Content or Process: A Personal Look at Experiential Learning

Abstract

THE DESIRE to better understand and teach the complex phenomena associated with social, personal, and organizational behavior has lead to increasing interest in experience-based or laboratory learning in library education. The occurrence of the U.S.O.E.-sponsored workshop for library educators, Communication and Change, held in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in June of 1974,1 the recent book by Martha Jane Zachert 2 on simulation in teaching library management, and such articles as Charles MartelFs Age of Creative Insecurity: StudentCentered Learning' ' are excellent examples of such interest.3 Nevertheless, for most of us in library education, experiential learning is a new, untried, and even frightening concept. It is the purpose of this article to present a brief case study of my first attempt in experiential learning in a library science instructional setting, to discuss the relationship between experiential learning and interpersonal, self -awareness processes and to perhaps reflect briefly from this experience on change and change agentry in library teaching strategies. For the purpose of this discussion, my definition of experiential learning or laboratory learning is contained in the following assumptions: That one learns by doing; that learning through real experience engages the learner's mind, emotions, and whole being; that no artificial barrier, such as memorization for future actions, interferes with the here and now experience; and most importantly, that reflection