Remixing Approaches to Experiential Learning,Design,and Assessment

Abstract

Background:

Experiential learning approaches applied in classrooms are often disconnected from theory and loosely connected in classroom practice. Given critiques of experiential learning, there is a significant need for process learning theory with a practice-driven model. Scholars have only begun to explore the enhanced learning that often emerges from educative experiences designed with the fullness of experiential learning theory—designing with context, meaning-making, and assessment equal to the learning.

Purpose:

Through the lens of scholar-practitioner reflective inquiry, we propose a remixed approach to designing experiential learning. By shifting approaches to experiential education (EE), experiential educators benefit from planning with intentional design, instruction, learning, and assessment.

Methodology/Approach:

We chose to interrogate our practice and conduct a methodological investigation to explore our questions through a blend of qualitative approaches, including collaborative and narrative inquiry, scholarly personal narrative, and transpersonal research. We explore approaches to process theory of learning and other influences on experiential learning.

Findings/Conclusions:

A shift in approaches in experiential education will benefit educators and students, specifically by attending to holistic design, instruction, assessment, and learning with context in mind. We remix familiar components of known theories to highlight a unique experiential teaching and learning mind-set.

Implications:

We commence with a discussion of the remixed framework of the Design–Instruction–Assessment–Learning (DIAL) model that promotes high-quality experiences for learners and instructors.

Keywords

pedagogy learning design instruction experiential learning assessment

The playbook of experiential education has changed. Once the domain of outdoor education and corporate training, experiential learning (EL) is now in high demand in higher education. Various formats of EL are consistently offered in higher education and provide robust student learning outcomes (Kuh, 2008). From outdoor/adventure programs to service-learning courses, study abroad experiences, internships, and undergraduate research experiences, various EL modalities promote high-impact educational outcomes and increased learning over time (Brownell & Swaner, 2010; Kuh, 2008).

In light of these changes, a shift in pedagogical approaches is needed. For instructors in higher education, EL consists of a comprehensive set of pedagogical theories, good for guiding and delivering cognitive, behavioral, affective, and social learning outcomes (Fenwick, 2001). According to Kolb’s (1984, 2014) research on the EL in professional training contexts, EL includes reflective observations, abstract conceptualizations, and applications. Following Kolb’s work, feminist (Michelson, 1996), cultural critiques (Miettinen, 2000), and sociocultural critiques (Seaman, 2008) better position EL theory in sociopolitical and ontological contexts (Seaman et al., 2017). Fink’s (2013) taxonomy of significant learning experiences and EL framework focuses on formal education environments and teachers. Yet, Fenwick’s (2001) seminal advice on EL still rings true: the call to action as educators is “to keep puncturing the boundaries, refusing to accept too quickly a category of pedagogical practice called experiential learning” (p. 56).

Existing EL theories help educators, collectively, address what EL is and why to do it, but only begin to help educators how to teach using EL. This dynamic leaves classroom educators with overly simplistic guides to EL, disconnected from integrated models for design and implementation consistent with more recent scholarship (e.g., Fink, 2013). With the increased emphasis in the scholarship of teaching and learning, more educators dialogue about learning design and assessment (e.g., Northwestern Michigan College [NMC], 2020). Learning grounded in experience is thought to be more fully embodied by the learner in this process, creating the possibility for cognitive, but also emotional and affective, gains (Rivera & Heinrich, 2016). But in narrow or overly orthodox views of EL theory, educators miss the potential to deepen educational design, instruction, assessment, and learning (Engeström & Sannino, 2012). EL approaches applied in classrooms are often disconnected from theory. Furthermore, EL strategies have the potential to change the epistemology of learning in an education design. However, without intentional integration, such loosely connected designs could result in student confusion and suboptimal learning outcomes.

Integrating theories, ontologies, and critiques may help educators create more robust learning designs, beyond foundational knowledge or content acquisition to include process, place, and personalized meaning (Michelson, 1996). The perceived simplicity of the EL theory (experience + reflection = learning) is often adapted at face value focusing on the experience as the activity. The actual complexity of EL creates multiple entry points to design rich learning. Scholars have begun to explore the enhanced learning that often emerges from educative experiences designed with the fullness of the theory, context, place (environment), meaning-making, and assessment equally in mind as with the learning. Scholars of learning design and the scholarship of teaching and learning, in response, have promoted EL to support content learning and to facilitate knowledge acquisition (Fink, 2013; Howard, 2001). Scholars have demonstrated that the knowledge acquired by the student engaged in EL is not only enhanced by the experience, but like social, cultural, and contextual learning, it occurs because of experiences (Mullins, 2014; Vygotsky, 1978). These approaches mirror teaching to learning-centered shifts in higher education (Barr & Tagg, 1995) advising instructors to leverage learner-centered designs, rather than designs focused on what instructors know.

By shifting approaches to EL, experiential educators may enhance student outcomes and learning. However, instructors also need to give intentional consideration to the interactions between EL theories, learning and content, and context, all of which carry ontological and epistemological perspectives. But how can instructors be more intentional in designing? Remixing becomes a useful framework. We adopt the following definition of remixing to guide our discussion: “Re-contextualizing existing content [that] potentially creates new meaning” (Order et al., 2017, p. 300). These concepts taken together lead us to the following questions for inquiry:

To leverage the most learning, how do we best design learning through experience?

How does learning design and EL intersect?

Where are the gaps?

To address these questions, we explore these concepts through collaborative inquiry and reflexive methodology grounded in literature at the intersection of EL and learning design.

Review of Literature

In the context of curriculum development, many evidence-based instructional models are in use that leverage experience and reflection (e.g., Prince & Felder, 2007; Talanquer, 2014; Walker & Warfa, 2017). Some of these instructional models are also known as process theories of learning (Engeström & Sannino, 2012). This section uses Engeström and Sannino’s five tenets of well-developed process theories of learning:

…It [the theory] describes a sequence of actions or events that is assumed to have some generality.

Second, it presents a general rationale or principle that explains why the actions or events follow one another in certain order.

Third, it presents a causative mechanism that generates the transitions from one action or event to the next one.

From this follows the fourth requirement for a well-developed process theory of learning. Such a theory must denounce universalism and specify just what kind of learning it actually aims at describing, explaining, and promoting—and on what historical and cultural grounds.

…We need to look at instruction and learning—the plans and actions of instructors as well as the actions of learners—as dialectically intertwined…This is the fifth requirement for a well-developed process theory of learning (p 46).

Fink’s (2013) integrated course design (ICD) model and taxonomy of significant learning and Kolb’s (1984) EL theory both espouse characteristics of being a process theory of learning (Engeström & Sannino, 2012). Engeström and Sannino’s (2012) included a review of Kolb’s (1984) EL model against five tenets describing and described the model as follows:

According to Kolb (1984, p. 40), “the process of experiential learning can be described as a four-stage cycle involving four adaptive learning modes—concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation.” The theory is condensed with the help of the diagram presented in Fig. 2. The dynamics of transition from one mode to another in the experiential learning cycle are based on choices the individual learner makes between the polar opposites of apprehension vs. comprehension and extension vs. intention. The highest level of learning is reached when an individual is able to combine and balance all the four modes of learning (p 48). Kolb’s theory proposes a typology of four distinct modes of learning and knowledge, among which the individual chooses those that best suit him or her. (p 49)

Engeström and Sannino (2012) cite Miettinen’s (2000) critique of Kolb, that learning phases are separate rather than sequenced:

They [phases] do not connect to each other in any organic or necessary way. Kolb does not present any concept that would connect the phases to each other.” (p. 61)

The main part of Kolb, 1984 book is devoted to the uses of the model as a basis for measuring and classifying individual learning styles. This classificatory origin and utilization of the theory makes the sequence of the modes irrelevant. (p 49)

Engeström and Sannino (2012) concluded that while Kolb (1984) is a process theory of learning, it lacks some explanation of how the parts of the theory interact.

Fink’s (2013) ICD framework and taxonomy of significant learning meets some criteria for a process theory of learning set out by Engeström and Sannino (2012), but likely does not add up to a process theory of learning as outlined by Engeström and Sannino. The ICD model establishes a backward design approach beginning with learning goals, feedback and assessment, and active learning activities. Although it is a course design model, it establishes a framework for approaching learning rooted in learning theory. Fink’s (2013) taxonomy established six domains of learning that emphasize the multiple dimensions of learning emerging from a well-structured experience, which include

Foundational Knowledge

Application

Integration

Human Dimension (Self and Others)

Caring

Learning How to Learn

Fink’s (2013) taxonomy of significant learning experiences cues classroom educators to articulate significant learning outcomes that transcends multiple experiences and time. Fink relies less on a sequence of events, so does not meet the first requirement of process theories of learning (Engeström & Sannino, 2012). Fink does stipulate a holistic design requiring inclusion of all six dimensions and provides a rationale for why these six areas are important. Fink describes how different dimensions might interact, but stops short of describing an order or sequence, so only partially meets the second criteria of process theory. The third process theory requirement is missing from Fink’s significant learning taxonomy, as a cyclic, multi-dimensional model, in the absence of transitions from one to the next dimension. The instructor is left to wonder how to design for learners to move across dimensions or work in several dimensions at once (because dimensions are not sequenced, perhaps they could layer). Significant Learning is the name given to the kind of learning which Fink proposes, defined by knowledge acquisition transcending time limitations, and this clearly-defined approach meets the fourth requirement of process theories of learning. Finally, Significant Learning as an outcome of the ICD model describes a design that requires and values dialectical interplay between learners and instructors.

Fink’s model would not fit with Engeström and Sannino’s (2012) critique of EL theories, generally, for the disconnect between learning and instruction. They state, “The realization that human learning is largely intertwined with intentional instruction has a further consequence: learning and instruction must be brought back together” (p. 46). Engeström and Sannino (2012) emphasize we need to focus on instruction and learning, defined as “the plans and actions of instructors as well as the actions of learners,” and they are “dialectically intertwined” (p.46). In essence, they argue that instruction and learning must be mapped, assessed, evaluated, and differentiated.

Other Influences on Learning Designs

Space

Instructors need to design spaces for learning. Kolb and Kolb (2005) present learning spaces as “transactions between the person and environment” (p. 199) and implicate designers to plan for different learning styles (Kolb & Kolb, 2005). Space for learners might include opportunities to learn from and through previous aesthetic, spiritual, cultural, and kinesthetic moments while mediating a current learning moment (Seaman, 2007). Learning designs that leverage powerful experiences will include creative and recursive reflections, enhanced by space, might surface metacognitive gains and possibly lead to transformative outcomes for learners and their teachers (Taylor & Cranton, 2012). Instructors may leverage space to create connection with a context or content (Gorlanik & Nelson, 2014) while recognizing that such a use of space might interrupt disciplinary modes of teaching and learning (Neumann et al., 2002). When leveraging place-based learning (a kind of space), assessment should include the qualities of the place and experience. These approaches often resemble program evaluation and which both establish the context and contribute to learner outcomes reflective of the space or environmental factors involved (Mowbray et al., 2003).

Professional groups

Several professional societies have a particular influence on experiential designs via professional networks and meetings, research support and dissemination, and explicit guides and definitions of EL. Through broad missions focused on EL, two particular organizations have provided definitions that help shape experiential education designs across the spectrum of education and higher education in particular.

The National Society for Experiential Education (Kendall et al., 1986), focused on higher education audiences, characterizes EL as “learning activities that engage the learner directly in the phenomena being studied” (p. 1). Currently, the NSEE website also articulates eight principles for “Good Practice for All Experiential Learning Activities” (NSEE, 2019, para 1), reliant on their earlier explanation of EL. In NSEE’s sourcebook, Strengthening Experiential Education within Your Institution (Kendall et al., 1986), authors encouraged the implementation of experiential education in college curriculum but did not offer further advice about how to do so, essentially leaving the local design process to educators. In turn, the Association for Experiential Education, with a more diversified audience, states that experiential education is Challenge and Experience followed by Reflection leading to Learning and Growth” (AEE, 2019, para 1, italics in original), highlighting a relationship between learning moments:

Experiential educators include an extensively broad range of professionals such as: teachers, counselors, corporate team builders, therapists, challenge course practitioners, environmental educators, guides, instructors, coaches, mental health professionals and many more. (AEE, 2020, para 2)

AEE offers principles of practice that help guide their broad membership (AEE, 2020, para 3). AEE also offers some disclaimers on the same page (AEE, 2020, para 4) that speak to a broader membership and variance of practice, in which the local design process is shaped by the context of the educator.

Assessment

Assessment can be used to ground learning and inform learning design. For example, when students participate in field placements or internships, and as a learning facilitator, you do not directly witness the learning experiences. Assessing the “experience” allows the opportunity to integrate mechanical learning models with more contextually informed learning models, such as reflection assignments. Fink (2013) argues that reflection assignments serve as an ideal assessment of student learning, and intentionally building in reflection assignments is a core element of the learning design

Assessing reflection assignments for content, emotional changes, gains in perspective, and students’ observations can show many dimensions of student knowledge or ability (Heinrich et al., 2015). Eyler (2002) argues that reflections help connect students learning to their service experiences. Eyler’s argument applies Kolb’s (1984) reflection phase to service-learning, leading to a personal level of ownership of educational experiences. Moon (2013) argues for a closer link across traditional (abstract conceptualization in Kolb’s model), experiential, and reflective learning, carefully distinguishing the kinds of learning that takes place in EL. Close linkages encourage the use of reflection as a tool for learning, connecting learning, and assessing learning, which has implications for design.

In many assessment approaches, instructors do not make explicit an expectation for the student to connect their learning to the design of the learning experience. Assessment should include a description of a relationship from the recent experiences to existing practices, knowledge, texts, or previous literature. Assessing for integration, synthesis, analysis, and other higher levels of Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy potentially takes place when such connections are explicit. To fully realize the potential of learners, assessing for competencies such as integrated learning, decision making, or critical thinking requires differential approaches than assessing for knowledge base. Assessing applied learning and practice (e.g., competence) typically requires a rubric (i.e., Fink, 2013) because the student learning, if internalized, is increasingly unique and might need to represent specific academic learning standards or quality measures (Bennion et al., 2020).

Summary

Each section of the literature above represents considerations in a remixed approach to designing EL. By endorsing principles of process learning theory and considering both theoretical and applied influences on learning designs, we argue that an intentional remix (Order et al., 2017) is necessary to realize the full potential of experiential education particularly in higher education settings.

Methodology: Collaborative Inquiry and Reflexive Approaches

Context of Inquiry

We (the authors) are both educational administrators at different universities, who provide learning design and curriculum development resources for faculty and educators of all stripes on a daily basis (e.g., tenure-track, full-time nontenure track, adjunct instructors, graduate student instructors, and staff educators). As we often cross boundaries and serve as third-space professionals with a foot in academic support, classroom learning, and student learning and development, our hybrid roles as scholars and practitioners best describe our positionality (Green, Eddins, Berkey, & Meixner, 2018; Whitchurch, 2013). Thus, our professional roles involve evaluation of teaching and learning priorities and learning assessment objectives on a daily basis, establishing the necessity to work as reflective practitioners (Schön, 1983). In this third-space professional role, we identify as practitioner-scholars.

We crossed paths on a common experience facilitated by a collaboration between Dartmouth College and the NSEE, the DELTA Summit, which brought educators (faculty and academic professionals from higher education and the P-20 sector) around North America together for 3 days to foster dialogue around experiential education. The purpose of this summit was to deepen and explore EL practices. The 3 days were filled with workshop sessions, large- and small-group dialogue sessions, and networking opportunities around topical themes. Our experience included engaging active discussions, and we agreed that the conversations were both new and familiar. We observed independently that the content designs were thorough, excellent planning and facilitation was present, and the environment was novel but not uncomfortable. At the same time, the learning outcomes were unclear, assessment strategy not visible, and the mountain lodge location and aesthetically pleasing space were not leveraged for deeper, affective learning. Along with new networks and program ideas, we left with fundamental questions around the design of EL. As these questions led us to ponder our work with EL, we committed to dialogue and exploration of the questions that arose. We continued meeting virtually to reflect more deeply on those questions in our contexts through the framing of reflective practitioners (Schön, 1983) with an intentional methodological approach.

Practitioner-Scholarship

Practitioner research, described as a methodological approach that integrates theory, research, and practice, fosters critical reflection and implementation of practice through systematic procedures and practices (Ravitch, 2014). Salipante and Aram (2003) also connect practice and research by explaining practitioner-scholar research combines an intimate understanding of issues, problems, and the settings (context of practice) with the established theory and methods (research-based implementation). Lytle (2008) establishes that the key function of practitioner-scholars is to take an inquiry stance to their practice. Such an inquiry stance requires that practitioner-scholars interrogate our own practice through methodological investigation, positioning reflection as a form of inquiry and questioning the contexts of our work.

We chose to interrogate our practice and conduct a methodological investigation to explore our questions through a blend of qualitative approaches, including collaborative and narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Donohoo, 2013), scholarly personal narrative (Nash, 2004), and transpersonal research (Rendón, 2009). Qualitative methodological approaches highlight making meaning of and explaining social phenomena (Green et al., 2018). These reflexive approaches allowed both of us, as researchers, to explore and articulate our own unique experience in relationship with another’s experience. Through collaborative exploration, juxtaposition led to questions that emerged which were distinct and unique (Green et al., 2018). Transpersonal research (Rendón, 2009) positions each of us as partners in the process, allowing a deeper collaborative inquiry. Rendón describes the foundational role for each of us in transpersonal research “as partners and co-researchers who turned to one another in truth while we attempt to open the interhuman nature of the experience” (pp. 52-53). This study has been determined to be exempt under 45 CFR 46.104(d) 1 by the IRB at Michigan State University.

Following the DELTA Summit, this inquiry process continued with each of us free-writing our own personal reflection (~1000 words each) on the summit experience. Clandinin and Connelly (2000) describe narrative inquiry as a representation of individual experience but situates the narrative “in relationship both to the other and the social milieu” (p. 5). Rooted in the framework of scholarly personal narrative (Nash, 2004), we wrote independently and then shared our narratives upon completion. These narrative reflections served as the unit of analyses for our collaborative inquiry. Two excerpts of our narratives are presented:

At this meeting I learned with and from 75 dedicated faculty and professionals at the inaugural Delta Summit. Hosted by Dartmouth College at their Moosiluake Ravine Lodge, the summit encouraged participants to explore and share ideas. (Author G)

Last week, when attending the Delta Summit, facilitated by a team of educators at Dartmouth College, I was keenly aware of my own rejuvenation as an experiential educator. This was not a conference. It was a summit—a gathering of educators from different sectors interested in experiential learning. (Author H)

Our narratives involved integrating our summit observations with our daily experience.

Data Analysis

Data analysis of narrative reflections followed the qualitative methodological approaches of scholarly personal narrative, narrative inquiry, and collaborative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Donohoo, 2013; Nash, 2004). We independently and collaboratively reviewed each other’s narratives, coding narratives for emergent similarities and contrasts. Finally, we conducted a thematic analysis and met regularly to discuss the content. We analyzed reflections for commonalities, differences, gaps, and questions across our common experience at the summit. This analysis led to the discovery of shared moments in our common experience (Donohoo, 2013). This reflexive experience led us to articulate the following questions we have about EL (previously stated in the introduction):

To leverage the most learning, how do we best design learning through experience?

How does learning design and EL intersect?

Where are the gaps?

Findings

Our analysis resulted in the following four shared themes: Design–Instruction–Assessment–Learning (DIAL). As we explored our experience as educators and learners, we identified some significant overlaps and disconnects between EL practice and outcomes, between design and implementation, and between purpose and evidence of learning. Shared ideas such as our mutual appreciation of the natural surroundings, the lodge in the mountains, and the attention to detail by the summit planners immediately lowered barriers to entry for discussions and topics during the summit. These shared ideas were noticed by us both during and after the summit, as indicated by the excerpts in the following:

It was a reminder for me about what we the science of learning reminds us, as well as essential elements in crafting experiential learning activities: 1) the importance of learning environments, 2) the task of building a community of learners, 3) and the process of involving and engaging learners in constructing knowledge. (Author G)

The result of enacting experiential learning in these (good) ways is a networked community of learners and facilitators who can co-inform one another within and across institutions and other structures. (Author H)

We also noticed other pedagogical designs employed, such as large-group discussions and small-group reflections, along with the planners’ community-focused approach that centered the student co-op organization which provided meals during the summit. Finally, we noticed the use of facilitators to guide reflective conversations in large and small groups as an effective strategy.

Both authors noticed the environment, the location of the lodge, and the particular mountainside, and we spent time on a hike in deeper conversation about particular approaches to experiential education:

The dramatic physical environment and the lodge stories were equal participants in the conversation. (Author H)

I was re-energized by the learning environment they established—a lodge situated in the mountains surrounded by natural beauty. (Author G)

Alternatively, we recognized that the organizers did not leverage the mountains. While most of the summit topics focused on classroom EL, we observed that a number of participants from the host institution were prepared and willing to speak about the robust outdoor education program that shared the lodge as a field site. Yet, the environment, context, or place was not intentionally identified as a player in the design. Instead, the emphasis was on modalities of EL:

The planners and educators in the room expertly wove together a fabric of rich ideas, inclusive designs and practices, welcoming and nimble hospitality, and formal and informal time together to create a balanced and enriching event. (Author H)

The constructivist approach of this meeting, employing the experiential learning strategies it sought to promote, left me shifting my inquiry, moving from how we do this work to why we do this work. To what end? For what purpose? (Author G)

The absence of intentional design around the environment was noted amid the strong design elements built into the experiential activities.

In addition, we noticed that assessment was not discussed at the summit. The authors did not discuss how we use different approaches for assessment based on our individual work and why a summit with a focus on academic EL might not consider assessment more fully:

Assessment approaches that don’t identify and respond to learners about emergent outcomes may be squandering good learning potential by assuming our learners have all the skills to be meta cognitive. (Author H)

Our approach consistently oscillates from the how and why, from strategies for implementation to outcomes establishing larger learning objectives. (Author G)

Our dialogue recognized that the barriers to using assessment are many, and EL tends to complicate instructional designs and resultant assessment opportunities.

Furthermore, we explored purposes of using EL in higher education as guides for our own practices. Our conversations spanned between building up the civic mission of the university and the possibility of deep and transformative outcomes:

The epistemological and ontological dialogue for experiential learning needs to be articulated. (Author G)

Experiential learning is a strong epistemological approach and methodology for many -but not all-learning environments (Author H)

Perhaps both could be true, but the need to take a perspective on pedagogical design is an important commonality that we both emphasized, namely, learning in context is the focus. Through our reflexive narrative process and thematic analysis, we discovered a common direction of our shared experience and reflection in the model of DIAL.

Discussion and Implications

In our individual narratives, individual practices, and shared understanding, we were able to interrogate our practices. In this interrogation, we identified that available components of learning design, when done well are often used and arranged in patterned ways—for remixed, novel results—which achieve desired outcomes for students (Order et al., 2017). The kind of reflexive inquiry we undertook (see Methodology section) is a strong first step for practitioner-scholars to begin a remixing process. In light of our reflection on the changes in and known affordances of the EL landscape, we see DIAL as a heuristic for a remixed approach to designing EL. We argue for a sequence and inherent logic, but we do not stipulate, in this model, a particular kind of learning outcome. By intentionally approaching experiential education with cohesion, we argue that DIAL helps design, instruction, assessment, and learning, moving from theory to practice (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Shift from unintentional to integrated approaches in experiential education.

The DIAL framework helps with planning and implementing course-based EL through a remixed model, providing space for an integrated approach to EL designs in classrooms.

Design

Findings reveal a need for various pedagogical approaches to leverage an essential relationship between experience and reflection, implying a need for good learning design. Kolb’s (1984) theory of EL outlined training approaches and begins with a concrete experience and a largely cognitive/affective sequence of reflection on the experience, abstract conceptualization (generalization), and application of ideas to new concepts. The findings also demonstrate how different environments and learning mechanisms lead to varied outcomes (Goralnik & Nelson, 2014). These findings support the claim that EL has the capacity to support the shift from a teaching-centered approach to a learning-centered approach (e.g., Barr & Tagg, 1995).

Instruction

We see an opportunity to leverage backward design planning processes (i.e., Fink, 2013; Wiggins & McTighe, 2006) to position assessment and learning designs as part of a learning experience. Backward Design begins with the desired outcome (rather than the input of teaching activity), asking next what evidence will convince us that a learner achieved said outcome, and finally, plans and activities that help learners achieve. Anticipating the possibility of emergent outcomes at the front end of planning for experiential education can help with preparing for yet-unstructured time in a course. Reconsidering designs in light of student learning outcomes helps instructors adapt to emergent gains and evolving contexts. For example, ill-structured (intractable) problems require the use of multiple disciplinary perspectives and repeated reflective approaches (King & Kitchener, 1994), or recursive approaches. Just as emergent design in research creates opportunity for processes that surface (Creswell, 2012), space for emergent learning is created for yet-unknown learning. Emergent learning will surface through the experience, which takes time, and has implications for assessment practices.

We observed a need for instructional flexibility and pivots in the experience of the workshop. In interdisciplinary teaching, flexibility is needed to represent multiple disciplinary ways of knowing. By mixing ethical reasoning and experimental methods, for example, a philosophy of science student might see a discipline in a new way. Instructional pivots is a concept outlined by Hattie and Zierer (2018) emphasizing alternating behaviors and mindsets for educators that foster visible teaching and learning. Faculty will need to toggle between instructional roles in experiential education. For example, project-based learning (e.g., Bass, 2012) allows students to discover their own agency and efficacy while an instructor plays several instructional roles. Pivoting from lecturer to coach, guide, advisor, facilitator, change agent, expert, and/or evaluator requires multiple teaching approaches.

Assessment

We observed a lack of integrated assessment in the data leading to the DIAL model. Because EL has multiple phases or steps, assessing can be complex to execute. By evaluating student and instructor activity embedded in each course element, an instructor can determine which parts worked together to contribute to student outcomes, similar to the dialectical interchange outlined in process theory descriptions by Engeström and Sannino (2012). Essentially, this approach remixes academic program review with course assessment, to assess discrete pedagogical elements to understand where or how complex learning takes place (Patton, 2010).

We identified reflection activities during our experience and reflection emerged as a significant theme in our data leading to the DIAL model. The ephemeral nature of learning is what makes transformations possible, but we have to ask learners to reflect. Ryan and Ryan (2013) “…argue that explicit and strategic pedagogic intervention, supported by dynamic resources, is necessary for successful, broad-scale approaches to reflection in higher education” (p. 244). This comment highlights the labor of assessing reflections thoroughly. Typically, reflections are written and require attention, feedback, and discussion to understand learning thoroughly. Challenges to using reflections can be many, “…reflection is commonly embedded into assessment requirements in higher education subjects, often without necessary scaffolding or clear expectations for students” (Ryan & Ryan, 2013, pp. 254-255). This suggests the need to scaffold reflection throughout learning designs including sufficient structures such as time and planning.

Learning

We observed a great deal of attention to learning designs in the data. The data address design features such as planned experiences, scaffolding, reflections, leveraged content knowledge, and applied and integrated learning opportunities. All of these features have potential to create intended and emergent learning moments when coordinated (Patton, 2010). Through the lens of experiential education, a practitioner might consider the ways student internships are implemented as a pedagogical practice. Typically, course-based internships are field-based experiences that require a brief paper or project at the end. Without sufficient prompting and reflection, internships like these fail to elicit or capture any deep learning experiences. Alternatively, remixing educational practices such as regular meetings between students, academic programs, and site supervisors and consistent reflection, multiple feedback opportunities, and/or formative and summative assignments, all might help to facilitate deeper learning experiences when applied to internships. As a comparison, the absence of directed feedback, individual reflections, and summative processing of experiences in the DELTA summit experience were noted. We attribute this practice to the context of an adult professional development meeting. However, the absence of feedback and integrated learning in an internship education design could result in a missed opportunity for learning.

Limitations

Certain academic structures socialize teaching in particular ways and may not value the time needed to implement pedagogy built on complex planning and design that we describe. Experiential educators also need to consider how DIAL would work in noncredit spaces. Both authors spend parts of their professional lives consulting with educators about good instructional designs. This attempt to abstract the lessons is narrowly focused on classroom and for-credit learning and would have some limitations in other settings. Primarily, experiential educators fairly quickly learn to leverage the concepts we describe and may find DIAL too vague.

Conclusion

One way we interpreted the findings and developed the DIAL model was to challenge universalist uses of process-oriented theories, echoing the need for a process learning theory with a practice-driven model. In our own practices, we regularly remix familiar components of known EL theories and other pedagogical and assessment models to create a stronger whole (Knobel & Lankshear, 2008). Remixing provides avenues to novel design, learning, and assessment that can connect for intersectional, reflective, and, possibly, transformational learning. A remixed model propels thinking about learning design in the context of EL beyond abstracted experiential models. This practice-driven approach not only informs but also challenges less intentional strategies for teaching and learning in the context of experiential education.

The DIAL remix creates a more integrated pedagogical design framework which potentially will lead to more holistic, complex, and/or applied learning. The remix approach, however, suggests we design learning in collaboration with, and for greater value to, our students. In effect, we might inquire in the future about how designing together would lead to assessing, learning, and iterating together and/or responding to the learning as it emerges. Such a collaborative pedagogical approach lends itself to future opportunities for team-based teaching and learning. In response to this challenge, teaching and the expectations of teachers will necessarily be different in the future.

In the DIAL remix model, we call for a new narrative of designs for learning in higher education. DIAL, in emphasizing emergent learning, extends the scholarship of teaching and learning (Beavers, 2009). We advocate for a more careful design approach toward EL drawn from practice and remixed with design, instruction, assessment, and learning in mind. The kinds of experiences colleges and universities create need to offer students meaningful, design-driven EL that prepares them for thoughtful participation in collegiate learning experiences.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Geoffrey Habron and Becca Berkey for their feedback on early drafts. The authors would like to thank the creators and organizers of the 2018 Delta Summit at Dartmouth College for creating a meaningful and productive gathering.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

William F. Heinrich

Author Biographies

William F. Heinrich, PhD, serves as the head of Assessment and Experiential Learning at Michigan State University’s Hub for Innovation in Learning and Technology. He consults and writes about new ways to document, assess, share, assess, and value deep and transformative learning from powerful experiences, in higher education and adult professional learning contexts.

Patrick M. Green, EdD, is the executive director (founding director) of the Center for Experiential Learning and a Clinical Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Loyola University Chicago. He is coeditor of Crossing Boundaries: Tension and Transformation in International Service-Learning (Stylus Publishing, 2014) and Re-conceptualizing Faculty Development in Service-Learning/Community Engagement: Exploring Intersections and Models of Practice (Stylus Publishing, 2018). Dr. Green serves as an Engaged Scholar with National Campus Compact and a Scholar-in-Residence with the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSCLE).

References

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Association for Experiential Education (2020). What is Experiential Education? Para 2. https://www.aee.org/what-is-ee (accessed January 12, 2020).

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