What is Experiential Learning?

What is Experiential Learning?

Experiential Learning is an approach to learning in which participants engage in an activity, reflect on the activity critically, and obtain useful insight and learnings.
Learning which is developed experientially is "owned" by the learner and becomes an effective and integral aspect of behavioral change. Skill development, versus simply acquiring knowledge and concepts, occurs through Experiential Learning.

What is the Experiential Learning Cycle?

The Experiential Learning Cycle includes five sequential steps, or stages. The steps are as follows:

• Experiencing: (This is the initial stage of the cycle): Almost any activity that involves self-assessment or interpersonal interaction may be used as the "doing" part of experiential learning.
• Publishing: After participants have experienced an activity, they are ready to share or publish what they observed and how they felt during that experience.
• Processing: (This is the pivotal step in the experiential learning cycle). This step, referred to as the group dynamics stage, includes systematic examination of shared experiences by the members of the group.

• Generalizing: In this stage, the members of the group begin to focus on their awareness of situations in their personal or work lives that are similar to those they experienced in the group.
• Applying: In this final stage, the facilitator helps participants apply generalizations to actual situations in which they are involved. ( 2002 - 2007 by University Associates.) 

Silvia De La Rosa Girón*