"You teach some by what you say, teach more by what you do, but most of all, you teach most by who you are."

Experiential learning requires no teacher and relates solely to the meaning making process of the individual's direct experience. However, though the gaining of knowledge is an inherent process that occurs naturally, for a genuine learning experience to occur, there must exist certain elements. According to David Kolb, an American educational theorist, knowledge is continuously gained through both personal and environmental experiences. [4] He states that in order to gain genuine knowledge from an experience, certain abilities are required: the learner must be willing to be actively involved in the experience; the learner must be able to reflect on the experience; the learner must possess and use analitical skills to conceptualize the experience; and the learner must possess decision making and problem solving skills in order to use the new ideas gained from the experience.

John Dewey pointed out, experiential learning can often lead to "mis-educative experiences."[6] In other words, experiences do not automatically equate learning. The classic example of this is the lecture experience many students have in formal educational settings. While the content of the course might be "physics" the experiential learning becomes "I hate physics." Preferably, the student should have learned "I hate lectures." Experiential learning therefore can be problematic as generalizations or meanings may be misapplied.