- Focused around the learner (learner-centred).
- Experiential learning is acquaintance with rather than knowledge of.
Let the learners do the learning. Don’t go too fast and don’t try to do too much. Using gesture-based technologies (spatial recognition) have the potential to liberate the human mind to the next layer.
Having a greater awareness of space is the first step. Teachers should their voices have heard in the tribes of real estate, facilities management, IT and Human Resources. But that begs the question do they know what their ideal classroom feels and looks like?