Q: How does immersive learning help expand students’ understanding of a subject?
A: “The immersive learning style takes a much longer block of time, where students interact with a teacher [who] has them really sink themselves into the content of a particular area in a deep and meaningful way,” says Kim Samson, assistant head of school for the Gates Mills campus of Hawken School. “The best way to do that is to expand the timeframe in which students have contact with the teacher, and allow for the teacher to really create a day where they are going between a variety of different activities and styles of learning. It also forces the teacher to go outside what their normal comfort zone might be in terms of delivery of material. They have to mix it up. It’s just impossible to spend six to seven hours with students and spend a large proportion of that time in a lecture format. You have to get them actively learning by doing, which is really what [immersive learning] is all about.”
