What Makes a Good Educational Experience?

One can learn from most happenings in life. Saul Alinsky once noted “Most people do not accumulate a body of experience. Most people go through life under-going a series of happenings which pass through their systems undigested. Happenings become experiences when they are digested, when they are reflected on, related to general patterns, and synthesized.” (Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, quoted by Henry Mintzberg in “The Five Minds of a Manager” HBR 11/03)

SO, the first element of a good educational experience is the willingness to slow down and think about what took away from each of the major events of one’s life. Most people don’t consciously do this. I’ve taught a class in which we ask people to write their Life’s Story in 400 words or less. Then b) list all of the major events in column A. Then, c) rate each events in column B from -5 to +5 on their emotional impact on you, and d) write in column C what that event taught you (requires some reflection, may not have done that before) and finally e) chart your numbers from column B.
This is a process for identifying explicitly on paper what you took away from (or didn’t) each of your main events in life. Having done that, you have a set of some 15 or more “lessons” with related stories (of what happened at each event) that you could use to pass on or teach what you’ve learned.

Teachers can create good educational experiences—AND we know that people tend to put their beliefs ahead of data/facts when they make decisions. (See Kahneman, Fast Thinking Slow Thinking→ Nobel Prize). SO good instructors gently help students have VABE abrasions. That is, they nudge students to challenge and re-think their Values, Assumptions, Beliefs, and Expectations about the way the world is or should be.

This might include new information, introduction of new theories, and ways to tackle common problems. Ken Bain’s book, What the Best College Professors Do summarizes much of what we know about adult learning. The chapters on Adult Learning in my book, Teaching Management also does that. Essentially, adults learn best when

1. They are dealing with issues that are important to them.
2. They believe they can learn something about how to deal with those issues.
3. They are actively involved in the discussion and finding solutions.

There are more, but that’s the core. SO, lecturers are at a big disadvantage compared with case method instructors. “Cases” are current, relevant descriptions of problems (in medicine, business, war fighting, etc.) that students read perhaps along with some related theory chapters or articles and then debate what to do in class under the guidance of a skilled instructor.

The skilled instructor will use multiple channels including cases, discussion, short lecturettes in response to student comments or questions, frame great questions with care in advance, incorporate video clips, PowerPoints, and one of my favorites, intense role plays in class SEAMLESSLY (so the transitions don’t disrupt student attention and the flow of ideas). That kind of class, in my experience, creates long moments of “flow,” “resonance,” or being in the educational “zone” that stimulates and engages everyone in the room.

AND good educational experiences are by no means, as I said above, limited to classrooms. LIFE is a classroom. Sadly, most people go through life simply recreating the VABEs that their parents imprinted in them. I’ve come to believe that chronological age has little to do with becoming a mature adult: rather one reaches that point when / IF one becomes willing and able to review and rethink all the things that were impressed on them when they were between the ages 1 and 10.

Does this help? What’s a good educational experience? One creates one’s own by being “mindful” and learning as deeply and rapidly as one can from every event, turning happenings (inside and outside a classroom) into experiences. Life then becomes a continuous learning environment limited only by your willingness to engage it.