What you learn from experience relates to the quality of your thinking

Jenny Moon,Centre for Excellence in Media

Practice, Bournemouth University, UK (jenny@cemp.ac.uk),

Summary

• Issues concerning the meaning of ‘experiential’ learning

• How such learning might relate to other learning

• Epistemological development • A practical exercise on

epistemological development • How epistemological development

relates to experiential learning• Some practical implications for real

situations.

Concerning the meaning of ‘experiential learning’

At the Centre:

• she might just have had to observe events while at the Centre.

• she might have been involved in the practical activities of the Centre and learnt practical skills.

• or she might have been allowed to be more independent in her involvement, making decisions etc.

So what she might learn from the situation depends:

• on her actions, activities and opportunities for experiences

• on the attention she gives to those actions, activities and opportunities

• on the manner in which she approaches and processes the experiences that she confronts

• and on how she exploits those opportunities in order to learn more.

And 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

• on the manner by which we approach and process the experiences.

• on how we can further exploit opportunities.

I focus on:

• on the manner by which we approach and process the experiences.

• on how we can further exploit opportunities.

Different terms for the same thing:

• Epistemological development• The development of

epistemological beliefs• The 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 developing idea of theory and

its relationship to evidence.

I mention:

• Perry – 1970• Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and

Tarule(1984)• King and Kitchener (1994)• Baxter Magolda (1992)• 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 studyor• through being in good placement

experiences or professional situations where they are required to make independent judgements in situations of ill-structured knowledge

I suggest that a good placement is one

- in which there are opportunities for making independent judgements.

A placement such as this implies:

• that learners in such situations have a good degree of autonomy.

• that these learners have to deal with ill- structured knowledge where there are no certain answers for which they can always reach.

I think that three crucial qualities of a situation of good experiential learning are that

• it involves the student in making independent judgements in situations of ill structured knowledge

• There is learning from the representation of learning – learning from doing

• The student is required to reflect on her learning

• However it seems that learners can learn from observation and description of activities

However:

• Learners also need to see examples of good and poor practice…

(the role of mirror neurones)

Some situations of experiential learning are better than others.

The following will tend to feature in the better situations or experiential learning (?):

• - mediation will be appropriate and limited

• - there is an emphasis on the learner being autonomous

• - the situation involves dealing with ill-structured knowledge

• - the learner is challenged to make independent judgements • - there is learning from the representation of learning

which may be actively doing something and /or learning from reflection and reflective writing

• - learners need examples of good and poor practice

Resources to download…

Jenny@cemp.ac.uk

www.CEMP.ac.uk/people/jennymoon.php