How can You Relate Experiential Learning to Real Life Scenarios?
The integration of knowledge, activity and reflection are key elements that groom your personality through Experiential Learning. This particular form introduces activity-based learning wherein the knowledge attained is used to enhance your ability to better reflect on life. Experiential Learning helps you in a variety of ways to relate to real life scenarios making it a rather effective form of learning.
How can You Relate Experiential Learning to Real Life Scenarios?
Some of the prominent examples of experiential learning include internships, service learning, cooperative education, clinical education, student teaching etc. These are the avenues where theoretical knowledge is brought into practical implementation which helps a person deal well with problems that he faces in real life scenarios.
Integration of Theory in Practice
In Experiential Learning, experiences are carefully chosen for the learning potential of particular individuals (i.e. whether they provide opportunities for students to practice and deepen emergent skills, encounter novel and unpredictable situations that support new learning, or learn from natural consequences, mistakes, and successes). 1 Placing individuals in all of these practical dimensions of the theoretical knowledge that they have attained makes the overall learning process far more effective.
Broader Appreciation of Discipline
The classroom environment alone cannot ensure a fair appreciation of a particular discipline, but as soon as that discipline is paired with a form of Experiential Learning, the span of appreciation and understanding increases. That is something that you can relate with in the real life scenarios too, it is only when you start implementing, first hand, new ideas and experiences is when you actually internalize them completely. The process of activity-based learning grooms your impromptu abilities of decision-making because of a better accomplished sense and broader appreciation of the discipline.
Enhanced Sense of Civic Responsibility
Perhaps this is one the most important and concrete example of how Experiential Learning trickles down and helps relate with real life scenarios. Through the implementation of knowledge from an abstract idea to a rather tangible form of experience in the practical sphere, an individual is able to better understand himself and his relation to the society. The Experiential Learning enhances an individual’s sense of responsibility. It helps them gain a learning experience that shapes their moralities for the better, and makes them model citizens with a rather enhanced sense of civic responsibility.
Boast in Creativity
Reflection on learning during and after one’s experiences is an integral component of the learning and development process. This reflection leads to analysis, critical thinking, and synthesis (Schon, 1983; Boud, Cohen, & Walker, 1993). This reflection and new found understanding also help attain clarity that streamlines and enhances one’s sense of creativity. Theoretical knowledge provides a singular dimension of thought, it is only when you pair it with Experiential Learning is when it becomes multi-dimensional and consequently helps improve your sense of creativity.
Throughout the process of Experiential Learning, learners are engaged intellectually, emotionally, socially, and/or physically, that brings about a perception of the learning task being authentic. Moreover, relationships are developed and nurtured on three important levels: learner to self, learner to others, and learner to the world at large.
It is through all this that experiential learning helps relate to real life scenarios.