Experiential Education has been the backbone of my career as a teacher/professor. I was participating in experiential education as a program coordinator for Literacy Through Photography after undergrad before I even knew what the term experiential education meant.
As a classroom teacher in middle school and high school, I worked hard to build field trips into the curriculum and to take students to plays, parks, films, and museums as much as possible. Those days outside of the classroom–riding the train, having an experience together, talking about it the next day in class–bonded us and created community. When teaching secondary school I took students to Central Park after reading The Catcher in the Rye, to participate in the amazing educational programs of The Museum of the Moving Image and Second Stage Theatre‘s free high school matinees, to films at local movie theaters.
At Guttman Community College, experiential education is one of our key founding principles and the city is an integral part of our curriculum and classroom. Experiential education is woven into the First Year Experience, it is the purpose behind our Global Guttman program, and it drives our thinking about learning in many ways.
In the tabs below, you will find various ways that I have brought experiential education into my classes through artists in the classroom to visiting museums in the Arts in NYC course to courses with a Global Guttman travel component. Enjoy and contact me if you have questions.
Lori Ungemah 