The transformative experience

A model of experiential learning

"Experience is the name we give to our mistakes."
Oscar Wilde

The human experience is rich with learning.

The informal professional learning constitutes 70% of what individuals know. Focusing on experience in training aims to understand what constitutes meaningful, modelable, and reusable experience in situations.

Reflection from experience merges with the phenomenological approach, that is, a situated embodiment. It facilitates an understanding of what is at play in the translation of experience to action. It can lead to an action plan for learning, based on key questions. Incidentally the journey into experience advances the understanding of andragogy and adult learning and can even help improve recruitment.

Kolb's cycle a model of experiential learning

Kolb's cycle describes how experience is formed

"From a concrete experience of the sensible world, the person will engage in reflective observation about that experience, which will lead her to an abstract conceptualization (which can be seen as a reorganization of her representations), generating new hypotheses that will be tested during a phase of active experimentation, the source of a new concrete experience that thus completes the cycle."

According to Kolb (1984), the 4 stages of experiential learning would thus be:

Concrete experience: realization of the experience and linkage with previous experiences.
Reflective observation: gathering of emotions, information, pieces of information, related to the experienced situation.
Abstract conceptualization: link between experience and meaning.
Active experimentation: confirmation or denial of the prior hypothesis from the lived experience.

Six key elements help in experience engineering to transform a human experience into meaningful learning:

Reflection: Taking time to reflect on the lived experience is an important step in learning from it. This can be done through meditation, journal writing, discussion with peers or a mentor, or simply taking time to reflect in a personal way.
Contextualization: Understanding how the experience fits into a larger context can help to draw out broader lessons. This may include understanding the culture, history, politics, or social norms that influence the experience.
Active Engagement: Being active and involved in the experience can help reinforce learning. This can include active participation, decision making, experimentation, and problem solving.
Feedback: Receiving constructive feedback on the experience can help identify strengths and areas for improvement. This can be provided by peers, mentors, or professionals.
Practice: Repeated practice can help reinforce learning and turn it into competence. This can include regular practice, experimenting with new approaches or learning new skills, theorizing one's practice (cf. the reflective practitioner).
Application: Applying lessons learned in other contexts can help consolidate learning and make it more generalizable. This can be done by looking for opportunities to apply what has been learned or by finding connections to other areas of life.

Here is a short guide to analyzing an experience that can be useful in training and recruitment

What experience did you have? Can you describe it?
Can you describe the context in which this experience took place?
When were you most active? What decisions did you make? What concrete problems did you solve?
How did this experience change the way you do things? Your relationships with others? Your beliefs? The meaning of your mission?
How did you capitalize on your experience in your practice?
To what other contexts were you able to transfer your learning?

Usable practices ranked from most involved to simplest

Having an experience is one thing but doing something with it requires another work. As Aldous Huxley puts it:

"Experience is not what happens to us, it is what we do with what happens to us."

From then on, digging into and questioning what happens to us is an essential reflective step in learning.

Engaging in the experience of one's own environment

Immersion through action and/or self-observation are the best ways to learn. It is about feeling the experience in situation or "experiencing" to use a neologism. In this case the trainer is the instigator of the framework of the action, he can make the contribution of methodological advice to apprehend the experience and punctually of contents at key significant moments.

The only way to learn (take with you) is to do "you don't learn to swim by watching the lifeguard, or by debating the properties of water". Engaging in the experience has a holistic and integrative scope, it enhances motivation. Learning through action is central.

Staging the experience, simulation

The distancing of the experience allows for an incorporation of chronologies, from the shortest to the longest (eureka, short moment, diffuse moment, long times ). It is a question of decentering oneself and seeing oneself in the process of living the experience. Stop for a moment and observe yourself doing it. The role of the trainer is to bring method and to guide by his questioning in simulated situations. Awareness of blind spots and details, open to a contextualization of the experience.

Cross-biography, presentation to a lookalike, group dialogue, explanatory interview or role-playing are all ways of simulating an experience or staging it to promote the creation of representations, prerequisites for action.

Narration of experience

In the narration of experience it is a matter of putting learning processes and motives back in order, with a view to understanding feedback loops (values, beliefs, behaviors, action). It is about understanding the modus operandi and its determinants.

The trainer is present through his references, quotations and diagrams explaining the sequence of contents. This narration engages the subject author of his or her learning, produces a sense of personal efficacy and arouses curiosity. Narrating unravels complexity and allows for the explicitness of the resources of the experience, the identification of key success factors and consequently the avoidance of repetitive errors.

Here it is possible to keep a Personal Learning Journal, to narrate an experience, or to tell learning stories, to follow a appreciative storytelling/apreciative inquiry, or being touched by guided questions

Reading the experience

Reading the experience involves recollection, reactivation of information, and informal or formal contextualization. It is about giving meaning and use to the experience. The trainer provides content around which the participants position their experiences. Re-reading the experience helps to identify and memorize the key points.

There are several ways to proceed such as the end-of-day round table discussion, the rereading of practical sheets / reports, personal recollection of the experience (with eyes closed) rituals or formal/informal anecdotes

Let's invent the notion of "experium"

Experium is a neologism whose ambition is to describe the moving trace of our learning and, perhaps more broadly, of life as it passes and leaves its traces as well as its scratches. This notion is inspired by the cambium of trees, it evokes the internal growth and the formation, layer after layer, of a being from within that pushes back its limits year after year. For the tree the cambium is that inner bark essential for the circulation of sap.

Philosophically the experium echoes the thought of Bergson for whom "consciousness is coextensive with life" For Bergson there is more inside a being than what he thinks he can find there. This sentence is valid not only for the body but also for the mind. The concept of experium reminds us that learning is an integral growth of the individual that occurs from within an individual/body. This concept is opposed to the idea of an empty individual/body to be filled or an individual/body that is putty.Where

Sources

Balleux, A. (2000). Evolution of the notion of experiential learning in adult education: twenty-five years of research. Journal of educational science, 26(2), 263-286. https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/rse/1900-v1-n1-rse367/000123ar.pdf

Cristol 1, D., & Muller 2, A. (2013). Informal learning in adult education. Knowledge, (2), 11-59. https://www.cairn.info/revue-savoirs-2013-2-page-11.htm

Biasa C (2018). Transformative learning: state of the art and heuristic scope of a developing construct. Phronesis, 7, 1-4. https://www.cairn.info/revue--2018-3-page-1.htm.

Thot cursus - The Phenomenological Approach https://cursus.edu/fr/23835/phenomenologie-lexperience-vecue-et-lapprentissage

The Reasoned Autobiography https://cursus.edu/fr/23835/phenomenologie-lexperience-vecue-et-lapprentissage

Thot cursus - Doppelganger Instruction https://cursus.edu/fr/21478/la-methode-de-linstruction-au-sosie-et-ca-fonctionne

Thot cursus - Appreciative Inquiry - https://cursus.edu/fr/12413/lapproche-appreciative-un-plus-pour-la-pedagogie The Experience Story https://www.cairn.info/revue-carrefours-de-l-education-2004-2-page-58.htm

Narratives, the life story - https://cursus.edu/fr/11641/ecrire-un-recit-collectif-pour-faire-communaute

The actantial model - https://cursus.edu/fr/22768/le-voyage-du-anti-heros

The incorporation of experience through action https://cursus.edu/en/11075/how-to-use-defis-for-learning

The Learning Journal https://www.cairn.info/revue-le-francais-aujourd-hui-2007-4-page-39.htm

Bildung novel - Learning Novel - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_d%27apprentissage

Systematization of Experience http://www.quinoa.be/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Systemat_LOW.pdf