Arguably the most natural and powerful form of learning
is through experience,
or more precisely through reflection on doing.
Also called experiential learning,
it’s what prima ballerinas do
after their performance at the national opera.
But it also happens to boys that are sad
because their father got angry
when they played football in the living room.
By the age of one,
we all had our own painful encounter with
experiential learning
when we tried to walk, failed,
fell and cried like, well a baby…
And even though this was an unpleasant and
discouraging exercise that lasted for months
in the end
we all made it.
How is that possible?
As soon as we fell and the first shock was over,
our brain unconsciously began to make sense
out of all of the information available
to identify how this embarrassment occurred.
It remembers that when we pushed ourselves up,
everything was fine:
our feet on the floor,
our arms in position and our head
and shoulders up right.
Ready to go!
When our upper leg muscles
pulled our left foot 12.3% to the front
at an angle of 23 degree,
our arms didn’t compliment the movement
and the ventricles in the inner ear,
responsible for static balance,
got confused for a second.
When at the same moment the cat ran by,
our eyes sent an alarming signal to the hippocampus
and we completely lost it…
Outch!
Unconsciously this is how our brain analyses
the relationship of events within our body
or in the environment.
It happens all the time as we learn to walk,
talk,
kiss,
function in a fancy office
or dance the salsa.
Once we understand the connections between
what went wrong,
we know what we need to change
when we try the next time.
Experiential Learning
can also be used explicitly to learn a new skill
or to become better at what we already love doing.
Here is how it works:
First get yourself into a situation to experience.
After, reflect on what happened.
Then try to understand the relationships
to form an abstract concept
- if I do A,
I get B.
Last, decide what to do differently next time.
Then do it again.
For example
if you want to learn how to ride a bicycle,
the following might happen:
You get onto the bike and start kicking the pedals.
As you are afraid of speed,
you ride too slowly and you fall to the side.
Afterward
you remember that you fell at the exact moment
when your speed was the slowest
Then you form the abstract and slightly dangerous idea:
speed equals stability
Next time, you decide, you’ll speed up
Lets try that again:
This time you ride fast.
In fact, so fast that you crash straight into the next fruit stall.
Your head hurts
and you realize that speeding like that is really dangerous.
You create the next abstract thought:
speed is danger and danger needs protection
You then decide to wear a helmet next time
Experiential learning is also believed to be responsible
for the fact that musicians
generally fare better at most tests,
regardless of what they measure.
People that practice an instrument
not only engage their brain in motor,
visual and auditory areas,
but they also learn by reflecting on what they’re doing
with a fast feedback loop
– a wrong tone on the violin sounds too terrible
to remain unnoticed.
While playing they therefore not only learn to make music,
but also that progress in general comes through practice,
reflection,
understanding,
and repetition.
You can use it with your friends
or colleagues when working on a project.
Silicon Valley start-ups do it
when they tell their developers to get out of the building!
After the interaction with real potential customers,
the team gets together,
analyses the feedback
and decides what to do next.
If you are all by yourself learning something
where feedback doesn’t come fast and painfully,
get going
and look for someone
who can give you a second opinion along the way
for students that can be a friend or the teacher,
for entrepreneurs that’s the mentor
and for journalists a blog where readers can comment.
Tell us, what do you think?
Is learning through reflecting on doing
only good when acquiring new hands-on skills
or is it also suitable to study science,
math,
the humanities
or abstract art?