An American psychologist argued that we learn by going round a circle — doing, reflecting, thinking and trying again. Then his idea of “learning styles” took on a life of its own.
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Ten items. Say your answer out loud before you reveal it.
Read the sentence, guess the meaning of the word in bold, then reveal.
The three words are: abstract · concrete · insight. Read each meaning, say the word, then reveal.
One missing word fits every phrase in the group. Say it, then reveal.
Read each part. After it, answer the quick check from memory, then discuss one question.
The idea that experience teaches is very old. More than two thousand years ago Aristotle wrote (in one English translation): “for the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” But doing on its own is not enough — plenty of people repeat the same mistake for years.
In the twentieth century, several thinkers asked what turns experience into learning. The American philosopher John Dewey wrote that “successive portions of reflective thought grow out of one another and support one another.” The social psychologist Kurt Lewin and the psychologist Jean Piaget, who studied how children's thinking develops, also explored how experience shapes the way we think.
David Kolb, born in 1939 in Moline, Illinois, earned a PhD in social psychology at Harvard in 1967. In the early 1970s, working with Ron Fry, he drew on Dewey, Lewin and Piaget to build a model of learning as a cycle. His 1984 book, Experiential Learning, defined learning as “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.”
1. What did Aristotle say about learning?
2. Which three thinkers did Kolb draw on?
3. How did Kolb define learning?
1. That we learn the things we need to do by doing them.
2. John Dewey, Kurt Lewin and Jean Piaget.
3. “The process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.”
Kolb's cycle has four stages. You have a concrete experience. You look back and think about it — reflective observation. You draw a general idea from it — abstract conceptualisation. And you test that idea — active experimentation, which gives you a new experience. Then round you go again.
Kolb also noticed that people tend to prefer some stages to others. Some of us, he and Alice Kolb wrote, carefully watch and reflect, “while others choose to jump right in and start doing things. The watchers favor reflective observation, while the doers favor active experimentation.”
In 1971 he had created the Learning Style Inventory, a questionnaire that placed people in one of four learning styles: Diverging, Assimilating, Converging and Accommodating. It became very widely used, especially in management and business education.
1. What are the four stages of the cycle?
2. What is the difference between the watchers and the doers?
3. What did the Learning Style Inventory do?
1. Concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation, active experimentation.
2. Watchers prefer to observe and reflect; doers prefer to jump in and try things.
3. It placed people in one of four learning styles.
The cycle itself is used on many training courses: people are asked to look back at an experience before deciding what to do differently. One well-known set of questions for doing this, from Jacobson and Ruddy, is simply: Did you notice? Why did that happen? Does that happen in life? Why does that happen? How can you use that?
Learning styles are a different matter. The idea that each person has a style, and learns best when taught in that style, became enormously popular. But in 2008 a team of psychologists led by Harold Pashler reviewed the research on learning styles in general. They found “no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice.”
Still, the circle and the labels are two different ideas. You can doubt the labels and still find the circle useful: an experience you never think about may teach you very little. The problems start when a description of how learning moves becomes a label stuck on a person.
1. Give two of Jacobson and Ruddy's questions.
2. What did Pashler's team conclude in 2008?
3. What is the difference between the cycle and the labels?
1. Any two: Did you notice? Why did that happen? Does that happen in life? Why does that happen? How can you use that?
2. That there was no adequate evidence to justify using learning-styles tests in general education.
3. The cycle describes how learning moves; the labels put people into fixed types.
Four stages in a circle. You can start anywhere, but you only really learn when you go all the way round.
Mia gave a presentation at work that went badly. Which stage of Kolb's cycle is each thought or action?
1. Reflection — looking back at what happened and noticing.
2. Experience — the event itself.
3. Conceptualisation — a general idea drawn from the experience.
4. Experimentation — testing the idea in practice.
5. Reflection — observing her own behaviour afterwards.
6. Conceptualisation — a general rule — abstract thinking.
Styles aren't destiny. The evidence doesn't support teaching people only in their “style”.
Reflection takes time. In a busy job, the circle often stops straight after the experience.
Some things shouldn't be learnt by trial and error. Nobody wants a surgeon or a pilot to learn mainly by doing.
Kolb's cycle starts with telling the story of an experience. To tell it well, you need two past tenses: one for the main events and one for the background.
Put the verbs in brackets into the past simple or the past continuous.
1. I (cook) dinner when my phone rang.
2. When the manager came in, everyone (stop) talking.
3. While she (drive) to work, she had a brilliant idea.
4. We (not understand) the instructions, so we asked again.
5. At midnight they (still / work) on the report.
1. was cooking
2. stopped
3. was driving
4. didn't understand (a state verb)
5. were still working
Complete the story of a first driving lesson with the right form of the verbs.
1. It (rain) heavily when I got into the car.
2. My instructor (explain) the controls, but I wasn't really listening.
3. Then I (press) the wrong pedal, and the car jumped forward.
4. While we (wait) at the lights, I finally relaxed.
1. was raining
2. was explaining
3. pressed
4. were waiting
Now tell your teacher about something that went wrong recently — set the scene with the past continuous, give the events in the past simple, then take it round Kolb's cycle.
Turn your own experiences into learning. Choose a task, start the timer, and talk.
Tell the story of a recent experience — good or bad — and take it through all four stages.
Describe how you learnt a skill — cooking, driving, a language. Did you watch first or jump straight in?
Many people enjoy learning-style questionnaires, but the evidence says teaching to a style doesn't help. Why do you think the idea is still so popular?