Experiential learning creates environments in which the learner can apply existing knowledge while developing new knowledge and skills in a practical context. Experiential learning must start in the primary school. Even today after five decades of my life I remember a trip our school had organized to a sugar factory in Theur near Pune. We were in standard three then. Sugarcane was pounded to extract the juice and then boiling down the juice in form of syrup for several hours to get jaggery.  

We were taught civic sense by making us control traffic at different junctions, we were made to plant trees inside and outside Pune Aakasjwani and meteorology department at Shivaji Nagar Pune. We would visit those offices twice a week to water the plants, to take care of the plants. We had very good teachers for language, maths and drawing. We had bakery class from 6^th standard, we hand stitching class which was compulsory. I studied in cohead Marathi Medium school named Bharat English School, Shivaji Nagar, Pune. 7^th standard onwards we were taught to collect data from green grocers, farmers, police, doctors, lawyers about intricacies about their professions. We celebrated different festivals for knowing our culture. 

Great poets such as Vinda Karanadikar, Shanta Shelke, author Va Pu Kale, mathematician D.R.Koperkar  visited our school and we have heard poetries and prose straight from the horse’s mouth.   Students from lower financial strata came to my school, it was not a famous school, but our principal used his contacts and brough great Marathi scholars to our school. My school developed a good educational system that delivered higher-order goals, such as the encouragement to grow in life, good attitudes and a sense of morality, justice, and optimism, which is quite challenging endeavour.

It is a mix of traditional and experiential education which can prepare students for real life in today’s VUCA world. Today, because of noncognitive skills which are called “soft skills” such as motivation, integrity, negotiation skills, team building, and interpersonal interaction the students get ready to face the complex world. Soft skills are associated with an individual’s personality, temperament, and attitudes. People have forgotten using pleasantries, manners etiquette etc. Non-cognitive skills, significantly complement and enhance the confidence of students which are often neglected. The most prominent non-cognitive skills include openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, amiability, and emotional intelligence. These skills have a strong ability to withstand adversities and to predict long-term outcomes from life.

At the primary education level, experiential learning can involve interactive activities, educational games, field trips, and experiments that allow young learners to explore concepts through hands-on experiences. These experiences spark curiosity, promote engagement, and lay the foundation for future learning.

In India, the focus on exam-oriented education has restrained students’ innate curiosity and suppress their ability to explore, innovate, and discover. The pressure to conform to a predetermined path can leave students feeling trapped, unable to pursue their passions or talents beyond the prescribed curriculum. People must flourish in their career, enjoy what they are doing. This rarely happens. 

In the age of information, the dynamic nature of workforces has undergone constant and consistent transformations to adjust to the advances in technology, a global pandemic, and an ever-evolving workplace. The pandemic drove a new chapter in learning, as students from across the world took to digital platforms to finish coursework and learn new skills. Meanwhile, a key concern that found credibility on a global scale was the gaps left by traditional education in the employability of a graduate. Post-secondary education, aimed at training masses to become employable, has long needed an upgrade to serve the true requirements of evolving industries. Every industry currently experiences rapid transitions internally to cope with the advancements in technology, and methods of doing business are more transient than they ever were.

Most universities have curriculums that don’t match what today’s industries need. Students are often taught old or irrelevant syllabi.  When these students graduate, they find that their knowledge doesn’t fit the requirements of modern jobs. This mismatch creates high amount of unemployment in India.

In beginning in the 1970s, David A. Kolb helped develop the modern theory of experiential learning, drawing heavily on the work of John Dewey, Kurt Lewin, and Jean Piaget. In France, the educators are constantly concerned about the danger of being labelled as irrelevant in today’s educational climate that focuses attention on the importance of science, technology, and professional career preparation. French universities have been successful at promoting a synergy between the traditional and the professional education. The goal is not to do battle between competing ideas, but rather to increase the value of both through interdisciplinary partnerships.

The challenges that we often face in India is while building meaningful collaborations with industry, university and government. We must overcome it.  Interdisciplinary learning encourages students to reflect critically on every new idea or issue they encounter, considering it from multiple perspectives.

Experiential learning is learning through reflection on doing. It focuses on the learning process for the individual. An internship in company where a student goes through sales training in which he learns how to handle customers and preparing bills. By sitting in classroom and reading sales management and accounting from books and lectures he can only imagine, but during internship he gets hand on experience.  Apprenticeships, externships, fellowships, field work, internships, workshops, seminars etc are part of experiential learning.

Experiential learning encourages students to learn from their mistakes and fosters a sense of self-confidence and continuous learning. Finally, experiential learning promotes innovation, creativity, and problem-solving skills, as students are actively engaged in project-based learning and problem-solving activities. In contrast, traditional learning typically relies on lectures and textbooks to convey information and may not provide the same level of engagement, practical application, and skill development.

In Japan a model of teacher-led research in which a group of teachers collaborate to target a particular area for development in their students’ learning. Based on their prior teaching, the group of teachers work together to research, plan, teach and observe a series of lessons, using ongoing discussion, reflection and expert input to monitor and improve their teaching.

There is vast difference in teachers with industry experience and teachers with degrees teaching in higher education. Teachers with industry experience bring practicality in teaching. Today Universities need experts in board of studies to upgrade syllabi every two-three year as the world is changing too fast. Knowing the academic side is only half the battle: understanding how those skills get used in the real world gives vital context and often makes things make more sense, it provides the reality that supplements the textbook versions of the same fields.

The real world is all about learning by making mistakes. While more traditional learning methods might end with a test or a graded paper, experiential learners do find themselves encountering holdups, yet they grow from them in many ways.

Kurt Lewin was a German-American psychologist, known as one of the modern pioneers of social, organizational and applied psychology in the United States. Lewin emigrated from Germany to America during the 1930’s and is recognized as the “founder of social psychology” which highlights his interest in the human aspect of change. He is remembered even today for one of his keystone models for understanding organizational change which was developed back in the 1940s, and still holds true today. His model is known as Unfreeze – Change – Refreeze which refers to the three-stage process of change management.

When changes take place in organizations the biggest problem they face is resistance to change in terms of: is there any real need for the change? Whether needs would be met with the impending change? The risks associated with adopting the change, lack of abilities to face the change, the fear that change might fail the organization, the process of change might not be handled properly by management. Thus, organization faces a lot of inconsistency. Kurt Lewin suggested three stages for smooth changeover:

1^st stage: Unfreezing

The Unfreezing stage is best handled when organizations realize that change is necessary. The biggest fact is that world around us changes each day. The business environment goes through constant change due to volatility. The first stage is about getting ready to change. It is getting ready to move away from the comfort zone. The first step is about preparation by one and all in the organization. Prior to the change, preparing people to change is most important. When majority people in the organization feel that change is necessary, it becomes urgency and people feel more motivated to have the change. This ends the procrastination; as the closer the deadline, people are more likely to snap into action and actually get the job started.

Unfreezing also means weighing up benefits and damages; if benefits outnumber the damages an action can be easily taken. This is analysis was called the Force Field Analysis by Kurt Lewin. Force Field Analysis is studying different factors for and against making change that the organization is aware of.

2^nd Stage: Transition

Lewin believed that change is not an event, but rather a process. He called the process of change a transition. Transition is the inner movement or a shift we make in reaction to a change. The second stage occurs as we make the variations that are needed. In this stage people in the organization get ‘unfrozen’ and start moving towards a new way of being. This stage of shifting is often the hardest as people are unsure and fearful. The transition if not handled professionally, becomes chaotic. It creates volatility among people. The transition state often emotionally drains people, emotions ranging from anguish to nervousness to anger to anxiety to relief. During the transition, productivity predictably declines.

Transitions become peaceful when people are communicated the need for it. People learn new behaviors during this stage. The day-to-day activities are simultaneously carried on. Therefore, this stage is very challenging. Only when people are convinced themselves and they see benefit, they give signal of willingness. This is not an easy time as people are learning about the changes and need to be given time to understand and work with them. Support is really important here and can be in the form of counselling, training, coaching, advising and analyzing. The chances are they make mistakes and the mistakes must be pardoned as part of the process.

Using role models and allowing people to develop their own solutions also help to make the changes. It is very important to communicate clear picture of the desired change and the benefits to people so they do not lose sight of the destination.

3^rd Stage: Refreezing

Kurt Lewin called this stage freezing which many people refer to as ‘refreezing.’  This stage is about establishing stability once the changes have been made. And when the changes are accepted they become the new norm. People form new relationships and become comfortable with their routines. This can take time. But it brings newness, freshness and innovation with it. In today’s world change takes place within days or weeks. There is just no time to settle into comfortable routines. Hence organization rarely get refreeze, the modern thinking about change is that it is continuous and sudden. Hence organizations prefer staying flexible to change. And staying unfreeze for next change is better. Given today’s pace of change this is a reasonable criticism. In 1947 Lewin wrote: “A change towards a higher level of group performance is frequently short-lived, after a “shot in the arm”, group life soon returns to the previous level. This indicates that it does not suffice to define the objective of planned change in group performance as the reaching of a different level. Permanency of the new level, or permanency for a desired period, should be included in the objective”.

British Airways case: In 1981, British Airways (BA) was considered an unproductive, loss making nationalized company. Had it been a private ownership company, it would probably have been declared bankrupt. John King, who was appointed Chairman in 1981 brought in the turnaround because the passenger airline was making annual losses of £140 million. By 1989, two years into life as a private company, BA was making over £260 million profits per year. This case throws light on change management. The first thing King did was BA was privatized. King recognized that the organizational restructuring is unavoidable, change management is compulsory.

King removed 22,000 employees while reshuffling its operations. He hired Colin Marshall as CEO.  BA’s fleet of aircraft was replaced. He also removed unprofitable routes. These actions of his allows BA to shed its weight in terms of oversized staff, ineffective and obsolete  fleet of aircrafts, thus, helping the airline to reshape itself. Though the need for change and the type of change required was obvious to the new chairman, King realized that the organizational restructuring would affect every single person associated with the company.

King knew that the change should occur in a systematic timeframe, it cannot linger on for years and the reason and implications change must be communicated to the employees, without wasting too much of time he communicated the cause of restructuring by putting a plan in place to achieve the goals of organizational change. In the case of BA, the ultimate goal was the privatization of the company. To get there, King first had to ensure its survival. To achieve the goals King involved the whole organization in his change management plan: from HR, operational staff, technology, engineering, aircrews, and administration. He realized that resolving conflicts and dealing with resistance to change was part of the change management process.

Lewin’s Unfreeze-change-refreeze can be explained in the following steps adopted by BA:

Unfreeze:

King created a sense of urgency: The urgency was simply communicated; the employees were told either change or face closedown of the airline. The staff was told that it would be rather prudent to close the airline, rather than continue making losses of huge sums every year.

The new vision and mission was communicated to all stakeholders. The stakeholders were made aware to act upon the action plan. When stakeholders are involved in the change process, the change can be effectively carried on more swiftly. If restructuring involves job losses, then stakeholders should involve workers’ groups or unions.

Change:

A flexible atmosphere for created for the change: It is very important to realize that rigidity  does not allow to change, people and processes are interlinked, hence resistance should be avoided at each stage.

Change management must be led by leaders: Change management must be led by the leaders consistently and supported by managers at all levels. These managers not only convey the message down the line, but also report on feedback and progress.

Implementation plan must have clarity: Strategizing change requires following the project implementation plan. The two will go hand-in-hand, as all stakeholders move toward organizational strategic goals.

Refreeze:

Cultivate behavioral change: after changes are brought in, the change must be projected through people and their attitude. People should walk the talk of the adopted change. At this stage counsellors and mentoring helps people a lot.   In 1982, Colin Marshall became the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of British Airways plc. In this period, British Airways produced its first additional profit which was the outcome of the cost-cutting actions implemented by John King. Colin Marshall decided to pay attention to its customer service in order to ensure that company carries on making profit. Marshall hired Consultants to collect data about workers and customer attitudes. Significant gaps were plugged between what was delivered by BA staff what the consumer actually required.