Writing and Research for Master's Degree Students March, 1999 Assignment Prepared by Vince Crary

When our cohort group met to put together the agenda for the January New Educator workshop, the first topic that came up was what experiential learning exercise do we start the program with. We had quite a debate over this issue. The majority vote decided upon a simple introduction by each participant, and each participant was made aware of this introduction.

A literature search that I did via the Internet using the library at the University of Minnesota, Crookston, produced an article by Rich Becker from the "Business Index" dated February 1998, v 35, n 2, p78 (8) titled "Taking the Misery out of Experiential Training".

The controversy this article addresses is that creators of workshops love experiential learning exercises, but participants hate them.

Experiential learning is easy to do for those who are conducting the workshop but can be difficult to do well. The experiential learning experience can create a sense of intrusion, can be a threat, lead to anxiety, and make learning difficult for participants of the workshop.

This article did not have implicit assumptions as the article was very clear in its explanations of the author's viewpoint.

I agree that experiential learning activities such as role-playing, simulations, and games can cause anxiety and make learning difficult. Relevance of content and providing clear, helpful ideas on what people want and need to learn does keep people interested and provide for learning.

-- Anonymous, April 26, 1999