Experiential education is a philosophy of education that describes the process that occurs between a teacher and student that infuses direct experience with the learning environment and content. This concept is distinct from experiential learning, however experiential learning is a subfield and operates under the methodologies associated with experiential education. The Association for Experiential Education regards experiential education as "a philosophy that informs many methodologies in which educators purposefully engage with learners in direct experience and focused reflection in order to increase knowledge, develop skills, clarify values, and develop people's capacity to contribute to their communities". The Journal of Experiential Education publishes peer-reviewed empirical and theoretical academic research within the field.

John Dewey was the most famous proponent of hands-on learning or experiential education, which was discussed in his book Experience and Education, published in 1938. It expressed his ideas about curriculum theory in the context of historical debates about school organization and the need to have experience as a fundamental aspect. Dewey's fame during that period rested on relentlessly critiquing public education and pointing out that the authoritarian, strict, pre-ordained knowledge approach of modern traditional education was too concerned with delivering knowledge, and not enough with understanding students' experiences.

Dewey advocated that education be based upon the quality of experience. For an experience to be educational, Dewey believed that certain parameters had to be met, the most important of which is that the experience has continuity and interaction. Continuity is the idea that the experience comes from and leads to other experiences, in essence propelling the person to learn more. Interaction is when the experience meets the internal needs or goals of a person. Dewey also categorizes experiences as possibly being mis-educative and non-educative. A mis-educative experience is one that stops or distorts growth for future experiences. A non-educative experience is one in which a person has not done any reflection and so has obtained nothing for mental growth that is lasting.

Dewey's work influenced dozens of other prominent experiential models and advocates in the later 20th century, including Foxfire, service learning, Kurt Hahn and Outward Bound, and Paulo Freire, who is often cited in works on experiential education. Friere focused on participation by students in experience and radical democracy, and the creation of praxis among learners.

Experiential methods in education have existed in China for over two thousand years, since the time Confucius began promoting the educational style. John Dewey was in China in the early 1900s and his ideas were extremely popular.

Established in 1973, Breakthrough in Hong Kong was the first non-profit organization that applied the concepts of experiential education (though primarily conceptualized in terms of outdoor adventure education) in youth works. Since then, development in experiential education has proceeded in Singapore, Taiwan, Macau, and some large cities in China.^{[citation needed]}

Experiential education started in Qatar in 2010 through AL-Bairaq, which is an outreach, non-traditional educational program that targets high school students and focuses on a curriculum based on STEM fields. The idea behind AL-Bairaq is to offer high school students the opportunity to connect with the research environment in the Center for Advanced Materials (CAM) at Qatar University. Faculty members train and mentor the students and help develop and enhance their critical thinking, problem-solving, and teamwork skills, using a hands-on-activities approach.

Starting in the twenty-teens, experiential education organizations in Asia begin gaining accreditation by the Association for Experiential Education, which had historically primarily served a North American audience. Outward Bound Hong Kong was accredited in 2011, followed by Chadwick International in Korea in 2019 and the Hanifl Centre in 2020.