Issue 15: Live-Event Learning
Did you know?
Research shows that student interest is an extremely powerful motivator. Activities that are novel and optimally challenging are viewed by students as more interesting.*
Hands-on activities (those requiring the student to be an active participant rather than a passive listener) are overwhelmingly favored by teachers to generate interest in learning, even if they are used less frequently than artificial tasks.**
Performance Learning PLUS is a monthly e-newsletter by Performance Learning Systems (PLS), a comprehensive educational services company that has provided a full spectrum of programs, products, and consulting services for educators and business professionals since 1971.
This issue focuses on LIVE-EVENT LEARNING.
Tips
Live-Event Learning is a powerful way to engage your students' interest in the learning process. Would you like to know how much live-event learning takes place in your classroom? Check the criteria below.
A live event has all or most of the following elements. The more elements you use, the more your students are experiencing Live-Event Learning.
Real Consequences
A live event has relevance and meaning. Something is at stake; results count. There are real consequences and real successes. It leaves a lasting impact on the student.
Multisensory
Participating in a live event involves all the senses.
Process Skills
A live event includes both complex proficiencies and basic skills that are used in everyday life.
Relevance
The brain recalls what has relevance or meaning because of emotional attachments and/or similar experiences.
Real Environment
A true live event takes place in real life. Live events draw from the real, concrete environment to create a learning experience.
Emotion
The brain more readily recalls information that is linked to an emotion.
Debriefing
Helping students reflect on and process what they have learned from a live-event experience is as important as the live event itself.
Real consequences are at the heart of a live event — they are what sets a live event apart from a simulation. Strong simulations have all the other elements listed above, but the consequences are not real.
Finding a Live Event: The "What's New?" Activity
The "What's New?" activity is a quick and easy way to assist you and your students in finding a live event. To do this activity, you may bring in a local newspaper and identify articles that could lead to a live event, or you may distribute sections of the paper and have your students locate an article or articles that could lead to a live event.
For example, imagine your class found an article on the following story:
Neighbors adjacent to a county airport under construction detected a suspicious odor coming from soil dumped to the side of the runway. They notified environmental health authorities, who discovered contaminated soil that had to be removed at taxpayers' expense. The 9,100 tons of dirt contained gasoline, diesel fuel, motor oil, arsenic, lead, and mercury.
After your entire class read the article, you could generate student interest in the topic by asking follow-up questions:
- What does one do with contaminated soil?
- What would happen if it were not removed?
- Why did taxpayers have to pay for its removal?
- Where did they take it?
To learn the answers to these and other questions, your students could do a wide variety of live events.
For example:
- Visit the site (following appropriate safety procedures).
- Attend a meeting of the local environmental health officials.
- Interview the neighbors who notified the authorities.
- Write to the Environmental Protection Agency to learn the time it takes for these toxic materials to dissolve.
- Meet with local city council members to get a bill passed that will prevent dumping of toxic wastes.
- Write an editorial urging those responsible to pay.
- Research less costly forms of waste disposal and potentially save the city money.
- Get air time on a local television or radio station and share what they've learned with the public.
- Go into primary or elementary schools to educate younger children about environmental safety.
Using local newspapers or other media to locate real-life learning experiences has the added value of helping your students to develop lifelong learning skills.
Live-Event Learning occurs when your students experience real-life consequences from their actions. For example, if their work contributes to a bill getting proposed, or if their publicity calls attention to an issue, they are experiencing results that count. Combining learning with real-world activities generates student interest and is a powerful motivator.
Source: The above concepts are based on the PLS graduate course, Discovering the Power of Live-Event Learning.
Live-Event Learning is a registered trademark of Performance Learning Systems, Inc.
References
*Deci, E. In K. Renninger, S. Hidi, & A. Krapp (1992). The relation of interest to the motivation of behavior: A self-determination theory perspective. The role of interest in learning and development, .
**Zahorik, J.A. (1994). Making things interesting. New Orleans, LA: Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.
Live-Event Learning Ideas
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