Experiential Learning Theory purports that:
People learn best from their own experiences - and their own reviews.
What people do is more important than what they know.
It is not enough to explain to people what to do; they must be shown how to actually do it and then how to improve it.
Experiential learning moves beyond knowledge and into skill by generating learning experience - the more experience the greater the skill.
To be remembered over a long period of time the learning process should be enjoyable, motivating and rewarding.
Experiential learning gets to grips with the most important aspect of training and that is to achieve change in behaviour and attitude.
Experiential learning renders behaviours and attitudes visible and thereby can become acknowledged and then addressed.
(Kolb, www.teamskillstraining).
It was Kolb who stated “Virtual spaces can become inhabited places.” In his article, Real Places in Virtual Spaces, he goes on to explain, “I am claiming, though, that while places need to be within a perceptible space that space does not have to be physical.” (Kolb, p. 1).
Kolb’s philosophical approach to learning and learning spaces has encouraged the online educational environment – helping to establish it as a viable place for teaching-learning interaction.
An example of Experiential Learning Theory in an online course is to develop assignments that students become involved with, receive clear instructions, feedback and direction, and an opportunity to apply the learning.
In COM 622, we will follow these principles as we develop a course to be taught online.
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Kolb, D. Retrieved 9-25-09 from http://www.teamskillstraining.co.uk/articles/exp_learn.htm#08
Kolb, D. “Real places in virtual spaces”, Retrieved 9-25-09 from http://www.dkolb.org/sprawlingplaces
Smith, M. K. (2001). “David A. Kolb on experiential learning”, The encyclopedia of information education, http://www.infed.org/b-explrn.htm.
