This article stems from the study of the process and application of Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL) in the French higher education system, in France referred to as VAP (Validation des Acquis Professionnels ). The paper seeks to review not only the context in which the concepts underpinning VAP in France have developed, but also…

Current approaches to understanding learning imply that authentic learning experiences assist students to develop appropriate and effective understandings. Authentic learning experiences are those that are personally relevant from the learner's perspective and situated within appropriate social contexts. In planning for authentic learning to…

Library media staff can hold poetry festivals, which would help in developing the interest of the students in poetry and assist them in displaying their literary talents. Poetry can be studied in classrooms, where students are asked to create tunes and write simple lyrics, participation of the students in reading the poetries loudly in the…

A four-day exploration of mathematics provides a learning opportunity for students to practice number sense, multiplication and division skills. The students designed the gardening theme to explore the topic of multiplication using the array model, and see the application of mathematics to their everyday life.

Recognition of the relevance of mathematics in their daily lives is essential for students. A second grade class was engaged in an economics unit in which they had discussed the use of money with various combinations of coins equivaling 15 cents.

In this article, the authors present the Extended Buying Center Game (EBCG), an experiential exercise that integrates marketing concepts and theory with a strong emphasis on industry skills and that does so in an adaptive course design format. The focus of the EBCG is on organizational buying behavior, buyer-seller interaction, and marketing…

Many experiential education programs are developed on pillars promoting craftsmanship. Changing cultural situations have altered both our definition of, and the experiences offered to, participants that influence their concept of craftsmanship. By using Kurt Hahn's educational ideas, various experiences are explored and critiqued to determine what…

Some of the present approaches for studying adventure education are based on grounded theory, folk pedagogies, and existing social science theory. These approaches share some problems, including: (a) an overemphasis on outcomes without specifying processes, (b) a misunderstanding of how different types of evaluation contribute to theory, and (c)…

Means-end theory provides a useful approach for characterizing the relationship among the attributes or components of an experiential education course (the "means"), the benefits, or the outcomes associated with these attributes/course components, and the personal values (the "ends") these outcomes help to reinforce for course participants. The…

The goal of the present article is to describe conditions that influence coach reflection, and to provide suggestions for nurturing coach reflection. Coach reflection varies based on the interaction of four conditions: (a) peer access, (b) stage of learning, (c) issue characteristics, and (d) environment. Data are presented to support the four…

One of the most difficult concepts for statistics students is the standard error of the mean. To improve understanding of this concept, 1 group of students used a hands-on procedure to sample from small populations representing either a true or false null hypothesis. The distribution of 120 sample means (n = 3) from each population had standard…

In the ZAP project, a set of interactive computer programs called "ZAPs" was developed. The programs were designed in such a way that first-year students experience psychological phenomena in a vivid and self-explanatory way. Students can either take the role of participant in a psychological experiment, they can experience phenomena themselves,…

An enzyme exercise to address the problem of students inability to visualize chemical reaction at the molecular level is described. This exercise is designed as a dry lab exercise but can be modified into a classroom activity then can be augmented by a wet lab procedure, thereby providing students with a practical exposure to enzyme function.

This paper discusses the evaluation of an informal science education project, The Birdhouse Network (TBN) of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. The Elaboration Likelihood Model and the theory of Experiential Education were used as frameworks to analyse the impact of TBN on participants' attitudes toward science and the environment, on their…

Three studies using the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition were conducted over a period of 21 years. Nurses with a range of experience and reported skillfulness were interviewed. Each study used nurses' narrative accounts of actual clinical situations. A subsample of participants were observed and interviewed at work. These studies extend the…