Garhwal Post Bureau
DEHRADUN, 20 Sept: The Asian School, Dehradun, had hosted a two-day Capacity Building Programme (CBP) on Experiential Learning on Friday and Saturday. The workshop was organized by the CBSE Centre of Excellence for Teachers, Dehradun, and brought together educators to reimagine teaching practices through experiential methodologies.
The sessions were facilitated by Ruchi Pradhan Datta, Principal, The Asian School, and Lalita, Principal, Hill Grove Senior Secondary School, Dehradun. Both eminent resource persons guided participants through interactive sessions and hands-on activities that made the learning process engaging and meaningful.
The workshop aimed to introduce educators to innovative pedagogical practices rooted in experiential learning, promoting hands-on, reflective, and student-centered teaching while equipping teachers with globally recognized frameworks such as Bloom’s Taxonomy, Kolb’s Learning Cycle, and the LAAR Model (Learn–Apply–Assess–Reflect) for impactful lesson planning. Teachers engaged in a range of creative and collaborative activities, including a paper folding activity on emotions to enhance empathy, exploration of Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle, the application of Bloom’s Taxonomy to structure learning objectives, and the LAAR framework for lesson design. Activities such as the one-cut shape challenge, visualization-based tasks, and the designing of “form and represent” lesson plans emphasized problem-solving, imagination, and conceptual clarity.
On the second day, the participants worked on applying a multidisciplinary approach within Kolb’s learning cycle. This was followed by a “gallery walk” in which teachers wrote reflective comments on their peers’ projects, enriching the exercise with multiple perspectives. Another activity required teachers to prepare creative learning materials using newspapers, where strips, cartoons, and letters to the editor were repurposed to design innovative teaching aids. These exercises underscored the importance of resourcefulness, creativity, and cross-disciplinary thinking in classroom practice.
The sessions employed a blend of methodologies including presentations, group discussions, role plays, case studies, hands-on demonstrations, and reflective journaling. This balance of theory and practice allowed participants to gain both conceptual understanding and practical classroom strategies.
The workshop deepened teachers’ understanding of experiential learning principles, strengthened their ability to design and implement activity-based lesson plans, fostered creativity and emotional intelligence in classroom practices, and encouraged a shift from traditional methods to learner-centered approaches. Participants described the program as engaging, insightful, and transformative. Activities like the paper folding task, the one-cut shape challenge, the gallery walk, and the newspaper-based lesson design were particularly memorable, and the resource persons were praised for their clarity, enthusiasm, and ability to connect with the audience.
The CBP on Experiential Learning at The Asian School proved to be a transformative professional development experience. Aligned with CBSE’s vision of holistic education, it empowered educators to bring creativity, reflection, and innovation into their classrooms, ensuring learning remains both meaningful and impactful.
