The Processing Pinnacle: An Educator's Guide to Better Processing

"Processing is an intuitive practice, and the processing pinnacle is an attempt to put logic and structure to something that is not particularly logical." --The Processing Pinnacle

Experiential education focuses mainly on the idea that there are two components to experience: the action and reflection. The Processing Pinnacle offers a theoretical approach to more effective processing, the reflective component of experience. Offering different points of view from the growing world of experiential education, the authors consider the difficulties of processing and suggest techniques to remove these roadblocks.

Utilizing the metaphor of the mountain, the authors demonstrate how and when certain facilitator methods may elicit immediate response and make a lasting impression on the individual, encouraging reflection as a personal response to life experience. Easy to implement and conversational in tone, The Processing Pinnacle contains valuable guidance for anyone who teaches experientially.

Steven Simpson is a professor of Recreation Management and Therapeutic Recreation at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. He is the former editor of the Journal of Experiential Education and has written over 50 articles on experiential education, outdoor recreation, and environmental ethics.

Dan Miller is vice president of the Institute for Experiential Education, a former ropes course builder/trainer for ABEE, and a senior instructor for Training Master Limited in Hong Kong. He has worked in therapeutic recreation for the Family and Children Center and Mayo Clinic.

Buzz Bocher is president of the Institute for Experiential Education and, with Dan Miller, the co-creator of Chiji Processing Cards. He is instructor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and the former director of the university's ropes and challenge course.