Experience and Learning

Chapter 7

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
5 perspectives that raise an important questions
about the nature of experience:
1. Reflecting on concrete experience
2. Participating in a community of practice
3. Getting in touch with unconscious desires
and fears
4. Resisting dominant social norms of
experience
5. Exploring ecological relationships
between cognition and environment.
Kolbs Experiential Learning Cycle

Learning from experience requires 4 different

kinds of abilities
An openness and willingness to involve
oneself in new experiences (Concrete
Experience)
2. Observational and reflective skills so these
new experiences can be viewed from a
variety of perspectives (Reflective
Observation)
3. Analytical abilities so integrative ideas and
concepts can be created from their
observations (Abstract conceptualization)
4. Decision-making and problem-solving skills
so these new ideas and concepts can be
used in actual practice (Active
experimentation)

These 5 perspectives directly align with a learning

theory:
1.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Constructivist theory of learning:

Focuses on reflection of experience to
construct new knowledge
Situative theory of learning: Learning is
rooted in the situation in which a person
participates
Psychoamalytic theory of learning: Sees
our unconscious as interfering with our
conscious experiences
Critical cultures theories: Seeks to
transform existing social orders, by
critically questioning and resisting
dominant norms of experience
Complexity theories applied to learning:
Learning is produced through interaction
among consciousness, identity, action
and interaction, objects and structural
dynamics of complex systems

Reflective Practice
Criticisms and Pedagogical debates in
the experimental learning literature
Four steps
The resource of highest value in adult
education is the learners experience

1. Slow down and consider other

perspectives

Experience becomes the adult learners

living textbook

2. Keep an open perspective

As adults live longer they accumulate both

a greater volume and range of experiences

3. Active and conscious processing of

thoughts
4. Examine beliefs, goals, and practices
Outcome Goal: Gain deeper insight and
lead to action

Five Applications and outcomes

Depending on beliefs and values, there
are different applications and outcomes
of reflective practice.
1. Immediate focused on survival, rarely
use reflective practice
2. Technical Reflection as a tool to
guide practice
3. Deliberative Find personal meaning
within an educational setting
4. Dialectic Focus on political/social
issues and how to address them
5. Transpersonal focus on personal
liberation through reflective practice
Two Central Processes
1. Reflection-on-Action
a. Thinking it through
AFTERWARDS
b. Analytical exercise
i. New perspectives
ii. Changes in behavior
iii. Commitments to action
c. Evaluate and retry
d. R-o-A is cyclical and leads to
continual change and growth
2. Reflection-in-action
a. Thinking on your feet or
keeping your wits about you
b. Triggered by surprise
c. The freedom to go beyond rules
and processes and practice as
an artist to create new ways of
thinking
Situated Cognition
Learning is not separate from the situation,
but part of the process of participation
1. Learning Happens with
a. The community
b. The tools at hand
c. The activity at hand
2. The process of learning is about
perception. Learning and Cognition
are
a. Cultural
b. Experiential
c. Political
d. Social

Cognitive Apprenticeships
Emphasizes on teaching learners different
ways of thinking about whatever they are
learning. The learner moves from being
taught in situations to creating knowledge
by experience.
Anchored Instruction
Creating situations that learners can
grapple with expert level problems and
opportunities. Complex problems to be
studied and solved over long periods of
time.
Critiques of Experiential Learning
1. Are people one united self or a
collection of multiple selves?
Conflict in desires can affect
learning and reflection
2. Cognitive reflection is limited in
Experiential Learning Impact and
desire is not taken into account in
the learning process
3. Separation of the learner and the
context of experience
Social/Political/Cultural/Community/
Task/Vocabulary, the learners
beliefs makes meaning of the
situations.
4. Experiential Learning needs to have
boundaries How does it differ
from classroom experience?
5. Content, design, and role of
educator critiques
a. Experiential Learning can
worsen social problems in
the workplace by increasing
human capital without
regard for worker freedom
and dignity
b. Organizations can use
Experiential Learning as a
tool to control workers