"experiential" query

Chris F. Waigl chris at LASCRIBE.NET
Thu Sep 14 08:08:44 UTC 2006


On Wed, 2006-09-13 at 16:09 -0500, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
>
>    Today a senior colleague pointed to a sign on a campus van which said: "Student Design & Experiential Learning Center" and
>  asked if I ever heard "experiential" before.  I hadn't, and neither had he.  The word is based on "experience" and refers to learning by doing.
>
>     I later checked Google, and there were quite a few references to "experiential (learning/education)," e.g. in Wikipedia:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiential_education
> But is this word a natural part of the vocabulary of people other than a very limited portion of the education establishment?

I'm sure I've come across the word before, and not only in purely
educational theory contexts. I probably have about as clear or unclear a
notion of it as of "transcendental" or "immanent", even though I've
certainly employed these latter two more often.

Chris Waigl

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