Experience-Based Learning

Abstract

The distinguishing feature of experience-based learning (or experiential learning1) is that the experience of the learner occupies central place in all considerations of teaching and learning. This experience may comprise earlier events in the life of the learner, current life events, or those arising from the learner's participation in activities implemented by teachers and facilitators. A key element of experience-based learning (henceforth referred to as EBL) is that learners analyse their experience by reflecting, evaluating and reconstructing it (sometimes individually, sometimes collectively, sometimes both) in order to draw meaning from it in the light of prior experience. This review of their experience may lead to further action. All learning necessarily involves experience of some sort, prior and/or current. However, scrutiny of many contemporary teaching and training practices might lead one to think otherwise. Much of the impetus for EBL has been a reaction against an approach to learning which is overly didactic, teacher controlled and involving a discipline-constrained transmission of knowledge. It supports a more participative, learner-centred approach, which places an emphasis on direct engagement, rich learning events and the construction of meaning by learners. EBL is of particular interest to adult educators because it encompasses formal learning, informal learning, non-formal learning, lifelong learning, incidental learning and workplace learning. EBL is based on a set of assumptions about learning from experience. These have been identified by Boud, Cohen and Walker (1993) as: