Embedding experiential learning in practice

Reflection prompts, learning activity ideas, introductory resources, and case studies.


1. Open Educational Resources: 

Creating Open Educational Resources is a great way to embed experiential learning (and authentic assessment) into a course. You can read some examples of this in practice on the below Teaching Matters blog posts from the Outreach Course at the School of GeoSciences:

2. Take your teaching outside:

  • David A. G. Clarke offers Nine tips for learning in outdoor places and spaces, which include planning your route, designing for small and large groups, and considering issues of safety and equality.
  • Walking courses are a creative and engaging way to connect students with their city, and the rich histories and narratives of Edinburgh. Course examples include:
    • Creating Edinburgh: The Interdisciplinary City: An Edinburgh Futures Institute course developed by Dr David Overend, offering students opportunities to actively engage with the contemporary city as a site for new ideas, designs, and methods, by bringing together students from across the University to work together in interdisciplinary teams.
    • Curious Edinburgh: An app-based walking tour which showcases the many buildings and places in the city of Edinburgh which are connected to the history of science, technology and medicine.
    • A local alternative to field courses: Dr Dan Swanton describes an alternative course that blends digital learning and guided walks through Edinburgh, with a postcard-based assessment task.

3. Living labs

Treating the University as a Living Lab means using our in-house academic expertise and knowledge to influence our operations, while at the same time providing a test-bed opportunity for academics and students to get real-world data for their research. Read more about living labs in the Department of Social Responsibility and Sustainability.


Experiential education: Defining features for curriculum and pedagogy: A research-based, theoretical framework of experiential education that is centred around six defining features: continuity, authenticity, agency, emotional engagement, support and reflection. Created by colleagues in Outdoor Education at Moray House School of Education and Sport.

The 10 Commandments of Experiential Learning: A short 'Inside Higher Ed' article by Jay Roberts and Anna Welton, who have identified some key foundational elements of experiential learning.

Enabling staff-student co-creation of experiential learning at scale: THE Campus blog post by Prof Simon Riley and Gavin McCabe, who share a reflective learning and assessment framework for staff and students to co-create experiential learning that is scalable and effective.


Geoscience Outreach: What we do, how we assess, and client/student reflections

"Our students are upskilled in project design through workshops spanning educational media, design and engagement (e.g. blogging, copyright, licencing), digital skills, curriculum, interdisciplinary learning, active learning, story-telling, community service learning, and working with vulnerable groups. Through these workshops, students and staff from different disciplines and Schools across the University work together, leading to cross-fertilisation of ideas and cultures. [...]

Our assessment involves tasks that resemble workplace settings yet equip students with skills for their future professional life. Students demonstrate their learning in ways that are relevant to broader problems and to the workplace. The main assessment element is a bespoke resource negotiated with the client that usually has legacy beyond the immediate client and lives on through Open.ed and open.ed resources on tes."

Immersions and encounters: Fieldwork in landscape architecture

"Shaping landscapes is central to professional practice and therefore to learn to be in the field and, above all, to be in contact with the landscapes we are asked to define and design within, is critical to the pedagogy of landscape architecture. Moreover, how we orchestrate those encounters can significantly shape design work that tends to take shelter in the spaces of our design studios. The moment of contact with the field is often a moment of experimentation and can open up significant creative direction in the design process. The potential for the sights, smells, sounds, taste and feel of a landscape to be experienced is often uniquely possible in the field."

Why placements and fieldwork matter to future employers

"The Institute of Student Employers, which represents most large scale recruiters, reports that 52% of interns are rehired into graduate roles, meaning over half of interns, usually in their penultimate summer of university, get a graduate job from their internship. Similarly, 80% of the Times Top 100 Graduate Employer’s offer paid work experience programmes, including taster experiences for first and second year students. And over a third warn that graduates with no previous work experience are unlikely to be successful during the selection process."


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