Experiential learning is a powerful means of learning.Simply, experiential learning is learning from experience or learning by doing.Experiential learning first engages students in experiences and uses reflection on those experiences to discover new knowledge, new skills, new perceptions, or new ways of thinking.Renowned American theorist David Kolb is an influential educator in the field of experiential learning. He conceptualized experiential learning as dividing the learning process into a cycle of four basic theoretical elements, namely concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation.
While working on experiential learning, he mentioned John Dewey, Kurt Lewin and Jean Piaget as founders of this approach. Concrete experience describes the hands-on experiences that one learn from different sources, Reflective observation is all about reflection on the experiences which include both action and feelings.Abstract conceptualization is a stage for planning and brainstorming steps for success. The active experimentation phase is where one get to experiment with his or her ideas. It is time to put one plan of action to the test in the real world.
The Association for Experiential Education opines that experiential learning can be summed up in the phrase the process of developing learning through challenge and reflection on experience and its application.Experiential learning includes freedom of learning, as learners may make mistakes on given tasks, correcting those mistakes and finding different ways to do better each time. In this case, every mistake and failure and the new effort that students make through exclusion, or by trying to achieve something new, becomes a valuable part of the learning process.
Experiential learning allows students to gain confidence and leadership skills. They perform tasks by applying their critical thinking skills and strive to execute them with their abilities. This learning process gives them a better understanding of all the concepts and brings confidence in them. Students are able to connect the consistent material with the environment around them. Experiential learning provides them with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to become capable decision maker and become increasingly confident, creative and innovative gradually.
Experiential learning encourages students to take responsibility as it involves real-life activities and experiences. Through these activities, students get opportunities to nurture and practice their interests, empathies, skills, aptitudes and otheremotional development. Experiential learning gives students the freedom to learn and allows them to understand and be able to use the knowledge, skills gained in different subjects with confidence.Through experiential learning students become thoughtful, creative and innovative. Rather than memorizing the theory and facts of a subject, they find opportunities to directly and actively test their knowledge and application of philosophy.
In the experiential learning process, students can engage in creative work as well as use the creative parts of their brains to come up with creative solutions to intellectual problems. These problem-solving and innovative learning practices and outcomes create a variety of positive effects that enrich students' success while making life-long learning.
The experiential learning process will include laboratory practical experiments, internships, educational tours, and research and workshop performances. In Experiential learning progress students will spontaneously raise questions, investigate and experiment, satisfy curiosity, solve problems, accept and fulfill responsibilities, create and manage creative work. They will take initiatives, take decisions and be accountable if any action or decision is wrong and take up the challenge of completing the task anew.
It is very enthusiastic that we are thinking aboutintroducing experiential education as a learning process. We should keep in our mind that our current education culture for the last hundred years is strongly theoretical, pen and paper oriented examination and right answer-driven. A far cry from the culture of students thinking independently of writing or speaking answers. Parents still mistreat their children when they get low marks in exams. They consider getting low marks as an insult to his social status.
On the other hand, teachers also highlight low marks of learners to parents without identifying the qualities or creative and positive aspects of them. Still, the common perception of a good school among stakeholders at all levels of education is one where the exam results are good, coaching is regular, the number of class tests is high, model tests are taken in all subjects and the obtain highest GPA that is 5.Besides, traditional classroom culture, length of class periods, teacher-parents, student management committees, and long-standing mindsets can be major barriers to implementing experiential learning.
The actual situation of our formal education is that our students have no freedom of thought. The opportunity to say, write or do something using one's own thoughts, consciousness, perspective is very limited. On the other hand, our farmers, weavers, fishermen, gardeners, blacksmiths, potter and domestic helpers whom we call working boys or working girls, are getting real experience-based education even though they are far away from formal education. Like them our learners and teachers should ensure fruitful freedom of thinking, learning, doing and blending of all.
So with a view to implement experiential learning in our education culture, local education management and school authority should ensure a supportive and inclusive learning environment for the teachers and learners so that they both are motivated and enthusiastic to teach and learn through this process. Besides, the guardians and school management committee should fully and positively aware of the benefits of experiential learning process. As a result, teachers and students both will be confident and take responsibility for their own teaching-learning management. The classroom learning environment gradually will be learner-centered, democratic and collaborative in real sense after a time. But all of above mentioned situation will depend positive mindset of all stakeholders.
The writer is an Associate Professor
of Education, Govt. Teachers' Training College, Dhaka
