In today’s complex world, we know as educators that learning is most meaningful when established through experience – learning by doing rather than by simply listening or observing. Our learners need to be supported in nurturing their creativity, developing as critical thinkers and flexible problem solvers, to apply skills and understanding in new domains and different situations creating solutions to problems encountered. Education and life should not be isolated from each other. By providing opportunities for learners to engage and learn through authentic, real-life, relevant experiences, we are scaffolding their application of skills to learning including adapting and changing their ideas and forming habits of lifelong learners. This chapter provides educators with a guide for embedding cross-curricular exploratory learning experiences as an integral part of planning, teaching and assessment responsive to all learners; and inclusive of the theoretical foundations and instructional strategies that inform their approaches. Authentic studies will be utilised, and practical tools outlined, to demonstrate how to bring these concepts to life within a constructivist framework.

This chapter presents a synthesis of two key constructs: nature-based approaches and experiential learning. The first part of this chapter presents an overview of nature-based approaches. Research perspectives are presented to outline the importance of natural spaces in nurturing children and young people’s wellbeing, connection with nature, development of ecological awareness and holistic engagement with learning. Experiential learning theory is defined and described to examine the transformational potential of learning experienced outdoors. The interactive relationship and theoretical perspectives underlying experiential approaches are presented.

The second part of this chapter presents discussion on nature-based programs such as Forest Schools, Bush Kinders and Schools, and Nature/Environmental Kindergartens and Schools. Case studies will provide authentic contexts to highlight key aspects of intentional practice that enhance experiential learning and inquiry in nature-based settings. Finally, a synthesis of enabling practice is presented to further consider specific pedagogical implications underlying nature based approaches.

To support experiential learning, HLVC data are available for research (by permission, and with protections for the participants). This chapter illustrates the integration of research and community-engaged learning, which is critical to the success of the project. It presents activities that support critical and creative thinking, enable theoretical knowledge to be empirically tested, and facilitate and enhance quantitative reasoning, information literacy, and the communication of research. It includes a section on how to best conduct and teach research methods to support the vitality of the languages being examined and one on ethical practices. Sociolinguistics trails other subfields in analyzing data outside the majority language (English). With these supports, students can change this situation. The exercises exemplify tasks that students have undertaken and can help others get started. Exercises provide prompts and show how to gain access to instruments and data. In addition, the course Exploring Heritage Languages, which has modules that can be (adapted and) used, is introduced. The HLVC corpus and these modules provide instructional infrastructure to scaffold undergraduate and graduate class assignments teaching relevant theory and research skills.

Action civics is a model for civic education that offers youth opportunities to participate in authentic democratic activities. In this chapter, we trace the origins of action civics and explore the field’s defining features, strengths, and challenges. We frame our analysis through two case descriptions of action civics intermediary organizations: Generation Citizen and Design Your Neighborhood. We discuss action civics education as a psychologically empowering process, and we illustrate tensions that arise as youth develop psychological empowerment. Through these examples, we reveal features of the action civics process model that support community power in the situational, institutional, and systemic domains. We explore empowering characteristics of empowering settings that are present in Design Your Neighborhood and Generation Citizen. These include common belief systems, a relational environment that supports intergenerational partnerships, opportunity role structures, opportunities to develop local leadership, and external linkages to community stakeholders. Our chapter concludes with recommendations for practitioners, researchers, and other stakeholders to consider as the field of action civics expands.

Indigenous students live between two worldviews of how the natural world works – the world of traditional knowledge and the world of science. The common denominator is the land. In this chapter, I outline some of the challenges in matching best pedagogy within the cultures of schools, science, traditional Indigenous knowledge, and teaching on the land. How can schools build relationships with local Indigenous knowledge keepers to develop a culturally responsive science curriculum? How can we support knowledge keepers and teachers to provide land-based science lessons in the context of a typical school? How do we prepare teachers in active learning and inquiry methods to match traditional ways of teaching? And how do we do this all while on the land?

African literature courses offered in African universities are typically taught in a conventional classroom setting with a focus on written texts. This chapter reflects on a departure from this situation, as the undergraduate course ENGL 314: Introduction to African Literature, taught at the University of Ghana’s Department of English, was reworked between 2019 and 2022. By adopting and adapting Africanist interpretations of text and writing, theming the course on sound, inviting guest lecturers and practitioners, engaging in basic field research, and infusing orality and experiential learning; students reconceptualized their natural environments as sites for intellectual investigation. The course sought to provoke sustained critique of traditional modes of teaching by displacing agency to students, allowing for an interrogation of assumptions that underpin their lived experiences. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, there were opportunities to evolve further away from the traditional classroom setting, as the class harnessed the power of digital technology and social media by underlining their connections to oral tradition. Ultimately, the decolonizing perspectives engendered by the nature of the course pivoted toward a more Afrocentric offering of how such a course can be run at an African university.

The Learn, Experience, Reflect framework is discussed as an overarching guide to training design. The Learn component focuses on the declarative information that learners need to fully learn from the Experience and Reflect portions of training. This often includes didactic presentation of information. The Experience component is generally scenario based and should be used to support learners in applying new knowledge and abstract concepts to realistic situations. The Reflect component employs strategies to encourage learners to reflect on what they have learned and how to apply their new knowledge in the future. Examples and links to theoretical models are provided for each component, along with discussions of how best to employ the capabilities of augmented reality to designing training elements for each component.

Research opportunities for undergraduate engineers vary widely in topics, tasks, and organization, yet they all convey knowledge and practices that are fundamental to engineering work and culture. This chapter outlines that engineering worldview and how it shapes undergraduate research opportunities, and then recommends best practices for undergraduate research in engineering.

Given the centrality of experiential learning in the Carnegie School, we focus on how this form of learning provides an opportunity for deepening the relationship between the Carnegie School and Routine Dynamics. Experiential learning is central to Routine Dynamics because the flow and progression of routines emerge from experiential learning like processes of taking action, evaluating the results of those actions, and, if necessary, making adjustments to future actions.

This chapter reviews the arguments that support the use of task as a unit of analysis for second language education. The chapter first considers the origin of the idea of tasks in education, surveys the definition of a task in the task-based language teaching (TBLT) literature, and summarizes the roles played by tasks in TBLT. It then articulates why the use of tasks makes sense from the perspectives of (a) TBLT as a researched pedagogy, (b) motivation and engagement, (c) assessment, and (d) program design.

A key issue in the field of heritage language education is to ascertain which instructional practices most effectively address heritage language learners’ unique linguistic and socio-affective needs. Previous research on these learners’ profiles has deepened our understanding of the diverse linguistic competencies as well as the cultural backgrounds and experiences that they bring to the classroom. Likewise, recent socioeducational and sociolinguistic scholarship has also underscored the critical roles that identity, attitudes, and motivations play in the development of the heritage language. Combining insights from both research strands, experiential learning/community-based heritage language curricula has recently emerged as an effective pedagogical model that aims to draw on heritage speakers’ knowledge and experiences for the benefit of both the local community and learners. With this in mind, the goal of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the field of community-based experiential learning as it specifically relates to heritage language instructional practices. To this end, we will (i) provide an overview of core topics and relevant research findings, as well as (ii) examine main challenges and opportunities for the field in the years to come.