Experience, Reflect, Critique: The End of the “Learning Cycles” Era

Abstract

According to prevailing models, experiential learning is by definition a stepwise process beginning with direct experience, followed by reflection, followed by learning. It has been argued, however, that stepwise models inadequately explain the holistic learning processes that are central to learning from experience, and that they lack scientific or philosophical foundations. Criticism also centers on the way complex cultural, social, and physical processes during experience and learning are reduced to a rational, excessively cognitive, individual phenomenon. This article reviews this criticism and adds a historical dimension to the analysis, concluding that existing cyclic models might be better valued for their important historical contribution, rather than as active theories of learning in experiential education.

The Substance Beneath the Labels of Experiential Learning: The Importance of John Dewey for Outdoor Educators

“…We would echo a number of recent critiques of this simplistic cycle, (Beard and Wilson, 2006;Brown 2004Brown , 2009Brown , 2010Fenwick, 2000;Seaman 2008,) and agree that conceiving experiential learning in the form of a cycle is not only problematic but provides an impoverished theoretical conceptualisation of outdoor education experiences. It is not necessary for the purpose of this paper to revisit comprehensive critiques of Kolb's model; we refer readers to the above citations, although perhaps Smith (2001) captures the tenor of many of these critiques when he suggests, the idea of stages, or steps, does not sit well with the reality of thinking.…”

“…A premise of this paper is that the conceptualisation of experience and experiential learning is dominated in the academic texts by the cyclical model associated with Kolb (1984) (Brown 2004, Seaman 2008), but we suggest that this model is presented as a reification and simplification of David Kolb's model of experiential learning. As previously argued by Greenaway (2008) models can be useful because they simplify and reduce complex and variable processes into a regular and standard pattern.…”

“…It can construe these outdoor experiences not in an holistic way (Seaman 2008), contextualising it in the life of the participant, but it can compartmentalize the experience (Brown 2004(Brown , 2009). This can then reduce the learning from the experience to identifying practical ways in which the undertaking of similar experiences might be made better in the future.…”

“…Indeed in all probability Seaman (2008) is right in his conclusion that "existing cyclic models might be better valued for their historical contribution, rather than as active theories of learning in experiential education" (p. 3). To understand experiential learning more fully we must look to its architect John Dewey (1900Dewey ( /1956Dewey ( , 1916Dewey ( /2007Dewey ( , 1938Dewey ( /1997, not least because it is upon Dewey that much of Kolb's theory originates 3 .…”

More than relations between self, others and nature: outdoor education and aesthetic experience

“…A number of recent critiques have problematised this action-reflection cycle as a model of experiential learning (see, e.g., Brown, 2009;Seaman, 2008). And I acknowledge that the connection between aesthetic and reflective experience through the passageway of the ontological difference could be construed as a cycle.…”