<p>Some people have to learn by doing. Anyone have experiences with colleges for kinetic learners or schools where you learn by doing?</p>
<p>what subjects are you looking for?</p>
<p>You may want to look at Evergreen State college- the thematic learning can make college life more relevant for students who learn best outside of a classroom
<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evergreen_State_College[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evergreen_State_College</a></p>
<p>I’m looking for schools for math, econ, or business majors.</p>
<p>I have a feeling schools like Northeastern, and the 2 Cal Polys might fit the bill, but I am not sure.</p>
<p>dstark:</p>
<p>I don’t know about business or econ majors, but it strikes me that college-level math is a very sedentary enterprise. It involves doing tons of problem sets. I don’t know if this can be done moving around.</p>
<p>Two possibilities that emphasize hands-on learning throughout the curriculum are Kalamazoo College in Michigan and Antioch College in Ohio. Both offer business,economics, and math. Antioch is more experimental and experiential than Kalamazoo, with a totally open curriculum. Kalamazoo combines class room work with intensive off campus internships and study abroad. I would also second Emerald’s recommendation of Evergreen. You might also look at Cal State Monterey Bay’s business program, which has a more experiential component than most of the cal states. </p>
<p>You might also try to get hold of a book called Cool Colleges (available from Amazon) which features many colleges with unique approaches to curriculum and learning.</p>
<p>Carolyn, thanks for those suggestions.</p>
<p>Congratulations on your daughter getting a college acceptance so early in the game.</p>
<p>Now you can relax. :)</p>
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<p>While it’s obvious that the writing up of problem sets (in final form, for submission) is generally best done in a sedentary fashion, the actual DOING (i.e., solving) of the problems need not be sedentary at all.</p>
<p>Some students really like to work standing up at a whiteboard or blackboard, either alone or in a small study group. </p>
<p>There are colleges that give students access to small classrooms with lots of blackboards or whiteboards for small study groups to use. </p>
<p>Whiteboards are fairly cheap and you could easily rig one up in a dorm room. (If you want a large cheap whiteboard, go to a home improvement supply store and buy a large sheet of that inexpensive shower wall material stuff. You can have the store cut it to order in whatever size you’d like once you know the size of your dorm room. The edges will be rough and unfinished, but you can use heavy duty plastic tape to give a more polished look to the borders and prevent accidental abrasions.)</p>
<p>Then too a lot of math students find that when they’re stumped on a problem, taking a brisk walk or a shower or a run or some other physical activity can give them a fresh insight into the problem. Sometimes just a change of position—I know people who sometimes work at a desk, sometimes prefer to sprawl on the floor, sometimes go to a vacant classroom alone, sometimes with a group, etc.</p>
<p>Anyway, these strategies are ones that a kinetic learner can use just about anywhere. So I don’t think you need to go to a special kind of college for kinetic math learners. Most learning in college doesn’t happen in the classroom anyway. At the college level, it’s really up to the students to figure out ways to use their own distinctive learning style to best advantage. Experimentation and resourcefulness can be good in this way.</p>
<p>Math would seem to be ideal for a kinetic learner, because there is relatively little volume of reading and a high volume of THINKING. In math, you do a little bit of reading and then you THINK about it very actively by doing problems—and that thinking and working on the problem doesn’t have to be done sitting down in a chair.</p>
<p>(And there actually some very cool things in math that can definitely be done kinetically. There are mathematicians who build models out of all sorts of things to better visualize what they are doing–Zometools for polyhedra, paper for computational origami, etc. I know of mathematicians who knit, glassblow, whatever. Some mathematicians use vegetables like eggplant as models for 3-d calculus problems. It’s often good for students to build models of problems with whatever materials they happen to have handy—drinking straws and string are good things to have around, for example. Clay is good too, e.g., for topology.) </p>
<p>Econ, on the other hand, can involve a good bit more reading, but it also has problem sets. Much of economics can be quite mathematical, so once again there’s room for working on problems standing up at a blackboard rather than seated at a desk. </p>
<p>Business curricula typically have a lot of case studies, internships, group work, presentations, etc. They also have problem sets in economics, finance, managerial decision analysis, which once again can be done in physically active ways rather than sitting quietly at a desk.</p>
<p>Thanks to Wisteria for correcting me. I was too narrowly focusing on the writing of problems and on the issue of “college selection.” It’s evident that I have a highly theoretical math kid who decided against MIT because of its emphasis on manes as well as mensa :)</p>
<p>Business education (and the experience in general) is very centered around learning by doing. There is a lot of practical application, case studies, simulations, etc.</p>
<p>The great part about being a co op student is you get paid so much for your working period. I really tried to motivate child 3 toward it. Of course there are drawbacks like delaying graduation, etc… But heck, a student gets so much practical working experience, can even change majors if he doesn’t really like the work.(thinking about Digmedia’s story a long time ago.) And now there are additional scholarships if you are willing to be a co op student including not having to pay for that 5th year at some colleges. I know Drexel also has a good co op program with additional scholarhips for participating.</p>