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Notes from the Greatest Mind of the 20th Century in the fields of "Education and Learning"

** - John Dewey - **

What are Experiential Learning Cycles?
Experiential Learning Cycles are models for understanding how the process of learning works. They are distinct from other models of learning, such as behavioral models or social learning models, in two notable ways:

Experiential Learning Cycles treat the learner's subjective experience as of critical importance in the learning process. ELCs draw on experiential education principles, which are largely based on the educational philosophy of John Dewey (1920's-1950's).

Experiential Learning Cycles propose an iterative series of processes which underlies learning. Depending on the model, there is anywhere between one stage (experience alone) through to six stages of learning to be considered.

Experiential Learning Cycles are commonly used to help structure experience-based training and education programs. For example, Experiential Learning Cycle models are amongst the most important pieces of theory used in many outdoor education programs.

Why break down learning into distinct stages?
By breaking fuzzy processes (such as learning) down into distinct stages (such as a 4-stage model), the idea is that we can better understand, test out, and make use of the main components.

However, trainers and educators who use convenient models, need to be critical consumers. Whilst a good model can greatly aid research and practice, a poor model (one which is wrong or misinterpreted) can create more problems than it solves.

Here is an example of how it can helpful to break learning down into discrete steps:

Tom is a typical three-year old boy in almost all respects, except that recently he has been throwing more temper tantrums than usual, they seem to be lasting longer, and occasionally they become particularly destructive to furniture, etc. Tom's parents are struggling to find ways to help Tom learn other ways of dealing with his frustrations and anger. They are concerned that if Tom doesn't learn to deal more appropriately with his emotions, that the problem could continue through his early schooling years and perhaps longer.
Tom's parents seek help from a psychologist who recommends implementing either a Time-Out procedure or a "Stop-Say-Listen" approach. Both of these procedures have been shown to be effective in helping children learn to deal with emotions and learn more effective behaviors because they intentionally add a "reflection" stage to the "action" stage. Such approaches to parenting can be seen as similar to the 2-stage Experiential Learning Cycle (action - reflection).

In many fields related to experiential learning, education, and training, the underlying "theoretical engine" is the idea that people can learn very effectively through direct, hands-on experience, as long as these experiences are well designed and facilitated.

But there are many examples where experience alone is not sufficient for meeting particular learning goals. In such situations, it seems to work better if the raw experience is packaged together with facilitated exercises which involve thinking, discussing, or creatively processing cognitions and emotions related to the raw experience.

Note that the term "Experiential Learning Cycle" is often used to refer to the 4-stage process model discussed extensively by Kolb (1984), but 8 other models are discussed on this page, plus Juch (1983) has collated 17 models.


Underlying Philosophy
How, exactly, do people "learn from experience"? The most famous response to this question comes from John Dewey's philosophy of education (see 500 Word Summary of John Dewey's "Experience & Education").

The underlying philosophy of experiential learning cycle (ELC) models is Deweyian. By Deweyian is meant that Experiential Learning Cycle models emphasize that the nature of experience as of fundamental importance and concern in education and training.

A further, Deweyian assumption underlying ELCs is that people learn experientially and that some experiences are educative whilst other experiences are miseducative. All experiences are understood to be continuous, that is, each experience influences each future experience.

It is the teacher's responsibility to structure and organize a series of experiences which positively influence each individual's potential future experiences (Dewey, 1938/1997). In other words, "good experiences" motivate, encourage, and enable students to go on to have more valuable learning experiences, whereas, "poor experiences" tend to lead towards a student closing off from potential positive experiences in the future.

This can be easier to understand with an extremely negative example, such as child abuse. Abusive experiences, particularly at an early age, tend to lead an individual towards shutting down or turning away from potentially positive experiences, particularly those involving trust of others. On the other hand, nurturant, warm experiences, particularly during the foundational years in child development, can help to foster an openness to experience, which augurs well for the child's future.

Dewey emphasizes the subjective nature of experience - the maxim "one's man's meat can be another man's poison" applies in education and training. Thus, the educator must be constantly alert to individual uniquenesses in the background of the participants, and personality, learning style, etc.

This does not necessarily mean descending into a completely free, unstructured style of education and training. Many educators claim the headiness of completely student-driven education has been tried and failed (e.g., A. S. Neill's "Summerhill").

However, there is also much disgruntlement with over structured training approaches (such as competency-based training) and overly prescriptive, restrictive schooling, particularly for non-academically inclined students. What's more, there is an ever-increasing need to provide people with less direct "content" or "information" and more of the underlying skills that foster learning capabilities and life skills.

 

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