About Fresh Air Thinking: Our Approach
Fresh Air Thinking adopts the ‘experiential’ learning approach and uses a variety of practical, meaningful and fun outdoor and indoor learning activities when facilitating or supporting development events. Even the best planned development events can flag after long periods of time indoors, so an opportunity for people to take in some fresh air thinking is always welcome.
Fresh Air Thinking activities usually take half a day to complete but can be extended for a full day if necessary. People work in small teams and are supported through activities by a facilitator who conducts a short review on completion. At the end of all the activities, teams are encouraged to reflect on their experiences and then relate them back to the theme of the main development event.
What is Experiential Learning?
To make experiential learning effective a learning cycle is used. This involves the setting of goals, followed by thinking, planning, experimenting and decision making, followed by more action, followed by observing, reflecting & reviewing, followed by a bit more thinking, decision making and sometimes adjusting goals, followed by more action.
What makes Experiential Learning work?
The approach to experiential learning draws upon peoples own experience and their own reflection about that experience, rather than theory as the means of generating understanding and the subsequent transfer of skills and knowledge.
