Experiential learning?

[soapboxqueen]

Hi, I'm returning to work after mat leave and there have been major changes etc at work. One of them being that we are moving to an entirely experiential lesson format. I've had very little information about what the SLT are looking for and/or what they will expect. I've been doing my own research online but everything is a bit theoretical without any real classroom insight.

Does anyone know of any books I could get? Could anyone point me in the right direction for information?

Thanks in advance

Could you give some clue as to subject, age range and type of school?

Sorry, upper primary level, maths and literacy mostly

Oh okay - well I teach sixth form so you may want to take my advice with a shovel of salt, but I would guess SLT are now into children learning literacy and numeracy skills in real life environments/on real life case studies or problems. So instead of teaching fractions directly you'd divide up pizza and discuss how to share it fairly or to encourage literacy you'd set up a class newspaper with an editor and journalists and so on. Set up a 'shop' in the classroom? Visit a local museum and devise scavenger hunt with some sums and writing based on objects in the collection? I'd pick the ideas that encourage independent learning without you having to make too many resources, personally!

I found this reference quite useful for giving some theoretical justification for my use of objects, games and real-life simulations in the classroom - may be helpful if you have many EAL students (I don't but I am sure methods that work with EAL are good for engaging most students):

www.naldic.org.uk/Resources/NALDIC/Research%20and%20Information/Documents/Integrating%20EAL%20learners%20into%20the%20mainstream%20curriculum.pdf

I don't know if you were looking for 'how to' guides rather than academic justifications though? I used to work in arts outreach amd museums so this sort of thing comes easily to me - writing lesson plans, not so much!

That was meant to be 'and' museums!

Actually that's a thought, why not scavenge some museum education sites for ideas, also look up GEM.

www.gem.org.uk/res/howto/howto_menu.php

This might be useful too - not free unfortunately!

www.lotc.org.uk/resources/lotc-resource-packs/

oooh thank you, shall take a good look at those links.