Experiential Learning in Higher Education

Abstract

India's higher education system is the world's third largest in terms of students, next to China and the United States. In future, India will be one of the largest education hubs. India's Higher Education sector has witnessed a tremendous increase in the number of Universities/University level Institutions and Colleges since independence. The role of colleges and universities in the higher education system in the new millennium has become more complex and challenging due to the emerging scientific research on understanding how people learn is utmost important to justify the quality of higher education. As India need well skilled and highly educated people who can drive our economy forward and also to transfer our country from a developing nation to a developed nation. For attaining this goal, higher education system should make student competencies go beyond the content knowledge, prepare them to direct their own learning, solve problems of academic significance and to move beyond controlled information containment. Ideas must be explored, developed, integrated, and resolved within the context of a particular assignment as knowledge construction at advanced levels take on new meaning. Higher education rather than being the source of content expertise, should be facilitators of knowledge and motivation of action learning preceded by a driving question. Unlike assignments of passive learning, experiential approach recognizes and values unpredictable outcomes. Experiential learning is an approach in which students decide themselves to be personally involved in the learning experience, students are actively participating in their own learning and have a personal role in the direction of learning. Experiential learning is popular with students as it is considered more enjoyable and leads to deeper learning when compared to didactic approaches. Employers prefer hiring students who have learned experientially and yet emerging research indicates that the use of experiential learning in higher education institutions remains limited. The present paper aims to highlight the concept of experiential learning, its importance and advantages, challenges and to point out the opportunities to implement experiential learning in Indian higher education system based on the review of available literature in the field of study.