Team
Ed Maxa, State 4-H Office; Barb Dunn-Swanson, Randolph; Karee Teague, Watauga; Kathy Kuhlman, Macon; Nelson McCaskill, Iredell; Jeanette Schuszler, Caldwell; Laurie Lewis, Hyde; Louise Hinsley, Beaufort; Juanita Bailey, Perquimans; Deleon Wilks, Sampson; Kay Cole, Alamance; Rick Price, Ashe; Melissa Staebner, Yadkin; Mary Bowles, Richmond; Tanya Heath, Wilson; Nina Crawford, Wake; Ann Godwin, Wake; Fonda Lyons, Wake

Objective 3
Youth involved in short-term educational programs will show increased life skill knowledge and subject matter skill.

Program Description
Youth, families and communities in North Carolina face challenges in subject matter knowledge and life skills development, specifically balancing young people's interest needs and the organization’s skill development needs.

This objective deals primarily with the special interest, short-term delivery mode that reaches approximately 100,000 young people each year with volunteer led programming. This programming is at least 6 hours in length and occurs outside of school.

Situation Statement
As a delivery mode, special interest programs have been around since the 1970s and are very popular with agents, volunteers, parents, and young people. Successfully designed programs will meet the needs of the child while at the same time addressing critical life skills that are of importance to adults. Program presentation is a critical element. If the presentation is adult centered, children are not as involved in their own learning and therefore are not as interested, do not see it as relevant and are not fully engaged. However, youth centered facilitators can assist children in discovering their own learning potential. This facilitated learning is often referred to as experiential learning. In experiential learning:

• the child discovers its own learning potential through active involvement
  
• shares what they have learned with others
  
• processes how they feel about the experience
  
• plans what they might do differently next time
  
• determines importance of the activity to their own life and experiences
  
• makes application to similar experiences or uses the skills learned in the experience in an unrelated manner

Over the years we have relied upon literature that has indicated that at least 6 hours of instruction was necessary for youth to obtain mastery of a particular subject matter. It is imperative that we establish best management practices as it relates to the number of hours, duration of sessions and intervals between sessions for optimal learning. This information would serve to better systematize the special interest delivery mode and would ensure positive learning experiences for participants.

10% of what we hear
15% of all we see
20 percent outside of what we see and hear
40% of all we discuss
80% of what we experienced directly or practice doing
90% of all we attempted to teach others

What does the research say about principles of experiential education? The following is adapted from the Association of Experiential Education (1995), Kraft and Sakofts (1985) and Well and McGill (1989).

1. The learner is a participant rather than a spectator in learning
   
2. The learner must be actively engaged, posing questions, and investigating, experiencing, being curious, solving problems, assuming responsibility, being creative and constructing meaning
   
3. Learners are engaged intellectually, emotionally, socially and physically which helps produce an authentic learning task
   
4. The learner's develop an in-depth understanding of theory and are able to correlate it to actual practice
   
5. The learners and educators increase awareness of how personal values and meanings influence their perceptions and choices of action
   
6. Learners and educators may experience failure, adventure, risk-taking, and uncertainties since the outcomes are not totally predictable
   
7. Learners and educators have the opportunity to recognize how institutional, social, and cultural factors may cause people to act in ways to contradict personal and professional intentions

In order for learning to occur the following three aspects must be present; interest, engagement, and relevance (Silver, Strong, and Perini, 2000)

Additionally, it must be concerned with life skills development. By the time a child has left the program they should be competent, coping, and contributing individuals. The subject matter and life skills objectives do not have to be mutually exclusive, they can indeed be additive to one another. This can be accomplished through agent and volunteer training and by ensuring that the curriculum developer addresses subject matter and life skills.

Last updated Nov 10, 2004

September 7, 2008