How Experiential Learning Can Transform Students into Compassionate Servant Leaders

As we settle into the fall semester, Palm Beach Atlantic University's campus is filled with students, eager for what the year holds as they prepare for their future careers. Many students are returning after a busy summer-wrapping up internships, jobs, or study abroad opportunities through the Rinker Center for Experiential Learning.

In this article originally published in Inside Higher Ed, PBA associate professor of history, Dr. Elizabeth Stice, shares how trips abroad can enhance students' confidence, understanding of other cultures, and give them an edge on employment. She also highlights how trips like these can help faculty better understand the students they serve and find new ways to enhance experiential learning.

At PBA, we are committed to whole-person education. Study abroad trips empower students not just to see the world-but to use the knowledge, wisdom, and compassion they gain to better shine the light it desperately needs.

###

"John Steinbeck's Travels With Charley is one of the great travel narratives. It is an account of Steinbeck's journey across the country with his dog Charley, in his truck with a camper van. Steinbeck set out to find out "What are Americans like today?" He took his time and drove slowly. He stopped in small towns, spoke with locals, had contemplative drinks around campfires and sipped his coffee in the morning. Steinbeck's journey was about the opposite of my recent experience traveling overseas with college students.

My travels with college students took place in Greece and Turkey across the span of two weeks. Steinbeck had a lot of time to himself. We were almost always all together. His companion was a dog who sometimes sighed and sometimes barked but largely kept quiet. Our bus contained students who could and did nap but were quite capable of expressing themselves verbally.

Steinbeck drove himself; we were driven. He kept his pace slow; we wore ourselves out. He was his own guide; we had professionals. He was somewhat indifferent to where his journey might take him; we had a packed agenda. He was in America; we were overseas. We got, in many ways, different things out of our trips. But we were both edified by our experiences.

A great deal of evidence demonstrates how much students benefit from travel study trips and study abroad semesters. Many students benefit from the more experiential learning style. Learning about Athens in the classroom and then walking around the Parthenon is a special and memorable opportunity. Students come back from overseas trips with more exposure to the rest of the world and often an increase in confidence. For semester-long programs, students can return with enhanced language skills. Study abroad can offer an employment edge. There are so many reasons for students to study abroad. For faculty, the benefits are different but just as real.

Faculty leading a trip overseas should already know quite a bit about the subject and location, but the experiential side of travel study for faculty cannot be had elsewhere. Typically, faculty and college students interact mostly in the classroom. We stand, or pace, at the front. Even if we practice engaged learning, we are largely in control of the environment. We speak mainly on subjects we know about. It can be easy to fall into a pattern. We might even offer some of the same lectures and same examples year after year.

Outside of the classroom and outside of the country, the situation is different. We are not always in control, we do not always command the room or the bus and we cannot operate from a script. Travel study trips show us our own pedagogical limitations, which can be somewhat hidden behind the lectern. Trips force us to be more spontaneous and to stretch. They can also make us more real to our students. Something about being on a bus together all day and trying to scrounge up change for access to a bathroom rehumanizes, or at least deepens the human element of, the student-faculty interaction.

Travel study takes us out of the laboratory and into real life. That grounding is good, but the reality you gain is often the opposite of disillusioning. Seeing our students learn about Greece and Turkey in person and watching them get excited was a way to rekindle the enthusiasm I had when I first saw these places in person-at their age. Traveling with college students is a powerful reminder about some of the best things about working at a college or university. One of those things is the seeing and sharing the transformation that can accompany acquiring new knowledge and experiences.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that "People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character." Travel study trips are excellent character-building opportunities for faculty members. When else will we need to comfort someone throwing up on a bus? More significantly, we can recapture some of the enthusiasm that should accompany learning. We can come away with a more realistic assessment of our teaching and ability to connect with students. We can also have our spirits lifted when we briefly look at the world through the eyes of younger people and consider what it is they are taking into the world when they graduate."

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.