Toward a Theory of Experience

Abstract

Experience is one of the most-used terms in (science) education, and it is recognized as being related to learning (education). Yet what experience is and how it is related to learning and change remains untheorized. In this paper, we mainly draw on the work of J. Dewey and L. S. Vygotsky but also on M. Bakhtin and more recent advances on the topic of experience from French philosophy to contribute to a theory of this important category. Accordingly, experience is not something that belongs to or is had by individuals but rather denotes transactions in and across space and time within irreducible person-in-setting units; and it is perfused with affect that is not (only) the result of mental constructions. An episode from an Australian physics classroom is used to exemplify what such a theory and its method-related implications has to accomplish in the analysis of concrete science lessons.

Revisiting learning in higher education—Framing notions redefined through an ecological perspective

“…Attention to the ecological premises creates the need to consider how collaborations involve affective and perceptual changes, in which learners are not only intellectual agents (how could they otherwise engage in practices for which they do not yet have the required knowledge?) but also subject to the performative and affective relations in which they engage (Roth & Jornet, 2014). In the case presented here, the students not only (co-)construct but draw from and appropriate cultural resources that are not their own.…”

“…This is a change that involves not only the intellect but the whole person and how one relates to oneself and to others. Experience changes not only the way we intellectually know the world but also the way we affectively and perceptually relate to it (Roth & Jornet, 2014). Although these ecological principles, which imply the primacy of the social ecosystem over the individual, might not be new to readers familiar with sociocultural and situative approaches, their implications are still under-developed in the context of educational research and practice (Roth, 2015).…”

Dewey’s Yardstick

“…That discussion remains in part a theoretical expansion of John Dewey's work of the early 20th century (summarized in Dewey, 1938). This work remains important as even the nature of experience remains inadequately theorized (Bell, 2010;Fox, 2008;Roberts, 2008;Roth & Jornet, 2014) rendering it difficult to measure, manipulate, or grapple with in a purposeful way. Because the messiness of measuring experience has hindered empirical investigation into its role in learning outcomes (Ewert & Sibthorp, 2009), researchers and practitioners must continue to press toward understanding not just if but how lived experiences impact learning if we are to optimize approaches to education that intentionally manipulate experience (Mackenzie, Son, & Hollenhorst, 2014) or theorize education from a situated perspective (Roth & Jornet, 2013).…”

“…From a situated cognition perspective, it could be argued that recalling a memory is a manifestation of this continuity as the recall is a reactualization of a prior experience through joint action between the learner and the new context (Roth & Jornet, 2014). While these material and cognitive aspects of experience are useful constructs in understanding the role of experience in learning and cognition, contextualization can be seen as the transactional bridge between external and internal experience, the mechanism that connects the material and temporal world to the world of ideas through an experience or through a series of identifiable experiences.…”

The emerging and emergent present: a view on the indeterminate nature of mathematics lessons

“…But saying that emergence belongs to two very different worlds simultaneously first situates emergence as the center of our investigation and secondly conceptualizes this center in terms of an encounter. In fact, encounter is Vygotsky's understanding of the term category, which he applied to higher psychological functions and societal relations that are in continuous development (e.g., Roth and Jornet 2013b;Veresov 2010), and the term category embodies the encounter of, and belongs to, two different worlds (Il'enkov 1977). Emergence is characteristic of life generally and consciousness specifically because living organisms and consciousness actively and recursively relate to the surrounding world.…”