experential learning for adults

Some educators concentrate on knowledge level but with books and the internet this is becoming less and less valuable as the world changes and beyond elementary school level. Many people say a major skill is knowing where to find information. I make a case that higher level cognitive domain skills are extremly valuable for adults. Experentail learning is learning by doing. Not just reading or listenting but actaully trying to use the knowledge to get to the higher levels like comprehension, application, analysis, and evaluation. It is difficult to achieve these levels with out expererential or hands on method of education versus traditional lecture. We are talking about methods like questioning, practical exercises, critical incidents, role playing, case studies, simulations, and doing a job under tutelage. This forces the educator to differnt roles like facilitator, coach, and mentor. Some advantage of experential techniques for adults is it practical, can easily be tailored to a specific adults needs. One can concentrate on key tasks or activities and is the best way to practice and achive the higher levels of performance our ever more competative world is demanding. Three challenges of experentail learning our differnt roles for the educator and the learner and difficulty in quickly objectively assessing. I have already discussed the changing role for the educator. The student is required a more active role in experential learning which some adults like and some hate as they want to be feed knowledge. On assessment we are all used to the multiple choice test whcih can be graded by computer but it takes great care to write questions above the knowledge level and above comprehension level a multiple choice test is a poor tool to use. Some other assessment tools suffer from being difficult to construct or being subjective in nature. There is a whole new field of how to objectively assess experential learning for adults.