Supporting Research & Evidence
Through research, experimentation and collaborative effort CBB has developed an innovative and deeply impactful experiential education program. We see proof of our program's impact both through the successes and improvements of the schools that we work with as well as research conducted by academics who work in experiential education.
Please take a few minutes to look through this growing body of evidence.
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CBB has been working with Partner School Harvard-Kent Elementary since 2013. In that time CBB has become an integral part of Harvard Kent student culture and was a significant factor in helping them move from “Level 3” school, among the lowest 20% of schools serving comparable grade levels, to a “Level 1” school, which is determined to be meeting achievement gap-narrowing goals. Read the article on Harvard Kent's remarkable achievement.
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According to comparative research on learning models, experiential learning leads to greater academic achievement than the traditional instructor-centered learning model. Not only does experiential learning yield, on average, significantly higher test scores on multiple-choice based standardized exams, but it has also been shown to improve students’ ability to think critically. In New York City public high schools, students in experiential learning groups scored significantly higher than students in traditional learning groups on constructive response questions. For these open-ended questions, it is necessary for students to have ample understanding of the material in order to apply it in their own terms. Therefore, researchers concluded that the experiential approach provides students the tools to analyze and evaluate information on their own more effectively (Mohan, 2015). The entire article, Traditional vs. Experiential: A comparative study of instructional methodologies on student achievement in New York City public schools by Subhas Mohan, is available via ProQuest.
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Sorby and Veurink in their article on Spatial Training for Middle School Math in the Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering write that... TBD: the rest of the content is in progress.
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Boat building involves mathematical concepts in action, hand-eye coordination and effectively tackles the complex concept of spatial thinking. Spatial thinking is a nimbleness with three dimensional perception and recall. According to the National Academy of Sciences "spatial thinking is the start of successful thinking and problem solving... (but) formal, systematic instruction in spatial ideas is not part of the mainstream educational program." Developing spatial thinking skills can significantly improve students' performance in math and science, and it provides students with new ways to think critically and creatively during all learning experiences. A formal explanation of of these concepts and practices can be found here.