Ask a team to build a duck with a beak and two legs from six Lego bricks. You get as many different ducklings as there are participants. Although the task seemed unambiguous, not one was the same. What does this say?
In the experiential learning course, you will explore opportunities to become an
simple experience with each other for team growth.
For more than 10 years, our experienced team coaches have been training our own trainers internally to use experiential learning to develop teams. And there is news. An experiential learning course will start in 2025 for trainers, coaches, HR officers, teachers, facilitators and interested parties who want to become proficient in experiential learning as a tool for team development in professional teams.
Experiential learning is nothing but 'learning by doing'. Experiential learning, also known as experiential learning, is a method that combines different learning phases, learning processes and learning styles. That is also what makes experiential learning so effective in team development. How the team develops is central.
So it is not about 'what a team does', but 'what team members learn from what they do'. Experiential learning is a welcome addition to any team. Experiential learning is characterised by a practical approach, combining skills, behaviour, knowledge and learning. Experiential learning is also always a creative process in which improvements are integrated by doing. The learning process is efficient and appealing to young and old alike. You see something, pick it up, try it out, make mistakes, which immediately invite improvements. Learning at its finest. David Kolb (with originally four learning styles) and Peterson together depict it like this today (picture with the pencils):
A team learns by going through the learning cycle coping with imbalances. There are imbalances in every team. In the training, you learn that every team is good at something and probably has something to learn in other parts of the learning cycle. The imbalance remains: learning to deal with it, actually embracing the imbalances together ensures a stable and at the same time dynamic climate. In which performance is achieved in connection.
Everyone learns most easily when there is a reason, a focus - a necessity sometimes - for learning. A new employee on the job thus learns a computer programme faster compared to a student in the classroom. The student concentrates on 'what do I need to know for the exam', while the new employee is concentrated on 'how can I use this software to do my job efficiently'. The learning return is much greater in daily practice and while making mistakes, one learns faster and more focused.
However, conditions are needed for safe learning from an experience. With the Scale, we distinguish between
Each team develops a culture in which norms and values ensure a certain level of performance. Tuckman described this with four stages in group development. In the third phase, which he 'norming' mentioned, a culture is ultimately shaped.
Once that has become a constructive process, you and your team experience that there is work to be done, that there is work to be done, provides motivation, simultaneity, specialisation; each team member can do something different.
In a team building, we do that in miniature. We do this with team assignments, small, like the ducks above and also intensive, like Craftsmanship below. It always seems simple, the team assignments are also simple, until the starting signal sounds.
In a team facilitator's practice, the team learns from cooperation - with insights from Tuckman and Kolb and Peterson's learning circle providing depth. So not just by deciding or by action and experience, but rather by reflection, imagination, analysis and by trying out. How did we deal with this problem, what do we learn from this for the work situation?
Experiencing something is not what happens to you, it is what you learn from what happens to you.
You will learn this principle of learning in experiential learning training.
It doesn't matter where you are going to apply it.
First of all, you learn more about how to look at groups in a positive way, how to contribute to them yourself and how to invite cooperative support. In our coaching, a group remains its own boss, with the agreed goals the group steps into a learning process to achieve that agreed goal and we translate the method to the work situation.
You will learn to guide this group process. What helps and where do you get stuck? In a safe environment, the group helps to explore new ways. One person directs more, another teaches, yet another believes in that the group can already do it themselves and lets the group discover it for itself. Any method of working can be the best in a given situation, reveal something, offer a new insight.
You get to know many new ways of working. You also learn to choose which form of work works well in which situation. By repeating, you also practise yourself or learn from a different approach. Eventually, you will work in your own practice and develop your own working methods.
Team4Teams facilitators believe in a mix of practical work, experiential learning and support with theory. This mix will also be at the heart of the training.
Experiential learning is something we all do, hopefully every day. It is so normal that few talk about an 'experiential learning methodology'. Yet there are key people who engage in this everyday learning - learning by doing. You will come across two to three of them in any experiential learning course:
David Kolb is a learning psychologist and educator from the United States who focuses on experiential learning. He is known for his theory on learning styles and the learning cycle. [Wikipedia]
Kolb originally talks about four learning styles: doer, dreamer, thinker and decision-maker. Kolb's influence is huge. In our team training on communication styles the four learning styles come back laterally as motivating, caring, researching and directing. You know them with the four colours yellow, green, blue and red.
In the experiential learning course, we start working with the latest version of Kolb and Peterson, which talks about nine learning styles instead of four. The four are still a nice summary, with the nine learning styles you can see even better which learning styles are overexposed or underexposed in a team. In the picture with the pencils, you can find all nine. The doer chooses to try, but experiencing and taking action are just as important. The decision-maker decides, but (self-first) thinking and (self) taking action is something a team cannot do without.
Tuckman's stages of group formation, also known as forming - storming - norming - performing, is a psychological model from group dynamics developed by US social psychologist Bruce Tuckman. [Wikipedia]
Bruce Tuckman is a second influential psychologist from the United States who influenced group dynamics insights in forming groups and teams. As soon as a team forms (forming), team members are still individually oriented. As soon as contradictions arise in the new cooperation, a team comes under pressure (storming). You could say that this phase, also called the conflict phase, is the most interesting. In a positive group process, group members use this 'unrest' to reach good workable agreements (norming). This creates a closed and loyal team. To achieve efficiency and growth, it is then necessary as a team to be open to the dissenting voices that come out sooner or later. After which performing brings pleasure and results (performing). Later, Tuckman added adjourning as a concluding phase to his model. This phase has always been somewhat underexposed, but is super important in change processes.
In team development, phases can be recognised, but a modern team develops right through all the phases. Team members come and go and systematics (we are here now) is not really an issue (anymore). Yet Tuckman gives us tools for team development in training as well.
Less well known but important are the insights of Karl Rohnke, an American outdoor coach who focused on adventure altitude courses with rope bridges. You can watch in comfort, but you won't learn much from that. You can also choose the adventure and experience 'stretch' high among the trees or hanging from a rock. By doing so, you will learn something new, a skill, and your learning zone will be bigger. In the panic zone, you no longer learn. Rohnke put forward the thesis that life is either stretching or shrinking. So it is also in team development. What does it take to enable a team to embark on a new adventure, or are changes rejected?
Whether the Scale belongs in this window will soon be up to you to decide. For us, it is essential to 'know' why something succeeds or fails. You can form such a good team, whether a team succeeds, evades or perishes in conflict has to do with behaviour. Kolb plays a role, Tuckman provides insight, so does Rohnke, but at a glance the Scale shows whether a team is going to come out of it or - without behavioural change - actually go down in conflict. Therefore, knowledge of the Scale is an important roadmap for this training.
The training takes four days. That is quite long and yet also very short. We choose to be mainly practical. Experiential learning methodologies are discussed, are also our guide, but it will not be a lecture. We are going to work practically. The cases contributed by the group play an important role, making every day a new adventure for all of us. Experiential learning, with a theoretical foundation.
The course is aimed at trainers and coaches. For hrm officers and trainers who are looking for a practical way to focus on team cooperation. For teachers who want to specialise in how to stimulate cooperation. The experiential learning programme is suitable for those who want to focus on team development with adults in professional teams. You can start using it immediately and in any team.
The training combines your commitment as a facilitator (your mindset), with practical team assignments by first experiencing them yourself and then also coaching them immediately. With attention for the underlying theory and the goal you have set yourself as a coach.
In most training courses, individual learning (what are you learning?) is central. In our training, the focus is on guiding group learning. How does a team learn to engage each other where, until recently, it was avoidance, pointing at each other or eliminating colleagues? How does a team learn to think in 'and', including leadership, where until now it was 'or' thinking? How does an organisation learn to find balance between difficulties and opportunities, where it is currently problems and solutions?
In this experiential learning course, you will learn to deal with adults in teams. The training therefore does not offer a specific focus on supervising children and young people. Of course, a translation is quickly made, but we concentrate on cooperation in professional teams and cooperation between teams in organisations with adults. So we do not offer attention to, for example, voluntary groups, cooperation between residents in a neighbourhood, football supporters, nor to specific individual behaviour. Of course, group workers and coaches are welcome who want to specialise on group processes in a professional setting.
We deal with healthy teams in the sense that we do not pay attention to people (in teams) with gambling or alcohol addiction, people suffering from depression or anxiety disorders and colleagues in, or returning from burnout.
A team may exhibit unhealthy behaviour, bullying, exclusive or discriminatory. Undesirable behaviour will be discussed in a contributed case study by participants. So bring your own situation, perhaps also a knot in the cooperation, the focus will be on how to achieve healthy team behaviour.
So we start this training by reinforcing healthy behaviour in teams, dealing with healthy adults. You will notice, four days are a perfect start for that, first a concentration on what works well, dealing with deviant behaviour comes next.
Experience in a professional work environment is a prerequisite for participation in this training, also to test experiences in a work situation between training days. The training is not suitable for students for this reason. For students, colleges, universities and universities provide perfect alternatives.
Putting cooperation on the map is important. Organisations have become complex. Attention to how teamwork comes about and can be secured is key. In this programme, you will learn by doing, experiencing for yourself what you can already do and what others can teach you.
If you are a member of management, an executive or team leader, the training for the Scale of Cooperation the (even) better choice. Experiential learning training focuses on experiential learning, while training on the Scale focuses on the positions a team can find itself in. These positions on the Scale form the roadmap to good cooperation. Understanding forms of cooperation and learning to understand what cooperative behaviour fits in a struggling and eluding situation are addressed here in a structured way.
If you want to specialise on autism, ADHD, psychosocial deviant behaviour, borderline to deal with it therapeutically, you'd better apply to, for example, Ervaringsleren Nederland (Maastricht).
In case you are still unfamiliar with Team4Teams and its working methods, we recommend you take the manual about the Scale of Cooperation which focuses on team development. It is a manual meant for using the Scale, but in addition, it is already a feast of recognition looking at the groups you are currently functioning in. You gain insight and direction into how groups are guided.
In experiential learning training, this manual is assumed to be familiar. As a roadmap to good cooperation, it plays a central role in training.
Find out more about the Scale of Cooperation.
The world of derailments is vast, we focus on what you yourself are experiencing (experiencing) in order to already support yourself with that in the teams you supervise or are part of. For the four training days, this is what we can do.
In the Scale of Cooperation training pays attention to difficult behaviour in adult teams, also in this experiential learning training you can bring in your own case that will be instructive for everyone. The starting point is different in the Scale training: you learn to see that every position on the Scale shows a (completely different) world. And you all know za from your own experience. Besides, how can you understand this as a supervisor, manager or trainer/coach? How do you help a team entangled in certain behaviours cross a threshold? Both training programmes are a perfect match. You will find that many have first followed this Scale course. It is not a prerequisite.
For executives and team leaders, the Scale course is the best choice. The working methods involved in experiential learning are less applicable by the team leader or manager in their own team. After all, as a supervisor or team leader, you yourself are part of the team.
HBO level of thinking is needed to be able to interpret complex situations that often also show unexpected developments, to approach them creatively and flexibly and to support them unexpectedly. The behaviour the group shows is 'contagious' in a negative situation; following, allowing or supporting that behaviour then becomes a trap. You are going to need alternative behaviour. How to get there and how to stay there is at the heart of experiential learning training.
Inclusive leadership and also proactive self-organisation are characterised by people who dare to take on adventures with guts and courage and a positive mindset. We are going to do that, those who want to learn in this are more than welcome. And we learn too.
Participants will receive a certificate of participation after taking part.
The certificate is included in the price. It does not require an exam.
On the Scale website (the link below) you will find more information, dates, participant fee and on that you can register.
The experiential learning course is a cooperation of Team4Teams bv with Scale of Cooperation vof.
The next training days are on 19 and 20 June, 12 September and 10 October 2025.
Find out more about experiential learning training
'Experience is not what happens to you, it is what you do with what happens to you.'
Aldous Huxley
Example of a work form from experiential learning training:
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