Using Experience For Learning

by David Boud

What are the key ideas that underpin learning from experience? How do we learn from experience? How does context and purpose influence learning? How does experience impact on individual and group learning? How can we help others to learn from their experience? "Using Experience for Learning" reflects current interest in the importance of experience in informal and formal learning, whether it be applied for course credit, new forms of learning in the workplace, or acknowledging autonomous learning outside educational institutions. It also emphasizes the role of personal experience in ideas are not separate from experience; relationships and personal interests impact on learning; and emotions have a vital part to play in intellectual learning. All the contributors write themselves into their chapters, giving an autobiographical account of how their experiences have influenced their learning and what has led them to their current views and practice. "Using Experience for Learning" brings together a wide range of perspectives and conceptual frameworks with contributors from four continents, and should be a valuable addition to the field of experiential learning.

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Derek Baldwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's some good stuff in here and mostly written in a clear accessible style. I found the chapter on T-groups a bit crap though. Why do so many feminist writers insist on telling you '...as a feminist I...' several times in every text they write? It always comes across as a bit juvenile I'm afraid and the authors descriptions of encounter sessions with pretend money and participant created newspapers etc etc reinforced this. It just sounded far too much like 'political correctness gone mad' Daily Telegraph 'satire'. But even that chapter made some good points. Worth reading.