Out-of-class Learning:an Indispensable Part Of The Holistic Education

Out-of-class learning, taking place outside the formal classroom, is a learning activity which was initiated and regulated by learner themselves, and learners are responsible for it. Out-of-class learning transfers and permeates knowledge through non-teaching social interaction. According to the current studies, students’out-of-class learning experience plays a key role in promoting students’academic success and over-all development, as well as the realization of university education goals. In addition, the out-of-class learning experience is an important way for college to cultivate the whole-person. It was regarded as an indispensable part of holistic education in the universities of America. Most of the universities in America focusing on the fusion between classroom-teaching and out-of-class learning, out-of-class activities are rich in content and the system is entirely complete, it was regarded as an important way for cultivating the whole-person. On the contrary, we didn’t pay enough attention to the out-of-class learning in our universities. The patterns of out-of-class learning are very limited, fewer students today are involved in those activities, and the activities are lack of guidance. What’s worse, few scholars discoverer the links between the out-of-class and whole-person education. Based on the knowledge integrating of out-of-class learning and holistic education, this passage puts forward three solutions--having a correct understanding of the value of out-of-class learning; improving the out-of-class learning system; strengthening the links between the classroom teaching and out-of-class learning--to consolidate and improve the whole-person education in our country after analyzing of the development of out-of-class learning in American universities.