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What is Experiential Education?
- Learners are engaged intellectually, emotional, soulfully, and/or physically.
- This involvement produces a perception that the learning task is authentic.
- Experiences are structured to require the learner to take initiative, make decisions, and be accountable for the results.
- Throughout the learning process, the learner is actively engaged in posing questions, investigating, experimenting, being curious, solving problems, assuming responsibility, being creative, and constructing meaning.
- The results of learning are personal and form the basis for future experience and learning.
- Relationships are developed and nurtured: Learner to self, learner to others, and learner to the world at large.
- The educator and learner may experience success, failure, adventure, risk taking, and uncertainty, since the outcomes of experience cannot be totally predicted.
- The educator's primary roles include selecting suitable experiences, posing problems, setting boundaries, supporting learners, ensuring physical and emotional safety, and facilitating the learning process.
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The educator recognizes and encourages spontaneous opportunities for learning.
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Educators strive to be aware of biases, judgments, and preconceptions and how they influence the learner.
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The design of the learning experience includes the possibility to learn from natural consequences, mistakes, and success.
