What you learn from experience relates to the quality of your thinking Jenny Moon, Centre for Excellence in Media Practice, Bournemouth University, UK

Summary The meaning of ‘experiential’ learning How it might relate to other learning Epistemological development A practical exercise on epistemological development How epistemological development relates to experiential learning Some practical implications

The meaning of ‘experiential learning’

At the Centre: She might have: observed events been involved in the practical activities and learnt practical skills. or been allowed to be more independent - making decisions etc.

So what she might learn from the situation depends on: her actions, activities and opportunities the attention she gives to those actions etc the manner in which she approaches and processes the experiences and on how she exploits those opportunities to learn more.

To generalise, what we learn from experience depends on: the opportunities for learning that are inherent in a situation; the quality of attention that we give to those opportunities the manner by which we approach and process the experiences. how we can further exploit opportunities.

I focus on: the manner by which we approach and process the experiences. how we can further exploit opportunities.

Different terms for epistemological development: development of epistemological beliefs development of the understanding of the nature of knowledge and I will tend to talk of the sophistication of the quality of thinking

Epistemological development affects: the manner in which learners function intellectually their capacity for critical thinking, their ability to understand the nature of knowledge their ability to manage situations of uncertainty their understanding of the nature of scientific endeavour and their idea of theory and its relationship to evidence

I mention the work of: Perry – 1970 Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule (1984) King and Kitchener (1994) Baxter Magolda (1992) and Lucas (2009)

Baxter Magolda’s stages Absolute knowing Transitional knowing Independent knowing Contextual knowing

Charlie Learning in my sociology classes seems hard now. I am used to having clear handouts but this teacher says that we have to learn to think for ourselves and will not give us handouts. It seems to be a complicated way of learning – but then I have come to see the value in having to think a bit.

Elke I like having to work in groups in psychology. It is amazing that we have all developed such different perspectives since we have come back from placement. We are much better at listening to each other. I know that I am all the time trying to understand how each of us justifies our views, and listening to others helps me to put together my own thoughts.

Michael I was asked to critically analyse some theories about delinquency last semester. I wasn’t sure exactly what was meant by that. I thought it was probably about discussing theory and arguing my case for the one I thought to be right.

Samuel In our tutorial, it came out that there are differences of opinion among experts about how much different mammals ‘plan’ their actions. I suppose it is just that people have not done the research yet. There does not seem much point in disagreeing about it when the work has not yet been done.

Janine I have been a bit confused by the way that the two lecturers I have had in this subject have dealt with the battle of Samargo. They seem to have different attitudes to it. One said that it came about because of political reasons and the other said that it resulted from an uprising of the poor. I don’t know how to handle these different attitudes but maybe I have to learn to deal with them. It makes thing so uncertain.

Darren When I was reading this chapter, I was thinking ‘how does this fit’ and ‘ why does the author seem so sure about this?’ and I was relating it all to my views and I think my views might have changed now. I will have another look at it and decide where I stand.

Emma I am not sure why we have such a long reading list for this subject. I mean why does someone not just write a textbook on the subject and then we could learn what we need from the textbook. Lectures sometimes confuse me, the way they wander around the subject.

Dale It is good in seminars now. I see that my mates sometimes have all made different sense of the lectures on education. It’s not that one of us is right and the rest are not right – but that we have to get good at justifying the way we see it.

Experiential learning and epistemological development

A crucial piece of research by Baxter Magolda….. How do students shift from independent knowing to contextual knowing?

through postgraduate study through in good internship experiences or professional situations where they are required to make independent judgements in situations of ill- structured knowledge

That suggests that a good placement is one in which there are opportunities for making independent judgements: learners have a good degree of autonomy. They to deal with ill- structured knowledge

Three further crucial qualities of a situation of good experiential learning are that: There is learning from the representation of learning – learning from doing The student is required to reflect on her learning

However: Learners do also seem to be able to learn from observation (mirror neurones) And I also think they need to see examples of good and poor practice…

To summarise, the following will tend to feature in better experiential learning situations – there is: emphasis on autonomy and independent judgement opportunity to deal with ill-structured knowledge learning from the representation of learning which may be actively doing something and /or learning from reflection learners need examples of good and poor practice

Resources to download…