PRINCIPLE 3: “School learning should occur in a meaningful context and not be separated from learning and knowledge children develop in the “real world.”

"What I hear, I forget;
What I see, I remember;
What I do, I understand."
---Old Chinese proverb

I feel that we need to respect the wealth of life experiences that students bring to the classroom. We’ve each had experiences the other hasn’t had, and we have much to offer each other.

Real-life learning is any learning that happens in a real-life setting, for real-life purposes, in a real-life manner. Learners have immediate concrete real world experiences that allow us to reflect on new experience from different perspectives. From these reflective observations, we engage in abstract conceptualization, creating generalizations or principles that integrate our observations into sound theories of school learning.

The learning and knowledge which are deeply obtain from real life experiences should not be separated or having independent sense, because they are interconnected and interdependent with each other. This implies that these real life experiences must not be the period or the end. We must be brought to a higher plane. The higher plane referred to here is the level of generalizations and abstraction of school academic learning.

                School learning and real world knowledge must go hand in hand and should not be separated from one another. Learners bring a wealth of experience and accomplishment to the learning situation. Using learners’ life experiences is an effective way for us future educators to motivate learners and to help them see a connection between their own lives and the things they are learning in class.

To capture students' attention and to engage them in the learning process, their learning must have meaning beyond the activity or task. Task activities and assessments must be geared around authentic, real-world experiences. Meaningful themes established throughout the task will help students to build a greater understanding of the content and skills developed through the tasks or activities.

This principle implies the major importance of direct purposeful experiences which we tackled in our EdTech in our first year, in which these are concrete and firsthand experiences that make up the foundation of learning. These are the rich experiences that our senses bring from which we construct the ideas, the concepts, the generalizations that give meaning and order to our lives. These direct real world activities may be preparing meals, making a piece of furniture, doing PowerPoint presentation, delivering a speech, taking a trip, or performing experiments. It is clear, therefore, that we can approach the world of reality directly through the senses. Learning requires more than seeing, hearing, moving, or touching to learn. We integrate what we sense and think with what we feel and how we behave.

                Real world experiences are not purely mechanical. They are not a matter of going through the motion. These are not “mere sensory excitation”. They are experiences that are internalized in the sense that these experiences involve the asking of questions that have significance in the life of the learner. Without that integration, we're just passive participants and passive learning alone doesn't engage our higher brain functions or stimulate our senses to the point where we integrate our lessons into our existing schemes. We must do something with our knowledge as an application to school academic learning.

Real life experiences will healthily assimilate the school learning as the basic and fundamental building block to further enhance and effect learning of our learners.

               

As what this golden statement implied to us … “Experience is the best teacher!”

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