Designing Experiential Learning
Experiential learning goes beyond participation in an activity. Students use knowledge in context as they interpret, decide, create, investigate, collaborate, and reflect in response to authentic questions, situations, or disciplinary practices.
Internships, practica, and formal placements can support experiential learning, but they are not required. In many courses, experiential learning begins with smaller, course-embedded opportunities for students to apply ideas, respond to authentic questions, reflect on their learning, and connect theory with practice. What matters most is not the scale of the activity, but the intentional design of the learning around it.
At the University of Alberta, experiential learning includes a range of approaches that support active engagement, reflection, and application. Explore definitions, learning types, and examples available through the University of Alberta Experiential Learning website.
Experiential learning can start small: A meaningful starting point is often not a fully redesigned course, but a purposeful shift in how students engage with course concepts. Even a short, well-designed activity can support experiential learning when it includes reflection, aligns with learning outcomes, and connects learning to context.
Design principles for experiential learning
Kolb’s (1984) Experiential Learning Cycle is a widely used framework for designing experiential learning activities.
It emphasizes a process in which students engage in a concrete experience, reflect on that experience, synthesize new perspectives and knowledge, and then apply and test their learning in future situations.
The design principles below highlight how that process can be supported in course settings:
- Align with learning outcomes: Tie activities clearly to course outcomes so students can develop and demonstrate specific knowledge, practice, judgment, or skills.
- Design for authenticity and application: Ask students to work with questions, situations, or tasks grounded in disciplinary, professional or community contexts.
- Build in reflection and conceptual connection: Give students structured opportunities to consider what happened, how they responded, what they noticed, and how the experience connects to course concepts, methods, or disciplinary ways of knowing. See Guided Reflection for Experiential Learning.
- Support learning through structure and feedback: Prepare students for experiences through scaffolding, opportunities for feedback and revision, and tasks that build on one another to deepen learning over time.
- Create conditions for student agency: Offer purposeful choices in topic, format, role, or approach so students can take ownership of their learning while still working toward course outcomes. Align activities and assessments so students have meaningful ways to engage, make decisions, and demonstrate what they have learned.
- Attend to context and responsibility: Ensure you are aware of institutional guidance on student safety, care, and accountability during experiential learning.
An activity does not become experiential learning simply because students are busy or engaged. Learning emerges through the design around the experience: how students are prepared, what they are asked to notice, interpret, or do, how they connect the experience to disciplinary knowledge, and how reflection and feedback are built into the process.
Experiential learning in course design
Rather than starting with a particular activity, begin by considering the kinds of learning the course is meant to support. The questions below can help identify where experiential learning might be meaningfully incorporated.
- What kinds of thinking, practice, or judgment do students need to develop?
- Where could students work with knowledge in more authentic or applied contexts?
- How will students be prepared for the experience?
- How will reflection be built into the learning process?
- How will the experience connect to disciplinary concepts or methods?
- What feedback will help students learn through the process?
- What will count as evidence of learning?
Getting Started
Getting started does not require a major course redesign. In many cases, experiential learning begins with a small but intentional shift:
- replacing part of a lecture with a structured problem
- asking students to analyze a realistic scenario
- building in reflection after a lab, discussion, or activity
- designing assignments ask students to apply concepts in context
A short, well-designed activity with clear reflection and purposeful alignment can support meaningful experiential learning.
Putting it into practice
- Where could students engage more actively with a concept, question, or problem rather than only receiving information?
- What kinds of experiences would help students connect course concepts with authentic contexts, practices, or ways of knowing?
- How will students reflect on what they are learning, not just on what they are doing?
- What kinds of feedback, revision, or debrief will help students deepen their learning?
Learn more
- University of Alberta. (n.d.). Experiential learning.
Definitions, learning types, examples, and broader institutional context - University of Alberta. (2025, September 24). Interim measures for safety, care + accountability in experiential learning.
Guidance related to student safety and well-being in experiential learning contexts - Learning Module: Foundations of Experiential Learning. (2024, February 1)Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, University of Calgary
- Institute for Experiential Learning. (n.d.). What is experiential learning?
Explains experiential learning through Kolb’s four-stage cycle of experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting.
References
Agogué, M., & Robinson, M. A. (2021). “It does not do to dwell on teaching notes and forget to live”: Instructor perspectives on integrating and adapting existing experiential exercises in large classes. Journal of Management Education, 45(5), 690–714. https://doi.org/10.1177/1052562920944976
Donovan, P., & Hood, A. (2021). Experiential learning in the large classroom using performative pedagogy. Journal of Management Education, 45(3), 344–359. https://doi.org/10.1177/1052562920965625
Dorland, A. (2024). Designing our thinking: Examining the effects of experiential learning and design thinking on creativity, innovation, and collaboration skills development in the undergraduate classroom. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.5206/cjsotlrcacea.2024.1.14235
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice-Hall.
Thangavadivelu, L., & Joordens, S. (2025). Bringing Teamwork and Experiential Learning