A. Learning through Experiential Learning

Experiential learning is essentially learning experiences where instructors purposefully engage with learners in direct, authentic experience and facilitate focused reflection in order to increase student knowledge and develop skills. While we often first think of experiential learning as being the same as “hands-on”, this isn’t quite true. The key aspect is that we enable students to have the same or near-same kind of experience that reflects the real-world environment, and then work with them through a cycle of reflection to enable their learning from the experience. What that experience is could range from thinking through a real-world case study to a truly hands-on activity. Thinking through a case-study can be achieved entirely online, while a truly hands-on activity using specialized equipment cannot.

Many educators had to adapt their classroom-based experiential learning activities to fit within the online environment during the switch to remote teaching during the pandemic. In doing so, many had to modify the authentic experiential aspect so that it became more of a simulation. However, they also found asynchronous and synchronous online formats worked well for the reflection phase of the activity. With the return to in-person learning, some instructors have developed a blended approach, where hands-on experiential aspect remains on campus, but the framing and reflective aspects take place online.

The typical instructional cycle for an experiential learning activity is summarized here: