For 20 years the OWLS program has brought the benefits of experiential education to thousands of participants each year. Utilizing teaching techniques that emphasize learning through hands-on experience opens opportunities for self-discovery and growth that traditional education techniques all too often fail to identify or allow to flourish.

The following are key components of Experiential Education according to The Association for Experiential Education (www.AEE.org):

• It is a process through which a participant constructs knowledge, skill, and value from interactive experiences.
• The participant is required to take initiative, make decisions and be accountable for results.
• The learning occurs when carefully chosen experiences are supported by reflection, critical analysis, and synthesis.
• The results of the learning are personal and form the basis for future experience and learning.
• Relationships are developed and nurtured: participant to self, participant to others in the group and participant to the world at large.
• The facilitator and participant may experience success, failure, adventure, risk-taking and uncertainty, because the outcomes of experience cannot totally be predicted.
• The facilitator’s primary roles include setting suitable experiences, posing problems, setting boundaries, supporting participants, insuring physical and emotional safety, and facilitating the learning process.
• The facilitator recognizes and encourages spontaneous opportunities for learning.
• The design of the participant experience includes the possibility to learn from natural consequences, mistakes and successes.

OWLS programming uses many of the ideas explained in the following definitions of Constructivism

Curriculum -Constructivism promotes using curricula customized to the participant’s prior knowledge and emphasizes hands-on problem solving.

Instruction -Under the theory of constructivism, facilitators tailor their teaching strategies to participant responses and encourage students to analyze, interpret, and predict information. Facilitators also rely heavily on open-ended questions and promote extensive dialogue among students.

Assessment -Constructivism calls for the assessment process to become part of the learning process so that students play a larger role in judging their own progress.

© 2009 Outdoor Wisconsin Leadership School Williams Bay, Wisconsin
Lake Geneva Fresh Air Association, Inc.