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from the issue of April 10, 2008
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Francis aids experiential ed program
BY SARA GILLIAM, UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
Chuck Francis envisions a new paradigm for secondary education that blows typical notions of classroom learning out of the water.
He has helped create an experiential education program in Norway, and is eager to bring his ideas into practice at UNL.
Francis, a professor of agronomy and horticulture at UNL, is one of the founders of the Master of Science in Agroecology program at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.
The idea for the course hatched after he met like-minded European colleagues at a conference in Washington. What started with workshops and classes has grown into a master's program taught in English for students from all over the world; last year, 17 students from 11 countries enrolled.
Students study organic farming practices, food quality and security, resource management, and environmental planning and analysis. They take classes in intensive eight-week modules, which push them into experiential activities from the start. Francis taught modules on farming systems and food systems, and his goal was to get his students "out in the real world and doing stuff right from day one." In the first course, students examine individual farms and design projects around the real-life needs of farmers.
"We dump people on the farm the first day," Francis said. "It's up to them to go figure things out. They ask themselves, 'what do we want to learn?' We don't train them, or give criteria; they develop those themselves. You can liken it to throwing a kid in deep water to teach him to swim. As a result, they have an immediate exposure to context. They are immersed in the real world of that farm. And as fast as possible, we want them to start visioning the future. They talk to farmers about their goals and philosophy, and what they want to do long term, and use that information to create action plans."
Instruction in the Norwegian program is organized around a revised "Learning Ladder" paradigm. Traditionally, instructors following a learning ladder approach would guide students through five steps, in order: training, memorizing, exploring, visioning and implementing. Francis gets his students into the exploring phase immediately, then urges them to "descend the ladder" to learn needed skills - once they've had a chance to actually decipher what skills they'll use in the field - and "ascend the ladder" to vision desirable future situations and develop purposeful, not just theoretical, action.
As the weeks pass, students engage in a variety of learning styles: farm visits, lectures on campus, consultations with experts, group discussions and journaling. After giving oral presentations to their classmates, they spend their final week of class on reflection, which Francis believes is one of the most valuable parts of the learning experience.
"The students come out of the first class exhausted, then get a week off and launch into the second course, agroecology and food systems," Francis said. "So now we're focusing on a community instead of an individual farm. They meet with county agriculture officers, marketers, focus groups of consumers, and the owners of multiple farms. They set up strategies, then evaluate scenarios. Some of their ideas are far out, some are feasible, others involve tweaking the current system slightly."
As students progress, Francis also emphasizes an internal learning ladder. He guides his students through practice, assimilation, connection, creation and action. By combining these two learning ladder approaches - into what he terms a dual learning ladder - Francis sees in his students an increased involvement of moral and ethical issues and a real connection to not just academic research, but to the people and places impacted by their work.
What can this mean for students and teachers here in Lincoln?
These ideas of experiential education are highly translatable to UNL, Francis said. By engaging students in different ways, faculty can build a learning community in every classroom. Students can learn together and can organize co-learning or social learning. Classes can be organized around experiential activities with the goals not only of student education, but of creating useful real life outcomes. And Francis believes that this teaching style would work in any department.
"I really am thinking about trans-disciplinary learning, breaking down the walls that confine us to one discipline," he said. "We could create a university that is connected by more than just the plumbing that runs from building to building."
GO TO: ISSUE OF APRIL 10
NEWS HEADLINES FOR APRIL 10
Making the move downtown
Crews to deliver Nebraska Lecture
Francis aids experiential ed program
Game On
CASNR Week events open with April 12 bull fry
Extension expertise on national Web site
Extension program propels nutrition ed
National Libraries Week events begin April 14
New online system tracks room usage
RESEARCH DISCUSSION
ROTC Lab Day
733142S38107X
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