Characteristics of Experiential Learning

Experiential Learning is characterized as follows:

1. Learning takes place along a continuum of meaning, ranging from “meaningless” routine learning to “meaningful”, Experiential Learning that involves the learner. It is a process where concepts are derived from and continuously modified by experience. Learning is the process of creating knowledge through the transformation of experience. All learning is relearning in the sense that previous experience is modified by new experiences.

2. Learning is a continuous process that is grounded in experience. Thus knowledge and skill gained in one situation become instruments of understanding and dealing with situations that follow. Predictability is established on the basis of previous experience. While continuity and predictability provide security, learning also involves an element of ambiguity and risk-taking.

3. The process of learning requires the resolution of conflicts between dialectically opposed modes of grasping and transforming experience. Learning is a tension-filled process, where knowledge, skills, and attitudes are achieved throughvarying degrees of emphasis on the four modes of learning. The ways in which the tensions are resolved determine the quality and level of learning.

4. Learning is a holistic process of relating to the world. It involves feeling, observing, thinking and acting, as a cyclic process. These modes of learning are integrated, and development in one mode affects development in others. Learning is active and self-directed and continues throughout life.

(Kohonen et al., 2001: 30, with slight change)