The Role of Experiential Learning in the Gestalt Peda-gogical Model of Teaching and Learning by Albert Hofer

In the 1980s Albert Hofer, an Austrian pedagogue, psychotherapist and priest, together with his co-workers successfully integrated experiential learning into his gestalt pedagogical model, with which he renovated the concept of religious classes in Austrian schools. The greatest contribution of his pedagogical model is in the fact that he was able to include the spiritual and religious dimensions in the experiential cycle of learning and place them besides the cognitive, affective, and physical dimensions. HOfer's model does not want to offer a student only new religious knowledge but also encourage the student to grow and develop spiritually and religiously. To achieve this, the model uses experiential and gestalt pedagogical methods in a thought-over and sensible manner. In this way, students can develop an in-depth relationship with the content of learning, which speaks to them on an existential level and opens them up to personally experience the transcendent.