Kolb’s Learning Cycle – David Kolb developed a four stage learning cycle.
- experiencing an event (concrete experience or feeling)
- stepping back and reflecting on that event (reflection)
- considering what lessons can be learned through experience and thinking (thinking)
- reacting to a new experience based on the previous stages (doing)
“Perceiving relates to how we prefer to acquire new information, while processing addresses how we make sense of our experiences.”
This model makes sense to me, how we experience an event and percieve it determines whether we want to repeat it, perfect it or discard it. Once we have reflected on our experience (which can happen in a matter of seconds) we can consider how to process the experience and how to react to the next stage.
Those two dimensions can then be divided into quadrants or preferences:
- Accommodators are adventurous learners who prefer to learn by doing and problem-solving. They tend to work well with others who are good at providing analysis and information.
- Convergers are pragmatic and like to apply theory to practice. They often prefer technical tasks over working in a group. Many find they do best in fieldwork or laboratory settings.
- Assimilators like to work with ideas and to construct models to test them. They tend to be logical and concise, and enjoy the challenge of abstract ideas rather than applying those ideas to practice.
- Divergers are more reflective and often learn by observing and making sense of those observations. As divergers tend to be imaginative, they like working with people and their emotions.
These I don’t agree with so much. I believe there are many different types of learners and condensing into these rather over-simplified four catogories does learners of a different type disjustice. It reminds me of school where anyone without achademic intelligence was thought of as stupid. I’d like to think we’ve all evolved and matured since then to realise there are many different types of intelligence and someone with emotional or creative intelligence may learn in a very different way than someone with street smart intelligence or a great awareness of how things work and fit together.
Oh and also, IQ really isn’t that important. Not completely relevent but it had to be said.
