Experiential learning

Introduction:
Experiential Learning is the process of making meaning from direct
experience. Aristotle once said, “For the things we have to learn before we can
do them, we learn by doing them”. David A.Kolb helped to popularize the idea
of experiential learning drawing heavily on the work of John Dewey, Kurt
Lewin and Jean Piaget. His work on experiential learning has contributed
greatly to expanding the philosophy of experiential education.
Experiential learning is leaning through reflection on doing, which is
often contrasted with rote or didactic learning, adventure learning, free choice
learning, cooperative learning and service learning. While there are relationship
and connections between all these theories of education, importantly they are
also separate terms with separate meanings.

What is Experiential Learning?

Experiential Learning is an approach to learning in which participants
engage in an activity, reflect on the activity critically, and obtain useful insight
and learning.
Learning which is developed experientially is "owned" by the learner and
becomes an effective and integral aspect of behavioral change. Skill
development, versus simply acquiring knowledge and concepts, occurs through
Experiential Learning.

Experiential Learning Cycle:

The Experiential Learning Cycle includes five sequential steps, or stages.

The steps are as follows:
• Experiencing: (This is the initial stage of the cycle): Almost any activity
that involves self-assessment or interpersonal interaction may be used as the
"doing" part of experiential learning.
• Publishing: After participants have experienced an activity, they are
ready to share or publish what they observed and how they felt during that
experience.
• Processing: (This is the pivotal step in the experiential learning cycle).
This step, referred to as the group dynamics stage, includes systematic
examination of shared experiences by the members of the group.
• Generalizing: In this stage, the members of the group begin to focus on
their awareness of situations in their personal or work lives that are similar to
those they experienced in the group.
• Applying: In this final stage, the facilitator helps participants apply
generalizations to actual situations in which they are involved.

Experiential Learning:
Experiential Learning has come to mean two different types of learning.
 Learning by yourself and
 Experiential education-experiential learning through programs structured
by others.
Experiential Learning by Yourself:
• Learning from experience by yourself might be called ‘nature’s way of
learning’.
• It is education that occurs as a direct participation in the events of life.
• It includes learning that comes about through reflection on everyday
experiences.
• Experiential learning by yourself is also known as “informal education”
and includes learning that is organized by learners themselves.
Experiential Education:
 Principles of experiential learning are used to design of experiential
education programs.
 Emphasis is placed on the nature of participants` subjective experiences.
 An experiential educator’s role is to organize and facilitate direct
experiences of phenomenon under the assumption that this will lead to genuine
[meaningful and long-lasting] leaning. This often also requires preparatory and
reflective exercises.
 Experiential education is often contrasted with didactic education, in
which the teacher’s role is to “give” information/knowledge transmission” as
the main goal.

Experiential Learning According to C.Rogers:

Rogers distinguished two types of learning: Cognitive [meaningless] and
Experiential [Significant]. The former corresponds to academic knowledge such
as learning vocabulary or multiplication tables and the letter refers to applied
knowledge such as learning about engines in order to repair a car. The key to
the distinction is that experiential learning addresses the needs and wants of the
learner.
Rogers lists these qualities of experiential learning:
 Personal Involvement
 Self-initiated
 Evaluated by learner
 Pervasive effects on teacher.
Role of teachers in experiential learning according to Rogers:
1. Setting a positive climate for learning.
2. Clarifying the purpose of the learner/learners
3. Organizing and making available learning resources.
4. Balancing intellectual and emotional components of learning.
5. Sharing feelings and thoughts with learners but not dominating.

According to Rogers, Learning is facilitated when:

1. The student participates completely in the learning process and has
control over its nature and direction.
2. It is primarily based upon direct confrontation with practical, social,
personal or research problems.
3. Self-evaluation is the principal method of assessing progress or success.
4. Rogers also emphasizes the importance of learning to learn and an
openness to change.

Experiential Learning Cycle Models:

 1-Stage Model:
The first model, a 1-stage model (experience) is simply that experience alone is
sufficient for learning. In many cases this is true. Pickles traces this underlying
philosophy further back to the oft-used by experiential educator’s Confucius
quote [from around 450BC].
“Tell me, and I will forget.
Show me, and I may remember.
Involve me, and I will understand”.
The goal of education from this point of view then would be to
structure and organize learning activities in which experiences themselves
facilitate learning.
 2-Stage Model:
The second model, a 2-Stage model (experience-reflection), is that
experiences, followed by periods of reflection are an effective way to
structure and facilitate experiential education.

 3-Stage Model:

Do
Doing and Experiencing

REVIEW
PLANE Reflecting &
Planning & Applying Discussing

Fig: -Stage experiential learning cycle.

The simplest is experience-reflection-plan, which suggests that flowing
an experience and reflection, it is helpful to develop a plan for future
experience.
The second 3-Stage model is based more directly on Dewey’s
[1938/1997] theory of experience, involving; “observation of surrounding
conditions-knowledge obtained by recollection-judgment, which puts together
what is observed and what is recalled to see what they signify”.

 4-Stage Model:
The fourth model, a 4-Stage model (experience-reflection-abstraction-
experimentation) is Kolb’s [1984] classic “Experiential Learning Cycle”. David
Kolb drew on Dewey’s philosophy in proposing a 4-stage experiential learning
cycle.

The Exp

Fig: 4 Stage Experiential Learning Cycle

 This model suggests that a participant has a concrete experience, followed by
reflective observation, then the formation of abstract conceptualization before
finally conducting Active experimentation to test out the newly developed
principles.
There are other stage models to be considered, and many critiques have
been made. Nevertheless, the Kolbian 4-stage model is widely known and used
to education and training circles and continues to grow in popularity.
1. Concrete Experience
2. Reflective observation
3. Active Experimentation
4. Abstract conceptualization

 5-Stage model:
A variety of 5-stage experiential learning cycle models have been
proposed, including
 Joplin [1981] :
Focus – Action – Support – Feedback - Debriefing
 Kelly[1995]:
Encounter - (dis)Confirmation – Revision – Anticipation - Investment.
 Pfeiffer and Jones [1975]:
Experiencing - Publishing - Processing - Generalizing - Applying.

 6-Stage Model:
Priest [1990] and Priest and Gass [1997] describe a 6-stage model,
called the “ The Experiential Learning and Judgment Paradigm”, consisting
of : Experience – Induce – Generalize – Deduce – Apply - Evaluate.
 Experiential Learning Styles:
Honey and Mumfort: Typology of Learners
Activist:
Prefers doing &
Concrete experiencing
Experince

Active
Reflective
Experimentatio
Observation
n

Abstract
Concept Reflector:
utilisation Observer& reflects

Theorist:
Wants to understand
Underlying reasons,
Concepts, relationship

Pragmatist:
Likes to “have a go”
Try things to see if they work.

Fig: Honey and Mumfort: Typology of Learners

 Honey and Mumford [1982] have built a typology of learning styles
around this sequence identifying individual preferences for each stage
(Activists, Reflector, Theorist, Pragmatist respectively).Kolb also has a test
instrument ( the Learning Style Inventory) but has carried it further by
relating the process also to forms of knowledge
Learning styles mean that:
 At a major level there is a need for adjustment between learner and
teacher; sometimes antagonistic, and of course sometimes collusive if they both
tend to go for the same stages in the cycle.
 At a major level, neglect of some stages can prove to be a major
obstacle to learning.
 At a really serious level, teacher are easy to con with plausible but
pernicious snake-oil (e.g. ideas about ‘learning styles’ follow the links to the
right).

Forms of knowledge and the Learning Cycle:

The four quadrants of the cycle are associated with four different forms of
knowledge, in Kolb`s view. Each of these forms is paired with its diagonal
opposite.

Concrete
Experience

Accommodative Divergent

Active Reflective
Experimentation Convergent Assimilative Observation
 Abstract
Conceptualisation

Learning StyleLearning Characteristic Description

Abstract
 Strong in practical application of ideas
conceptualization Can focus on hypo-deductive reasoning on
CONVERGER


+ specific problems
Active experimentation  Unemotional
 Has narrow interests
Concrete experience  Strong in imaginative ability
+  Good at generating ideas and seeing things from
DIVERGER

Reflective observation different perspectives

 Interested in people
 Broad cultural interests
Abstract
 Strong ability to create theoretical models
ASSIMILATOR

conceptualization  Excels in inductive reasoning

+  Concerned with abstract concepts rather than
Reflective observation people
 Concrete experience  Greatest strength is doing things
ACCOMMODATOR

+  More of a risk taker

Active experimentation  Performs well when required to react to
immediate circumstances
 Solves problems intuitively

Kolb Model and Subject Disciplines:

Kolb and his colleagues have undertaken extensive empirical work using
the Learning Styles Inventory to relate different subject disciplines to the
quadrants of the learning cycle and hence to different forms of knowledge;
partly for reasons of space and partly for copyright reasons, you are referred to
the text for the results.
 Broadly speaking, he suggests that practitioners of creative disciplines,
such as the arts, are found in the divergent quadrant.
 Pure scientists and mathematicians are in the Assimilative quadrant.
 Applied scientists and lawyers are in the convergent quadrant.
 Professionals who have to operate more intuitively, such as teacher are in
the Accommodative quadrant.
 There are also differences in the location of specialists with in the more
general disciplines.
All of the above assumes that there is some validity in this conceptualization of
“Learning Style”.
Benefits of Experiential Learning:
Benefits to Individuals
• Balance between effective, behavioral, and cognitive learning.
• Opportunities for group participation and shared learning.
• Utilization of participant's newly learned expertise.
• Real-life problem solving.
• Skill development in designing training that is relevant, useful, and
applicable in the work setting.
• Application of learning to the work setting.
• Build a resource kit of actual designs for ice breakers, getting acquainted
activities, energizers, and learning modules.
Benefits to Organizations
• Targeted training results in development of skills to fulfill job
requirements and meet organizational objectives.
• Development of responsibility and accountability for learning and
teaching.
• Transfer of learning to the organizational setting.
• Begin to build a culture of adaptation and change through continuous
learning.
Applications of the experiential learning cycle to just-in-time learning
opportunities with groups and teams.

Conclusion:
 On the whole experiential learning is an effective learning strategy which
allows the student to think critically and evolve to get a real experience of the
concept. It develops the problem solving skill among the students.

Webliography:
 http://www.google.co.in/imgres?
imgurl=http://www.universityassociates.com/images/FullExperientialLearning
Model.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.universityassociates.com/DELMFull.html&
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%3Du&zoom=1&q=experiential+learning&hl=en&usg=__DWf3LN7OR1B4q
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiential_learning#Related_topics
 http://www.leaningand teaching.info/learning/experience.htm
 http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-explrn.htm
 http://wilderdom.com/experiential/
 http://wilderdom.com/experiential/Experience WhatIs.html
 http://wilderdom.com/experiential/Experiential LearningWhatIs.html
 http://wilderdom.com/experiential/ExperientialEducators.html