Beyond Didactics: A reconnaissance of experiential learning

Abstract

This article examines the role that adventure educators attribute to experience in learning, and as such addresses the question to what extent their practice can be understood as experiential education. It will be argued that the main constraint to experiential learning in so-called experiential education is the didactic mindset in which it is captured. A variety of activities has enlivened the teaching and to some extent remedied its focus on students‚ intellectual understanding, but the concept of education as a matter of teachers conveying a message has largely remained unchanged. The article proposes that there is a fundamental difference between active forms of teaching and experiential education, and documents that adventure education is increasingly adopting the didactic teaching methods that it set out to be an alternative for.