Norman VASU* and Lydia CHEE Qian Ting
NUS College (NUSC)
Vasu, N., & Chee, L. Q. T. (2023). Overseas experiential learning in the city that never sleeps [Lightning talk]. In Higher Education Campus Conference (HECC) 2023, 7 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecc2023proceedings/overseas-experiential-learning-in-the-city-that-never-sleeps
SUB-THEME
Communities and Education
KEYWORDS
Experiential learning, sense-making, designing for reflection
CATEGORY
Lightning Talks
ABSTRACT
This Lightning Talk explores the pedagogical underpinnings of designing for reflection and sense-making to an interdisciplinary group of undergraduate students on an overseas experiential learning programme. Experiential learning here is understood through Kolb’s (1976, 2015) four-stage cycle. We argue that an inordinate amount of contact hours has to be devoted to group and individual reflection and sense-making when designing for experiential learning. Based on our study, in effect, 8.5 hours of experience requires 8.9 hours of reflection and sense-making. With rounding, that suggests that for every hour of experience, educators should design for an equivalent hour of contact hour dedicated to sense-making.
This presentation is based on the experience of conducting NUS College’s (NUSC) Summer Study Trip Experience Programme (SSTEP), an interdisciplinary experiential learning programme with a four-week overseas component for undergraduates. SSTEP was a specially curated course to New York City (NYC) for 14 students to arrive at an appreciation and understanding of NYC as a Global City.
To achieve this, the programme was designed for students to have fireside chats with industry leaders, engage with guest professors, and experience field visits to important cultural sites. Throughout the course of the programme, students were expected to reflect on their learning, and conduct an independent study of a topic (of their choice) related to the theme of the programme.
With regard to reflection, students were provided three 30-minute individual consultations with the lecturer accompanying the trip, weekly end-of-the-week three-hour seminars at the City University of New York (CUNY) on the topic of the week, seminars for 1.5-days at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), and weekly 1.5-hour group reflection seminars. Besides these formal reflection points, students were also provided with questions ahead of site visits to better aid their sense-making of their site visits.
Interestingly, despite these various reflection points while on the trip, students requested for more contact hours through immediate post-event discussions.
Through the experience of the SSTEP programme, it is clear that while the experiential element in experiential learning is important, formal learning through seminars and consultations remains firmly a key component of the process. Future research based on this finding should consider if this demand for formal learning leads to more reflection, or whether the demand for more contact hours stems from a particular orientation towards a more guided form of learning.
REFERENCES
Kolb, D. A. (2015). Experiential learning. Pearson Education.
Kolb, D. A. (1976). Learning style inventory. McBer.