The Photography Teacher's Handbook

Chapter 6 Experiential Learning

An Overview

Experiential learning is not the idea that photography students inherently learn by doing. “It’s often said that experience is the best teacher. But it isn’t true. Experience, by itself, doesn’t teach anything. Experience makes it possible to learn . . . but only if you actively engage and reflect on it” (Witt, 2012). The term experiential learning, according to educational theorist David Kolb, more describes an idealized, holistic process that students go through in order to achieve higher levels of thinking through relevant, meaningful learning experiences.

Within Kolb’s model, the study of photography can clearly be understood as stages of an experiential learning process. Based on learning objectives, ...