Launched in June 2016, the Smithsonian Learning Lab (SLL) provides access to the digital resources from across the Smithsonian's 19 museums, 9 major research centers, and the National Zoo, to be used as real-world learning experiences. It is designed to aid students in building lasting knowledge and critical skills that take learners from simply…

This study demonstrates how to simulate intercultural immersion while in a domestic setting to offer opportunities for teacher candidates to enhance their abilities to teach in culturally diverse settings, to develop cultural knowledge, and to reflect on their roles as educators. The paper presents a comparative case study of intercultural…

This design case illustrates an innovative research-based pedagogical approach to customizing students' learning experiences in an online course. We centered the course design on the experiential learning model which fosters student's learning through a reexamination and integration of their current knowledge with new and refined knowledge (Kolb,…

Grids and Gestures is an exercise intended to offer participants insight into a comics maker's decision-making process for composing the entire page through the hands-on activity of making an abstract comic. It requires no prior drawing experience and serves to help reexamine what it means to draw. In addition to a description of how to proceed…

This article describes the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association's (EAGALA) experiential model called "Equine Assisted Psychotherapy" (EAP). EAGALA's model is based on the Association for Experiential Education's (AEE) tenets and is focused on the learner's experience with horses. Drawing on the historical use of equines in the…

In pursuing a refined Learning Styles Inventory (LSI), Kolb has moved away from the original cyclical nature of his model of experiential learning. Kolb's model has not adapted to current research and has failed to increase understanding of learning. A critical examination of Kolb's experiential learning theory in terms of epistemology,…

Supportive programming is frequently designed to increase reflection and amplify the effects of applied learning experiences. We have developed a supportive curriculum that integrates ePortfolio practice, brief psychological interventions, advising, mentoring, family engagement, and professional development into a highly successful summer research…

Science education is facing an immense challenge due to students' lack of engagement with science education. This issue calls for a collaborative and integrative teaching strategy such as the Scientist-Teacher-Student Partnership (STSP). This research employed a qualitative research methodology supported by quantitative data, to explore students'…

This article reports on a multiliteracies-based experiential learning curriculum designed for intermediate French built upon the framework of a global simulation pedagogy. Students adopted the roles of fictitious characters living together in an apartment building in Paris and carried out written and spoken tasks through the voice of their…

Several previous studies have emphasized the importance of situating students in authentic learning or problem-solving contexts to enhance their learning performances. However, some challenges of situated learning have been stated, such as the lack of effective learning support or concrete objective design to improve students' learning engagement,…

Adult performance of high ability individuals has seldom been researched. Current results suggest that adult excellence occurs at lower rates than high ability individuals identified in their infancy or youth, with few cases of high intellectual abilities among adults that yield excellence products. This paper focuses on the analysis of the…

This article is about a Hong Kong-based summer internship program designed to foster service leadership attributes through service-learning. We report research based on interviews with interns and their partner organization representatives (PORs) and on written assignments as required by the program. We also report how the research informed the…

Within the past few years there has been an increasing emphasis on making computer science (CS) more accessible for all K-12 students. In 2013 there were 12 states that allowed CS courses to count towards high school graduation, and in 2018 that number had grown to 35 states plus the District of Columbia (Code.org, 2018). Due to the increasing…

The present study examines both the changes in beginning teachers' visions and the challenges they face during their first year experience in teaching. A basic qualitative research methodology was used, and the data were collected through semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire that included open-ended questions from eighteen beginning…

Positioned in the context of experiential learning, this paper reports findings of a virtual reality field trip (VRFT) in conjunction with an in-person field trip involving preservice teachers in an elementary science methods course to a local natural history museum. Findings included that virtual reality (VR) is best used after a field trip to…