Soft Skills Facilitation Blog 2
By Md Aizat
Experiential Learning
Experiential learning is something
outdoor educators use extensively in the outdoors, but do we know what they meant
by experiential learning? Experiential come from the word experience, James
Neil (Neil, 2006)defined experience as
a nature of events of which someone or something has gone through, something in
the past that has happened and experiential learning (Neil, 2005) as learning by your
own and learning through structured experiential programs and activities.
Experiential education as mentioned
by Neil (Neil, 2004) is based on
experiential learning and is on a few basis: students are actively involved in
their learning or activity, educators operate on a mindset that educational goals
can be met by letting the natural cause of learning, in this case experience to
take place and facilitate the learning and can be applied to a wide variety of
disciplines or topics.
The point of the students getting
involved in the learning process is about getting the student to have first-hand
experience on a certain topic, for example, traditional teaching with talking
about how hard is it to kayak in the sea in classroom while an experiential
educator would bring that same student out to the sea to kayak and let the
student experience it first-hand and created a theory or concept regarding the
topic, hence making the teacher involvement here minimal and letting the
student do the learning on his or her own. This same point was further
supported by Berry (Berry & Hodgson, 2011) that the learner is
placed at the center of the experience, making the value of new knowledge,
skills or understanding more obvious and immediate benefits to the learner.
The Model
Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle (Kolb,
1984 cited in Berry & Hodgson,2011) talks about a learning cycle that starts
off with concrete experience following by reflective observations followed by
abstract conceptualization , active experimentation and the cycle restarts.
Kolb Cycle (Kolb, 1984 cited in Berry & Hodgson,2011) explains that the
cycle can being at any phase and the cycle should be viewed as a spiral with
each stage building up for the other, hence recurring. It has been without it’s
critiques, some as mentioned by Smith (Smith, 2010) such as the model doesn’t
give much attention towards the reflection process, the model doesn’t account
much on different cultural experiences. The four stages gave birth to four
learning styles (Honey & Mumford,1986 cited in Berry & Hodgson,2011)
which is the pragmatist whose the problem solver, activist who enjoys doing,
theorist who takes ideas and forms theories and the reflectors who prefer to
observe and collect facts before reaching a conclusion.
Application & Conclusion
However, Neil (Neil, 2004) listed down all the
benefits of experiential learning ranging from equality,
developing relationships quickly, meta learning, encourage risk taking,
diversity of strengths and many more. Experiential learning with reference from
my work place has a lot to play a part on the students learning as the
experiential model is able to provide that spiral of learning and at the same
time able to cater to a broad range of learning styles. For me I believe
outdoor education is best supplemented by experiential learning as a mean for
learners to maximise from outdoor activities. Studies have shown that
experiential learning gives a more impactful learning and gets the student to
direct his or her own learning with the right guidance from facilitators.
References
Berry, M. &
Hodgson, C., 2011. Adventure Education: An Introduction. New York:
Routledge.
Neil, J., 2004. What is Experiential Education?. [Online]
Available at: http://wilderdom.com/experiential/ExperientialWhatIs.html
[Accessed 6 December 2013].
Available at: http://wilderdom.com/experiential/ExperientialWhatIs.html
[Accessed 6 December 2013].
Neil, J., 2005. What is Experiential Learning?. [Online]
Available at: http://wilderdom.com/experiential/ExperientialLearningWhatIs.html
[Accessed 6 December 2013].
Available at: http://wilderdom.com/experiential/ExperientialLearningWhatIs.html
[Accessed 6 December 2013].
Neil, J., 2006. Experiential Learning &
Experiential Education: Philosophy, theory, practice & resources. [Online]
Available at: http://wilderdom.com/experiential/
[Accessed 6 December 2013].
Available at: http://wilderdom.com/experiential/
[Accessed 6 December 2013].
Smith, M. K., 2010. David A. Kolb on experiential
learning.. [Online]
Available at: http://infed.org/mobi/david-a-kolb-on-experiential-learning/
[Accessed 6 December 2013].
Available at: http://infed.org/mobi/david-a-kolb-on-experiential-learning/
[Accessed 6 December 2013].
For futher reading
Student Learning in Outdoor
Education: A Case Study From the National Outdoor Leadership School: http://www.health.utah.edu/prt/nols/paisleyjee.pdf
