Experiential Learning Theory

Experiential learning forms the basis for a substantial portion of adventure education philosophy. As adventure educators, we believe that having experiences, reflecting on those experiences, and forming new concepts to apply to future experiences is the best way to learn and develop as humans. The theory of experiential learning cannot be defined in a simple manner, as its applications and background are substantial. However, a good summary is found in the "Experiential Learning Cycle," which has many minor variants. Wilderdom.com has an excellent summary of nine (nine!) such cycles, located here: http://wilderdom.com/experiential/elc/ExperientialLearningCycle.htm


The most common type of cycle looks like this:


This cycle is based off of Kolb's ideas, who synthesized his concepts from John Dewey. If you are at all familiar with experiential or adventure education, you have probably seen this chart many times before. Making a practical use of the concept is another question entirely, but most educators work to develop specific activities for each stage, so they don't miss an element.