Experiential Learning in Secondary Schools: The Practical Guide to Designing, Teaching, Assessing and Sustaining Meaningful Learning Through Experienc

By Jacques Retief

Experiential Learning in Secondary Schools

A Practical Guide to Designing, Teaching, Assessing, and Sustaining Meaningful Learning Through Experience

What if students learned more deeply because school felt less like something done to them, and more like something they actively explored, tested, created, questioned, and reflected on?

Experiential Learning in Secondary Schools is a practical, research-informed guide for teachers and school leaders who want to make learning more purposeful, active, and meaningful.

Rather than presenting experiential learning as a trend, an occasional project, or an enrichment activity for already engaged students, this book shows how learning through experience can become a rigorous and sustainable part of everyday secondary teaching. It offers clear guidance for designing lessons, units, assessments, and school-wide approaches that help students connect knowledge with action, reflection, skill development, and real-world relevance.

Drawing together theory, classroom practice, curriculum design, assessment, inclusion, leadership, and innovation, Jacques Retief provides a grounded framework for moving beyond passive content delivery toward deeper, more active learning.

Inside, readers will explore how to:

design curriculum around meaningful learning outcomescreate classroom experiences that build engagement, curiosity, and responsibilityuse active learning without losing structure, rigour, or classroom controlconnect learning to real-world problems, projects, skills, and reflectionassess authentic student work with clarity and credibilitysupport diverse learners through thoughtful and inclusive designbuild a classroom culture where students participate, create, revise, and growlead experiential learning across teams, faculties, and whole-school systems

This is a book about making learning more alive without making it less disciplined. It is about giving students opportunities to think, act, reflect, and apply their learning in ways that matter.

Written for secondary teachers, middle leaders, instructional coaches, school leaders, teacher educators, and curriculum designers, Experiential Learning in Secondary Schools offers practical strategies and clear language that can be used in real classrooms and real schools.

If you want students to do more than receive and repeat information, this book will help you design learning they can investigate, practise, question, improve, and remember.

Learning should not only be delivered.

It should be lived.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1923674811
• ISBN13: 9781923674813
• Release Date: April 2026
• Publisher: Retief Libris Publishing
• Length: 156 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"