Concluding Thoughts: The Promise and Practice of Experiential Learning

As this edited volume has highlighted, experiential learning in higher education takes a number of forms and is utilized as a pedagogical tool by scholars from various disciplines. While there has been steady academic attention to identifying best practices and evaluating experiential learning initiatives, this volume has shed light on areas that are under-researched and under-theorized. Moreover, it gives important voice to students who participate in experiential learning, showcasing their critical reflection on their experience. Further, the contributors to this volume help identify new issues and directions for experiential learning pedagogy in a changing world. Importantly, these chapters were all written while universities shifted to remote learning in spring 2020 and then in fall 2020, grappled with the best ways to operate amidst the global pandemic of the coronavirus. Educators using experiential practices had to reconsider how they would engage their students and collaborate safely with community partners.