Exercise 6.1 - Direct Experience Learning

Nearly the entirety of my high school physics course was taught by experiment/direct experience. The teacher, Mrs. Daniels, had us do daily experiments to discover the principles of mechanics, optics, etc. We would regroup and summarize periodically, but most of the instruction was experientially-based.

We would come in every day with our graphing calculators, she would give us worksheets of instructions and charts and tables, and we'd get to work and set up experiments with motorized carts or colored lights and take data. We would graph or chart our findings and draw conclusions. Then, we would discuss our experiences as a class and share our data, and Mrs. Daniels would supply the formal forms of the theories we had studied.

I think I remember this particular class because it is very unique to have such complicated material presented almost completely through access mode teaching. This is also one of the few direct experience experiences in math or science that I can remember liking. In high school, I remember finding exploratory tasks in math and science "light", rather lacking in content. However, in this case, I really enjoyed the thrill of figuring out how acceleration and velocity were directional. I remember the moment that the I figured out why the acceleration graphs of something speeding up toward me or slowing down away from me looked similar, and that moment was full of the intrinsic motivation teachers hope for. 

I also remember her first test was the first time I ever got a low-end B and it was shocking! That definitely lit a fire under me and taught me how to study!

However, I would have to admit that the course somewhat poorly prepared me for college-level physics courses. While it did teach me content in a personal and rememberable way, it didn't drill into me the hard-core knowledge I was going to need for higher-level study. But, I suppose I made it in the end through many an upper-level physics course, so maybe it wasn't so lacking afterall....