“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” — Benjamin Franklin
A lot has changed since Ben Franklin’s day, but that observation is truer than ever. When it comes to learning—substantive, deep, lasting learning—there’s no substitute for hands-on experience.
Educators have always known this intellectually. After all, Aristotle said it 2,000 years before Franklin: “For what one has to learn to do, we learn by doing.”
Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, it seems too many instructors and administrators—particularly in higher education—have forgotten this lesson, or at least they fail to apply it. Rather than creating multiple opportunities for their students to learn actively—and just as important, to learn together, in small groups and teams—too many rely heavily on the textbook-and-lecture method.
Years ago, a friend of mine derisively referred to this well-worn technique as the “filling station” approach: Students pull up to the intellectual pump, pour in the knowledge, and drive away. Seems straightforward, but it’s not how learning actually works. Downloads are sufficient for your phone or laptop, but for the human brain? Not so much.
For learning to really take hold in a student’s mind, it must be relevant and resonant. In some way, it needs to matter to that student. That’s the strong suit of project- and work-based learning. When students pursue knowledge and develop skills in the real world—working with peers on meaningful projects that seek tangible results—the lessons are far more likely to stick.
Perhaps this is why the appetite for experiential learning is growing—not just among students, but also with employers and, yes, even among educators.
Several recent surveys point to a growing desire for experiential or work-based learning. In a 2022 study conducted by the Wiley Network, a publishing firm that provides resources for librarians, educators, and researchers:
- 81 percent of students said it was important or very important for schools to offer real company-led projects.
- More than half of undergraduates (55 percent) and 38 percent of graduates said they found it challenging to engage in regular classes.
- 79 percent said it was important to have on-the-job learning experiences during their college years.
The good news is more and more colleges and universities are responding to this desire. They’re embracing the concept of experiential learning—not merely offering it as a bolt-on option, but embedding it in programs.
This trend toward hands-on learning—perhaps more accurately, the return to it—is the theme of this issue of
Focus magazine. In it, you’ll be introduced to several students who are reaping the benefits of the experiential approach. For example:
- In Alamosa, Colo., you’ll meet Natrielle Shorty and Matthew Reno, biology majors at Adams State University, a public institution that turns its students loose in southern Colorado’s high country to do on-site research. As one administrator puts it: “The mountain ranges are our labs.” And that’s true even for first-year students such as Shorty, who spent hours wading in mountain streams with her freshmen classmates, collecting and studying macroinvertebrates. Reno, a third-year student, sees huge value in the field trips. “It makes the in-class work more meaningful,” he said. “It’s one thing to take notes, but applying research to a lesson made me realize, ‘Oh, there’s a reason we’re learning this!’”
- In eastern Massachusetts, you’ll meet the three-member research team of Lenin Anutebeh, Mebi Nosike, and Claire Chu—all students at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The trio came together for their required Interactive Qualifying Project—in which students must seek to solve “a problem that matters to real people on a topic that lies on the boundaries of science, technology, and society.” The team’s task: forging a plan to improve the outdoor spaces at a government-subsidized housing complex in Boston. Worcester Polytechnic, a nationally recognized leader in project-based learning, requires its graduates to complete two such projects. Dean Mimi Sheller says this approach “produces graduates who know how to work effectively in teams, solve problems, and view issues from different perspectives—all of which contributes to their ability to function in the real world.”
- Finally, in southern Michigan, you’ll meet five student sleuths from the University of Michigan-Dearborn—members of the university’s Cold Case Partnership. The members of this specially selected group, all majoring in criminology or criminal justice, work directly with Monroe County Sheriff’s detectives in an effort to crack an unsolved double murder from 1990. Poring over the original investigators’ case notes and recordings, visiting crime scenes, bouncing ideas off of the department’s current detectives—all are vital lessons for Lauren Fossano and her classmates, even if they don’t crack the case. “You just don’t learn things like we’ve learned in a classroom setting,” Fossano said. “What we learned in Monroe County, we will use in real life.”
That’s the through line for all of the programs featured in this issue of Focus: real-life relevance. And in addition to the stories and photos in this printed version of the magazine, you’ll find still more on our website, www.luminafoundation.org. There, Focus offers several extra features, including compelling videos of students and links to related content.
Whether featured online or in print, all of these students—and thousands of others at colleges and universities across the country—are part of the welcome resurgence of a time-honored approach to effective education: They’re learning by doing, and they’re learning together.
Both Franklin and Aristotle would approve.
