Experiential Education
What is it?
• Learning from experience (experiential learning) is the "natural way of learning". Experiential learning has come to mean two different types of learning
Experiential learning by yourself
Experiential learning is "education that occurs as a direct participation in the events of life"1. Here learning is "informal", organized by people themselves. It is learning that is achieved through reflection upon everyday experience and is the way that most of us do most of our learning.
Related terms: Auto didacticism, Informal education
Experiential Learning through Programs Structured By Others
Principles of experiential learning are used to design experiential education. Emphasis is placed on the subjective nature of participants' experiences. The teacher's goal is to help organize and facilitate access to direct experiences of phenomenon such that genuine (meaningful and long-lasting) learning occurs.
Related terms: Challenge education, Cooperative learning
The principles of experiential education practice are:
• Experiential learning occurs when carefully chosen experiences are supported by reflection, critical analysis, and synthesis.
• Experiences are structured to require the learner to take initiative, make decisions, and be accountable for the results.
• Throughout the experiential learning process, the learner is actively engaged in posing questions, investigating, experimenting, being curious, solving problems, assuming responsibility, being creative and constructing meaning.
• Learners are engaged intellectually, emotionally, socially, soulfully, and/or physically. This involvement produces a perception that the learning task is authentic.
• The results of the learning are personal and form the basis for future experience and learning.
• Relationships are developed and nurtured: learner to self, learner to others, and learner to the world at large.
• The educator and learner may experience success, failure, adventure, risk-taking, and uncertainty, since the outcomes of experience cannot be totally predicted.
• Opportunities are nurtured for learners and educators to explore and examine their own values.
• The educator's primary roles include setting suitable experiences, posing problems, setting boundaries, supporting learners, insuring physical and emotional safety, and facilitating the learning process.
• The educator recognizes and encourages spontaneous opportunities for learning.
• Educators strive to be aware of their biases, judgments, and pre-conceptions and how they influence the learner
• The design of the learning experience includes the possibility to learn from natural consequences, mistakes, and successes.
Refereced:
Houle, C. (1980) Continuing Learning in the Professions, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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