Why Experiential Learning Works: A Proven Approach to Student Engagement and Success

By Upper School Director Dr. Joel Coleman P ’22 

In a recent Pre-Kindergarten class, GSB elementary school students listened intently as their teacher read them the story of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf. When the story ended, they moved into small groups and built houses out of straw (pipe cleaners), sticks (tongue depressors), and bricks (Legos). At each stage, the big bad wolf (a hair dryer) tested their buildings, and the students giggled or cheered at the different results. In the end, these four-year-olds learned an important life lesson—that things well done are well worth doing—and they learned it not through passive reception of information, but through active, collaborative practice.  

Such a teaching example is a distillation of an important part of GSB life: learning by doing, also known as experiential learning. A private school that uses this approach does so because it is preparing students, as our mission states, not just for college, but also for a meaningful life. The traditional forms of teaching—lecture, note-taking, formal tests, and quizzes—all have a significant role to play in student learning, and they are important for building skills. When students also have the opportunity to apply, to project, to evaluate, and to build in real life, they learn more deeply.   

Research has shown us that when students go beyond formal testing and use their own experience to find solutions to relevant pressing questions, they learn the material better—and they are better prepared to learn when the next problem arises. Experiential learning comes in many forms—service, active research, cultural interaction, high adventure outdoor activities, language practice, project-based learning, and the creative arts—but all forms emphasize acting rather than receiving, and all versions appear in our students’ lives. We at GSB incorporate this kind of learning into many aspects of school life—from straw houses in Pre-K to maple tapping in the Middle School, from the STREAMS program in Fourth and Fifth Grade to Spring Unit in the Upper School. In fact, we have built our course offerings and curriculum around this approach.  

In the Upper School, for instance, high school students experience ever more personal and active applications as they progress through courses and clubs over time. A student who learns about compassion in the leadership section of Ninth Grade Seminar, for instance, may then choose to learn more about servant leadership in courses like Government or Leadership or Ethics before participating in Model UN and choosing a Spring Unit course that takes them to Romania to meet with Fulbright Scholars and field officers working on the Ukrainian refugee crisis. That experience may then inspire them to raise funds and materials for children who have lost their parents here at home.  

Another student may be inspired by the health portion of the Ninth Grade Seminar and go on to choose Anatomy and Physiology followed by Spring Unit certifications in Lifesaving or CPR, or even an EMT internship that, for at least one of our former students, results in witnessing an emergency birth. A different student who is attracted to active research might move from Ninth Grade projects to the Honors Thesis and then on to a Spring Unit where they kayak the Raritan River to collect water quality samples for on-site testing. Yet another may move from First-Year Orientation conversations about courage to our SPCA club and then onto the hands-on world of our Animal Science course (with its attendant hooves and horns!) where courage and learning experiences come hand in hand.  

At each stage, students become more engaged, more involved, more active, and more impactful. All of these examples show students who can receive information, certainly, but who also can actively transform their communities and their world. And this is the ultimate stage of the GSB mission—not only to prepare for college, but also to live a meaningful life.  

Sometimes we hear parents say that they are jealous of their children’s opportunities here at GSB. In almost every instance, that jealousy centers on the variety of experiences available to our community rather than a desire to sit for a formal test or the latest timed essay. I believe the reaction also has to do with our adult understanding that these experiences mean that our students are becoming the best kind of people—the kind who, despite rough winds that blow and blow, will never fall down.