Increase Your Retention: Exploratory and Experiential Learning
We encourage two types of learning: Epiphany-Based and Exploratory-Based.
Exploratory-Based Learning is about understanding when to use a given tool!
Experientially-Based Learning is about understanding how tools are connected!
Find out more on our blog!
How to Remember What You Learn: Make Connections!
Other cornerstones of SSA’s approach are experientially-based and exploratory-based learning. These sound like they’re similar (and they kind of are). Exploratory-based learning is all about discovering when a given skill is applicable, learning when a given tool will (and won’t) work. Experientially-based learning is about to making connections between tools that you learn and understanding how they do (and don’t) relate to one another.
Exploratory-based learning
At SSA, the idea of exploratory-based learning is that we give you a little bit of information and then you check out how far that’s going to take you and how much that’s going to work. Let’s imagine I’m introducing a concept like y=mx+b, which is the formula for a line, which is arranged so that you have a slope and a y-intercept. If I teach that to you and give you a couple of problems and some of them work with y=mx+b, but others don’t, then you’ve learned two important things. Not only have you learned what y=mx+b does and how it’s useful, but you’ve also learned what it doesn’t do and when it’s not useful.
Experientially-Based Learning
One of the most important things that kids have to do in learning (and this is part of higher-order thinking skills) is distinguish between where something works and where it doesn’t. And that’s what’s missing in a lot of high school curricula. They’re teaching you a specific thing, but they’re not teaching you when you should and should not apply it. So, when you’re asked in a more open, sky’s-the-limit you’re like: “Wait, I don’t know! Does anything that I learned actually deal with this?” and you have no yardstick or rubric by which to decide what to apply.
We’ve found that experience is the best teacher. You try something out, you kind of poke at it. And that’s also part of what we talk about with the epiphany, because, as you poke at it, you realize things that do and don’t work and that allows you to connect that to other things that you know. As you poke at it and you find that this thing does work, you realize: “Wait, but I know this other thing works to do that”, and then the teacher says: “Yes! That’s right! What’s the connection?” And now, the kid is having his/her/their own epiphany about how those two things go together.
That’s what sticks! That’s what stays! Those are the memories, that is the type of understanding, that will stick with a child!
Stay tuned for more tips on increasing retention! For more studying and test-prep tips, check out our blog: https://www.socraticsummeracademy.com/blog.
