For the last five minutes, Bella had been walking around her classroom observing the participants diligently working their way through a simulation involving an irate client. A lot of energy was flowing at one table as hands were flying amidst a bevy of overlapping voices.  Another table was in serious discussion and a third table seemed not to be talking at all. As Bella stopped at each table to observe, she took copious notes regarding what was said. "Our company policy states that..." said one participant while she heard another say "...clearly that was important to you and that makes it important to us."  For the remaining time left in the activity, Bella scrawled a page full of observations and quotes.

The moment of truth had now arrived for Bella. Three weeks prior, she had learned about the experiential learning cycle and how it involved the whole person in the learning process. Prior to learning about the cycle, she basically did a recap and talked about what they were expected to do on the job. At the time, she thought this was effective; now she began to see how having the participants process their learning through discovery created a closer bond with the concepts that were taught. She now realized that it was her job, during each stage of the cycle, to create awareness in the participants and move them to application. The hard part was that she had to combine observation, listening and questioning.

When her instructor first introduced her to the debriefing of the cycle, she recalled him saying that it was an art and not a science. At first she was not sure what he meant, but as she practiced, she began to see how each debrief of the cycle was different. It seemed to have its own  ...