On Reflection And Construction Of Experiential Learning

Since the 20th century, "Teaching Returning to Life World" has become the common notion of curriculum reform in basic education across the globe. And so does in China. Being different from isolating teaching contents from students'life experience, the new curriculum reform emphasizes the importance of students'learning interest and concrete experience, advocating learning from experience. Influenced by this notion, teachers are very concerned about taking the advantages and developing students'direct experience, expanding learning site from the classroom to the outside, extending learning contents from the books to community resources, and adjusting the learning method from stressing on accepting the known to explore the unknown. We can see that experiential learning has become a popular approach in elementary and middle schools with the development of new curriculum reform. This dissertation attempts to study experiential learning through the following five parts:actuality observe and study-historical review—natural analysis—model construction—concrete forms illustration.The first part observes and studies the actuality of experiential learning in China. The call of "teaching returning to life world" makes teachers attach great importance to students'learning through experience. But there are some misunderstanding about the notion of experiential learning among teachers, resulting in vulgarizing the setting of study goal, vague concept and formalizing operation process in educational practice. Due to the ambiguity of the notion itself, many practitioners just get the one-sided understanding of it and there appear different kinds of educational practice in the name of "experiential learning". Since there is no definite definition of experiential learning in discourse of education, it is often used to refer to different concepts unconsciously. Therefore, the interpretation of this notion is actually a process being attached with different human natures and values. Due to different values, different people have different understanding towards this notion and creating various educational performances, In general, there are two value orientations in understanding this notion: one is the "physical-oriented", which interprets experience as students'daily life experience, regarding experiential learning as learning from daily life experience. The other is the "metaphysical-oriented", which interprets experiential learning as learning from ideal experience, regarding "experiencing is not only the human way of life, but also the way to pursue the meaning of life". The above two have its rationality and theoretical origin. However, if experiential learning is just interpreted as learning from daily life experience, from the view of history, it is certainly a setback and destined to be settled for diminishing the ideal to pursue learning. While if experience is interpreted as a ideal experience to conduct teaching, regarding learning as a notion instead of an action, it will undoubtedly not be doomed to any result for diminishing the practical value of learning from the perspective of reality.The second part makes a perspective on the idea of experiential learning in history. Today's thought has its source for thought is formed by history. Today's new ideas and new concepts are the new products influenced by a new philosophy in the new era of history. As a philosophy and an educational ideology, experiential learning is marked by the development of the history of philosophy and education. Taking the notion "experience" as a clue, we can trail its rich resources from philosophy and education across the boundaries of time and space domain. Though Rousseau's naturalistic experiential learning theory, Dewey's pragmatic experiential learning theory and Rogers'humanistic. experiential learning theory are very shining, they have various limitations due to the different historical backgrounds and philosophies. From the historical development of the notion of experience, we can see Rousseau, Dewey and Rogers'understanding about this notion underwent the sensory experience, reflective experience and sensitive experience. Rousseau believes that experience implies the rationality, but it is passive and receptive. In this sense, Rousseau's view of experience is actually a sensory experience and his understanding is technical which represents the "I-it" relationship between the man and the object. As for Dewey, he not only thinks experience occurs naturally, but also emphasizes the subjective nature of experience, which forms an "I-he" relationship between the subject (the knower) and the other subject (the others or the objects) by the thinking, reflecting and analyzing of experience. Rogers sets experience free from being understood passively, regarding experience as a kind of emotional interaction and communication between people and a kind of self-centered experience, which forms the kind of "I-You" relationship between the subject (the knower) and the other subject (the others or the objects). Rousseau's experiential learning theory, based on "nature" and "sensory experience", is still in the category of dualism, taking sensory experience as the only source of human knowledge, limiting knowledge in life experience, and isolating the subject from the object. Besides, as the typical representative of "Individual standard", Rousseau ignores the social nature of learning. Based on pragmatism, Dewey's experiential learning theory mainly aims for practical purposes, which makes it hard to get systematic knowledge. And based on existentialism and phenomenology, Rogers'experiential learning theory overemphasizes the emotion and individual of students and ignores the rationality and the generality. In spite of the limitations of their experiential learning theory, Rousseau's emphasis on sensory experience, Dewey's understanding towards monism and studying children from the psychological and social aspects and Rogers' concerns for students' emotion enlighten us greatly.The third part makes an analysis about the natural state of experiential learning.In the contemporary educational reform, the view of social constructivism has become a dominant one in understanding and improving the study at school. Social Constructivism criticizes the ways of thinking in traditional dualism, essentialism, the epistemology of theory of reflection, the methodology of individualism and determinism. And based on it, social constructivism puts forwards its views:in the "essentialism—constructivism" dimension, it emphasizes the construction of knowledge; in the "individual—social" dimension, it emphasizes the social nature of knowledge construction; while in the "unidirectional determinism—interactivism" dimension, it emphasizes the dialectic of constructing knowledge. Based on social constructivism, this study attempts to make a detailed analysis about experiential learning, In the views of the author, experiential learning is a social process in which the students, under the guidance of the teachers, transform personal experience and construct knowledge through practical activities to get and improve direct experience. This view emphasizes the acquisition and improvement of direct experience; emphasizing the important role of experience in the learning process, regarding the learner's original experience as the premise for constructing meaning; emphasizing the discourse experience the learner get from interacting with the environment, the self, and the others; emphasizing that learning is a process and the construction of experience is a social process; emphasizing the dialectical relationship in the learning process.The fourth part discusses the models of experiential learning. By far, Kolb's experiential learning cycle model is still the most far-reaching and most widely used, as well as the typical one. Kolb thinks experiential learning process is a four-stage cyclical development:concrete experience; reflective observation; abstract conceptualization and active experimentation. In fact, at various times or in different circumstances, the use of this learning model stage can vary between learners. The learner needs some amount of freedom to develop necessary stages satisfying his or her needs. Based on Kolb's pattern, the author argues, from the perspective of social constructivism, that there can be two more intermediate stages in the four stages, namely, communication and sharing, which can be put between concrete experience and reflective observation; and discussion and evaluation, which can be put between abstract conceptualization and active experimentation.The last part makes an illustration for the specific forms of experiential learning in the current new curriculum reform. The specific forms mainly include learning-by-doing, research-based learning, service learning and reflective learning. Learning-by-doing is a form of inquiry-based learning and is mainly applied in primary school. It aims to make children learn scientific knowledge by doing and develop children's primary abilities to explore and solve problems, fostering children's scientific spirit and scientific literacy, getting basic scientific knowledge by doing and thinking. Research-based learning is mainly used in research study program to solve the interdisciplinary practical problems, which aims to enhance students'ability to solve problems. Combined with community service, service learning helps students get direct experience and develop their sense of civic responsibility and practical ability. Reflective learning is to create and clarify meaning in terms of self to promote the development of wisdom and character through the process of internally examining, comparing the former experience with the present one and making adjustment correspondingly. Learning-by-doing, research-based learning and service learning are the basic forms in experiential learning, and reflective learning is the optimal one.