Becoming an Experiential Educator

Experiential learning is helping to revolutionize education wherever it takes place: in schools, in businesses, and throughout life. In Becoming an Experiential Educator, David A. Kolb, the field's pioneering researcher, shares the current state of the art in Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) research and practice. Writing for everyone who teaches and helps others learn, he organizes the field's latest research and thinking about experiential learning, and distills the wisdom of educators worldwide who have enriched ELT with their own experiences. In Part I, Kolb describes the basic principles of Experiential Learning Theory, revealing how educators can use these ideas to enhance their practice. He illuminates the importance of informing your work with a personal educational philosophy, and then describes the two tightly linked central concepts of Experiential Learning Theory: learning cycles and learning styles. He shows how recent research on the brain has deepens our understanding of the process of experiential learning, examines the contextual and situated nature of experiential learning, illuminates the relationship between learning and development, assesses learners' willingness to engage in learning, and helps educators assist learners in directing and controlling their own learning process by developing metacognitive skills. Part II focuses on helping educators create hospitable, effective spaces for learning. Kolb shows how to build learning spaces that optimize the mix of challenge and support, promote good conversation, build on the learners' own experience of the subject; foster experiencing, reflecting, thinking and acting; and deepen and sustain learning across the entire learning cycle. Part III concentrates on the practice of experiential education across the entire learning cycle. Kolb helps educators adopt roles appropriate to each stage, including coach, facilitator, subject expert, and evaluator. He concludes the book with a thoughtful exploration of the career of the educator as a process of lifelong learning.