Monday, August 29, 2016

First Day of School


The start of a new school year places a positive and strong grip on young learners. At their command, young learners have a tremendous opportunity when a new school year begins. The opportunity to start fresh, meet new classmates, learn with new teachers, develop new friendships, rekindle friendships with old classmates, study challenging books, use exciting learning materials, and grow from the experiences to come creates excitement and enthusiasm in young learners, as well it should.

Young learners have a serious responsibility to themselves, their families, and their learning community; success will require patience, determination, good listening skills, appropriate questioning techniques, engagement, and the desire to learn. Learning does not occur by accident (although they can be learnable moments), learning occurs when opportunity and preparation meet in a safe and trusting environment. When a young person experiences learning they experience one of the greatest thrills of life; because nothing is as fun as learning something new.

To young learners everywhere – capitalize on your excitement to learn, make your enthusiasm to learn contagious, and have fun learning.   

---- Phil Baca

Experiential Learning Makes Learning Fun!


Do you want young learners to have fun learning? As School Board Members, Superintendents, Principals, Teachers, and Parents – don’t we all!

How do we maximize the potential for young learners to enjoy their learning? The answer is: we expose them to experiential learning environments. In experiential learning environments, young learners have the opportunity to hold their learning in their hands. By allowing young learners to touch and feel their learning we allow them to greatly increase their level of engagement. We can all agree that an engaged young learner has a greater opportunity to succeed.

Too often young learners are asked to learn in a theory only environment. When we connect practice to theory in the learning environment we greatly increase the potential for success. Why is that? The answer is: when exposed to learning by doing, young learners are placed in a setting that spawns critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making. Not only are these skills immensely important life skills, they are the foundation of learning in the Common Core State Standards.


When exposed to experiential learning environments, young learners are afforded the opportunity to practice and hone these great skills. As the abilities to think critically, solve real problems, and make decisions improve, so does retention and learning. Make learning fun and at the same time position young learners for success – place young learners in experiential learning environments. 

-- Phil Baca, educational consultant, MEREA Consulting, LLC