10 Feb Interactive Business Learning Experiences™

Interactive Business Learning Experiences™

Interactive Business Learning Experiences™ can best be described as a process of making generalizations and conclusions about one’s own direct experiences, then applying the learning’s to the “real world.” It emphasizes directly experiencing what I am studying, building a personal commitment to learning with and through others, and being responsible for organizing conclusions drawn from experiences. In experiential learning, the responsibility for learning is on the participant, not on the facilitator/teacher. The facilitator is responsible for creating the learning experiment – participants pull the relevant learning out of the experience and are responsible for application to their lives.

Here are the key tenets of ViRTUS Interactive Business Learning Experiences™:

•  that the learner is involved in the design and evaluation of their learning – commitment to learning is highest when a person is free to set her or his own learning goals and actively pursue them within a given framework or staged event
• that mistakes are part of the process of refinement
• that the subject being learned has relevance to their current situation
• that the learning is focused on problem solving versus memorizing content
• that learning is transferable (what, so what, now what?)
• that the learner is learning with other people who are similarly engaged and interested in the topic
• involves a process of refining my emotional intelligence
• that we learn best when involved in a personally memorable learning experience
• that knowledge has to be discovered by a person if it is to mean anything to her or him or make a difference in his or her behaviors
• that the learning “comes alive” when I take responsibility for applying it to my personal and professional life

 Lasting behavioral change demands people’s emotional engagement through experiential learning. The overarching objective is to increase the options available to a person in the face of new but similar situations. It is process learning, not so much content learning. It’s about learning how to learn (UBC’s Motto – “tuum est” – a Latin phrase which translates to “it is yours” or “it is up to you”).