Experience over Instructions

Things can be much different on paper compared to real life. And a recent visit to a school to playtest a board game made me revisit this topic.

"The students aren’t demonstrating any leadership skills, no matter how much we encourage them," said a Grade 5 school teacher.

“How are you encouraging them?” I asked.

“We had separate classes where we brought in experts to conduct sessions with the students and emphasize the need of having such skills, through presentations.”

While I appreciate the effort taken by the school to enhance the Socio-emotional Learning skills of its students, what we have to understand is how young minds perceive things. The more we understand the importance of experiential learning, the more we will start questioning our conventional learning methods.

And I’m far from being the first one who felt this way.

I’m only highlighting a couple of them:

Educational theorist John Dewey emphasized the importance of experiential learning, stating that "learning by doing" allows students to apply knowledge to experience, thereby developing skills or new ways of thinking.

A study from Harvard University found that students engaged in active learning strategies learned more than those in traditional lectures, even if they felt they learned less.

“...even if they felt they learned less”

This sentence made me reflect more than any other.

Because we live in an output-driven society, which the traditional methods of learning can cater to. Only those who have seen the wonders of experiential learning firsthand can vouch for its effectiveness. And being a part of Kraftz, an entity that has been immersed in the world of social impact through board games, I had the honor to witness magic:

• Increasing the confidence to speak in a classroom

• Overcoming tech-phobia to use Mobile Financial Services/ Apps

• Learning to care about the environment

• Assessing the skills that one has, or lacks.

• Finding a platform to express themselves freely

Such is the power of experiential learning that conventional textbooks or presentations may not achieve.

So next time you are learning something new, ask yourself- am I experiencing it? If not, is there a way to experience it? Thank me later!

Finishing off this week’s Newsletter with my favorite quote:

P.S. Many of you were curious about the stories behind developing games for grassroots initiatives, so I covered this topic in this week’s newsletter. See you next week!

In the meantime, here are a few handy links you might check:

• Discover Print-and-Play games with ease

• My Design Diary for an upcoming PnP game (it’s READY!)

• A PnP game I’m playing lately