Are worksheets good or bad? That is the question.

For those of you that follow my blog closely you have probably formulated a guess as to my answer to this question. I'm going to start by saying that I don't think worksheets are "bad". I believe that they have a place in this world, but in very very very very very small doses. There are ample alternatives to worksheets, and I hope you'll consider them.

I have had many people reach out over the past few months asking about experiential learning in k-12 classrooms. What is experiential learning? What is an example of experiential learning? Where can I get experiential learning activities? How do you use experiential learning in the classroom?

I have even had educators reach out that are in the process of starting experiential schools. That is really exciting, and from what I'm gathering, also a little scary and chaotic for these educators.

Why is experiential learning important? What are the benefits of experiential learning? Why bother spending the time to learn a new teaching style? I can promise you from experience, it's worth looking into!

I pride myself in creating classroom community in my experiential learning high school that is strong, positive, and trusting. 

I don't claim to be fantastic at everything related to experiential learning, but I place priority on creating community in the classroom from day 1 of the learning year because it plays such an important roll in the experience as a whole. ​

Experiential learning is something special, but can be misunderstood or tricky to envision in the context of a school, classroom, or homeschool learning environment. That's why I have compiled a list of some free experiential learning lesson plan templates and tools; to support you through implementation of experiential learning! Let's dive in.

Identifying experiential learning activities for a classroom learning environment can feel tricky at times.

In the world of experiential learning, there is a lot of talk about theory and philosophy; about what experiential learning is and what it is not, the benefits of experiential learning, and the purpose of it. 

But the most common question that I get from educators is not about experiential learning in theory but about experiential learning in practice.

What are self-directed learning strategies that empower learners and promote agency? This is a popular question among educators that have an interest in self-directed learning and know the benefits, but aren’t sure about how to go about incorporating self-directed learning strategies in their classroom or homeschool.

Are you a parent, teacher or student looking for some plant project science fair ideas that are easy and engaging for everyone involved?

It doesn't have to be hard, it doesn't have to take a ton of time, and no one has to be a professional scientist or even a trained science teacher to do these experiments.

Check out some of the plant project science fair ideas here to make your lives a little easier. Build a plant science experiment or a research project around the ideas offered here while still making them your own!