Experiential Learning Theory as a Guide for Experiential Educators in Higher Education

TLDR

Experiential Learning Theory, with its learning cycle, style, and space, has guided higher‑education educators for nearly 50 years, yet traditional practices were often justified by rhetoric while entrenched habits remained unchanged. The study reviews current perspectives on the learning cycle, style, and space and showcases exemplary disciplinary applications of experiential learning in higher education. The authors conclude that progressive education urgently needs a philosophy grounded in experience, echoing Dewey’s call for experiential learning.

Abstract

Core concepts of Experiential Learning Theory—the learning cycle,learning style, and learning space—have been widely used by experiential educatorsin higher education for nearly half a century. We examine the latest thinkingabout these three concepts and highlight some exemplary applications from themany disciplinary applications of experiential learning in higher education.
 I think that only slight acquaintance with the history of education is needed to provethat educational reformers and innovators alone have felt the need for a philosophyof education. Those who adhered to the established system needed merely a few fine soundingwords to justify existing practices. The real work was done by habits whichwere so fixed as to be institutional. The lesson for progressive education is that itrequires in an urgent degree, a degree more pressing than was incumbent upon formerinnovators, a philosophy of education based on a philosophy of experience.
 John Dewey, Experience and Education