Experiential Learning--A Very Important Learning Style In The 21th Century

The history has turned to the new page, and human being has entered into the 21th Century which is full of chances and challenges. Experiential learning is an effective way to improve the qualities which people need to accommodate the new century. Experience is not only a kind of activity, but also the result of activity. As a kind of activity, it means that the learner does something and reflect it, and as the result it means it enables shifts in attitude and behaviour.Experiential learning is a student-centred learning style in which students are engaged in critical thinking and problem solving and decision making to get new knowledge, skills and attitudes within contexts that are personally relevant to them. Experiential learning emphasizes the signification of experience to study , and it not only is in favour of getting new knowledge and abilities from doing something but also pay close attention to the reflection to the experience. The learner gets development through the reflection and experience. So we can say that experiential learning is the combination of "learning from doing" and "learning from thinking".Experiential learning has a rich history in South West, and a long history in China . We can find the ideas about experiential learning from the scholars in China and in South West. Experiential learning theories have their own philosophical foundation, psychological foundation and physiological foundation. Different experientiallearning models are set up according to the theoretical foundation. " Experiential learning circle" is often used to refer to the 4-stage process model discussed extensively by Kolb.The features of experiential, learning are: environmental, practical, initiative and reflective. The values of experiential learning embody in two aspects: values to the learners' development; values to the social development. When we put experiential learning in practice, we have to think about learning environments, differences in student learning style , learner-environment interactions and learner's reflection. The assessment conception about experiential learning is sustainability, and the best way to assess experiential learning is performance assessment.In the 21th century, experiential learning can be implemented in vocational training, teacher training and the job training in higher education, and also can be implemented in classroom as a kind of teaching technology. Although it is an effective learning style, it has its limitations , so it needs the other learning styles to make up for that.