EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING THEORY OF KOLB

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING THEORY OF KOLB

EDUCATIONAL COURSE

The course was developed within the framework of the projectYes We Can! 2019-1-PL01-KA204-065197

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INDEX

introduction

Learning Styles

An Overview of Experiential Learning

Experiential Learning Cycle

Creating A Learning Environment

Suggestions for Building Learning Group

Debriefing

INTRODUCTION

These analyses and observations give us new conclusions and ideas. We apply these new ideas and naturally get a new experience from this practice too. This cycle which is the natural learning process of human beings has been integrated into the education and learning processes by the leading scientists of the 20th century (Erdogan, 2016).

We all learn from our experiences. In fact, this learning process, which starts in infancy and later in childhood, continues in our youth and adulthood as well. We try to push our personal limits, to acquire new skills, and to be able to overcome our difficulties. Each and every try gives us an experience. We think about this experience, we analyze it, we observe our own experience and the experiences of others.

An Overview of Experiential Learning

Experiential learning theory is based on the works of the leading scientists of the 20th century, such as Dewey who uses experience as base of learning, Lewin who emphasizes the importance of individual effectiveness in the learning process, and Piaget who does not see intelligence only as an innatetrait and qualifies it as an end result of the interaction between people and the environment.

These scientists tried to develop a holistic experiential learning process and model for adult education (Kolb 1984). David A. KOLB is who framed the theory of experiential learning in its most commonly accepted form. Kolb defines learning as a process in which “experience is transformed into knowledge”.

An Overview of Experiential Learning (six propositions)

Kolb (1984) has built his theory on six propositions that are shared by these scholars:

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Learning is best conceived as a process, not in terms of outcomes. Although punctuated by knowledge milestones, learning does not end at an outcome, nor is it always evidenced in performance. Rather, learning occurs through the course of connected experiences in which knowledge is modified and re-formed. To improve learning in higher education, the primary focus should be on engaging students in a process that best enhances their learning – a process that includes feedback on the effectiveness of their learning efforts. “…education must be conceived as a continuing reconstruction of experience: … the process and goal of education are one and the same thing.”

All learning is re-learning. Learning is best facilitated by a process that draws out the students’ beliefs and ideas about a topic so that they can be examined, tested and integrated with new, more refined ideas. Piaget called this proposition constructivism— individuals construct their knowledge of the world based on their experience and learn from experiences that lead them to realize how new information conflicts with their prior experience and belief.

Learning requires the resolution of conflicts between dialectically opposed modes of adaptation to the world. Conflict, differences, and disagreement are what drive the learning process. These tensions are resolved in iterations of movement back and forth between opposing modes of reflection and action and feeling and thinking.

Learning is a holistic process of adaptation to the world. Learning is not just the result of cognition but involves the integrated functioning of the total person— thinking, feeling, perceiving and behaving. It encompasses other specialized models of adaptation from the scientific method to problem solving, decision making and creativity.

Learning results from synergetic transactions between the person and the environment. In Piaget’s terms, learning occurs through equilibration of the dialectic processes of assimilating new experiences into existing concepts and accommodating existing concepts to new experience. Following Lewin’s famous formula that behaviour is a function of the person and the environment, ELT holds that learning is influenced by characteristics of the learner and the learning space.

Learning is the process of creating knowledge. In ELT, knowledge is viewed as the transaction between two forms of knowledge: social knowledge, which is coconstructed in a socio-historical context, and personal knowledge, the subjective experience of the learner. This conceptualization of knowledge stands in contrast to that of the “transmission” model of education in which pre-existing, fixed ideas are transmitted to the learner. ELT proposes a constructivist theory of learning whereby social knowledge is created and recreated in the personal knowledge of the learner.

Experiential Learning Cycle

Experiential Learning Theory is a dynamic view of learning based on a learning cycle driven by the resolution of the dual dialectics of action/reflection and experience/abstraction. Learning is defined as “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.

Knowledge results from the combination of grasping and transforming experience.” (Kolb, 1984, p. 41). Grasping experience refers to the process of taking in information, and transforming experience is how individuals interpret and act on that information.

The Experiential Learning Theory Model portrays two dialectically related modes of grasping experience—Concrete Experience and Abstract Conceptualization—and two dialectically related modes of transforming experience—Reflective Observation and Active Experimentation.

Experiential Learning Theory Model

Learning arises from the resolution of creative tension among these four learning modes. This process is portrayed as an idealized learning cycle where the learner “touches all the bases”—experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting—in a recursive process that is sensitive to the learning situation and what is being learned. Immediate or concrete experiences are the basis for observations and reflections. These reflections are assimilated and distilled into abstract concepts from which new implications for action can be drawn. These implications can be actively tested and serve as guides in creating new experiences.

Experiential Learning Theory Model

Transform Experience

Grasp Experience

ACTIVEExperimentation

CONCRETEExperience

REFLECTIVEObservation

ABSTRACTConceptualizing

Learning arises from the resolution of creative tension among these four learning modes. This process is portrayed as an idealized learning cycle where the learner “touches all the bases”—experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting—in a recursive process that is sensitive to the learning situation and what is being learned.

Immediate or concrete experiences are the basis for observations and reflections. These reflections are assimilated and distilled into abstract concepts from which new implications for action can be drawn. These implications can be actively tested and serve as guides in creating new experiences.

Learning Styles

Learning style describes the unique ways individuals spiral through the learning cycle based on their preference for the four different learning modes. Because of one’s genetic makeup, particular life experiences, and the demands of the present environment, a preferred way of choosing among these four learning modes is developed.

The Nine Learning Styles of the KLSI 4.0 (Kolb & Kolb 2013)

Data from empirical and clinical studies over the years has shown that original four learning style types—Accommodating, Assimilating, Converging and Diverging— can be refined further into a nine style typology that better defines the unique patterns of individual learning styles and reduces the confusions introduced by borderline cases in the old 4 style typology.

With feedback from users, Kolb first began noticing a fifth “balancing” style describing users who scored at the center of the Learning Style grid.

Learning Styles

The new KLSI (Kolb Learning Style Inventory) 4.0 introduces these nine style types by moving from a 4 pixel to 9-pixel resolution of learning style types as described. The learning style types can be systematically arranged on a two-dimensional learning space defined by Abstract Conceptualization-Concrete Experience and Active Experimentation-Reflective Observation.

This space, including a description of the distinguishing kite shape of each style, is depicted in the figure:

Creating A Learning Environment

Participants are not only in the individual learning process, but the intensive learning process is the group learning process. In order for the group to be able to learn together, it is first required to turn the group in which different individuals come together into a “learning group”. In learning group building, it is very important to raise the group dynamics. Kolb refers to this issue as follows; “For a learner to engage fully in the learning cycle, a space must be provided to engage in the four modes of the cycle—feeling, reflection, thinking, and action. It needs to be a hospitable, welcoming space that is characterized by respect for all. It needs to be safe and supportive, but also challenging” (Kolb & Kolb 2013).

Establishing an appropriate learning environment is very important for the efficiency of the training programs based on experiential learning.

Creating A Learning Environment

Learning is a pleasant but a challenging process as well.

Participants who enter into the process of behavior, approach and skill development/transformation must come out of their “comfort zones” and go “into the learning area” where they must “challenge” with difficulties, and they will do self-evaluation and self-criticizing. It is not easy for everyone to come out of his/her comfort zone and furthermore, does it among a group of people. In a methodological flow based on the experiential learning cycle, the participant must first experience and then reflect on their experience.

Suggestions for Building Learning Group:

Begin with name and get to know each other games. Icebreakers and trust games will draw participants closer. Play fun games. Those who have fun together learn together.

Present the learning objectives of the program clearly.

Get the participants’ expectations from the program and contributions they can make to the program.

Have them prepare the group learning contract. (Rules to be followed throughout the program)

Play teamwork games with them. Those who overcome the challenges together become groups faster.

Make room for your participants in the program according to their personal talents, knowledge, and experiences.

Create free times. Create times for participants to spend time and share together, outside of the sessions as well.

Take care not to keep lunch breaks and coffee breaks too short.

Debriefing

John Dewey, one of the most influential thinkers in educational theory in the twentieth century, argued that education is the combination of experience and reflection. This theory has been embodied in the concepts of experiential games and simulations through techniques known as reviewing or debriefing that encourage learners to mentally process the experience.

As Thaigi, an expert in training, says, “People don’t learn from experience; they learn from reflecting on their experience” (as cited in Nicholson, 2012). Debriefing is a must for experiential learning based educational methodology. An experience (learning game) remains only an activity unless it is reflected on, analyzed, and conceptualized. A well-planned and properly managed debriefing session is an integral part of the experiential learning cycle so that experience can be transformed into learning.

The course was developed within the framework of the projectYes We Can! 2019-1-PL01-KA204-065197