Part 1: Evaluation

David A Kolb’s experiential learning theory model based upon the work of Dewey and Lewin follows a four part cyclic arrangement where each part represents a stage in reflective personal and professional development. Kolb’s work is heavily influenced by the earlier work of Carl Gustav Jung who XXXXXX
According to Kolb (1984, 38) "Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience"
I’ve actually decided to look at Kolb’s theory for a variety of reasons:
It was the one drummed into me during PGCE in the late 1990’s.
I have a feeling that I have always seen learning in a straight line on a personal level rather than as an ongoing cycle in the sense that you begin as a child with nothing and gradually acquire knowledge and experience as you grow which then affords you great control, comfort, satisfaction, achievement and status. I have a feeling that I have been going round in circles for some time and even the most ardent supporter of merry go rounds will want to get off sooner or later!
In terms of control, I will return to some of these ideas later when discussing Goffman, Freire and Foucault.
The cycle seems like a closed system and there is little opportunity for the actions of others to impinge upon the cycle.
As an AS, learning for me is far more formalised and problematic in terms of self-reflection. Self reflection happens in me constantly but in two distinct ways; firstly the cyclic response to external stimulus i.e. what other people say or do and secondly an entirely closed internal world where reflection tends to re-enforce existing ideas and behaviour patterns.

Kolb’s cycle can be identified in four stages:
Concrete Experience: Learning from specific experiences and relating to people. It is the latter that I have found increasingly difficult, as I have gotten older and had an increasing number of ‘specific’ experiences.
Observation and Experience: Observing before making a judgment. This is a stage that I often find myself heavily situated in and my attempts to make sense of the world have lead me to quite difficult periods of my life where stagnation occurs. Through a judging of experience through vicarious experience of others’ experiences coupled with my own experiences has meant a complete halt to my learning cycle. As an AS I struggle to decipher meaning in any given social setting and will retreat into the internalised world where the power to transform it has no limitations or ambiguity. Perhaps I have been too preoccupied trying to understand the meaning of things and instead should look to simply adapting to fit?
Forming Abstract Concepts: this is the point at which a form of generalisation takes place where an individual is able to understand or ‘see’ a general principle that can potentially be applied to a variety of situations or experiences rather than seeing each experience in isolation.
Testing in New Situations: this refers to the ability to get things done by influencing people and events and in my experience this is a stage that I have very limited experience to draw upon. Most of my adult life has been spent feeling powerless to influence and to being beholden to the power of others. As a result at this stage new experiences do not occur which then feed into the next stage of the cycle. My generalisation at the previous stage has been one that has led to a belief system that re-enforces the sense of powerlessness and thus prevents active experimentation. In this sense my Kolb cycle is perhaps a far more limited cycle based upon the first two stages?
There are however contrasting meanings for ‘experiential learning’ which can loosely be stated as:
a) Involving a direct encounter with what is being studies rather than just thinking or reading about it
b) Learning thru personal reflection upon everyday experience – this definition is usually not sponsored by a formal education setting. In this form primary experiences are equivalent to sense experiences. ?
For Kolb, the learning process can and often does begin at any of the four stages and he claims that ‘ideally’ a person is involved in all four stages through the learning process – although this is not s process that we undertake explicitly. Indeed it has resonance with feedback theories in cybernetics and it may be argued that Kolb’s theory is an abstract form of biological theory?
Kolb expanded upon by identifying 4 learning styles and went on to state that people naturally prefer or identify with a single learning style. This is something I find hard to reconcile given that in my own personal reflection it is evident that I tend to straddle a number of different learning styles and that these styles vary and can be influenced both internally and externally.
But Kolb also identifies 3 stages in our development and he claims that our ability to move through the cycle improves as we move through the stages in our development. His 3 stages are:
Acquisition: where basic skills and abilities are defined. At this stage it is clear that my development was dominated by familial influences.
Specialisation: from school through to early personal and employment experiences. Kolb argues that the main influences here are: social, educational and organisational and that these influences shape our own specialised learning style. It is perhaps curious that my own learning style was far more open and varied than it is now. The imposition of ideas, values and norms was counter balanced by the greater sense of freedom and power that felt as a child. I felt no pressure to conform to anything that I felt was disingenuous and as such was far more open to new ideas and methodologies.
Integration: the adoption of a non-dominant learning style in both work and personal life, which occurs from mid career onwards. This does not reflect me at all!!!!
For Kolb the learning styles are a product of two pairs of variables or choices that we make. These are:
Concrete Experience: Feeling v Abstract conceptualisation: Thinking
Active Experimentation: Doing v Reflective Observation: Watching
In other words we choose our approach to the task (through our processing continuum) or experience ('grasping the experience') by opting for 1(a) or 1(b):
1(a) - though watching others involved in the experience and reflecting on what happens ('reflective observation' - 'watching') or
1(b) - through 'jumping straight in' and just doing it ('active experimentation' - 'doing')
And at the same time we choose how to emotionally transform the experience into something meaningful and useful (via our perception continuum) by opting for 2(a) or 2(b):
2(a) - through gaining new information by thinking, analyzing, or planning ('abstract conceptualization' - 'thinking') or
2(b) - through experiencing the 'concrete, tangible, felt qualities of the world' ('concrete experience' - 'feeling')
But do we really consciously make these choices?
The four learning styles (LSI) can be summarised as follows:
Diverging (feeling and watching - CE/RO)
I am/can / like to / believe: sensitive, watch, gather information, use imagination, have broad cultural interests, emotional, receive personal feedback.
I am not / cannot / don’t like to / don’t believe: Look at things from different perspectives and consider them equal, work in groups, listen with a completely open mind, interested in people
This could be me? Or is this what I want to be?
Assimilating (watching and thinking - AC/RO)
I am/can / like to / believe: ideas and concepts are more important than people, require good clear explanations, organise, having time to think things through
I am not / cannot / don’t like to / don’t believe: exploring analytical models, be thrown into the deep end
In terms of learning, this is definitely me! I don’t like being thrown in at the deep end and find that without some clear instruction that is unambiguous I can often struggle. Whether this is an aspect of AS I am as yet unclear.
Converging (doing and thinking - AC/AE)
I am / can / like to / believe: technical tasks, solve problems, specialisms, experiment
I am not / cannot / don’t like to / don’t believe: people and interpersonal aspects
This could also be me!!!
Accommodating (doing and feeling - CE/AE)
I am / can / like to / believe: intuition, hands on
I am not / cannot / don’t like to / don’t believe: using other people’s analysis, have new plans or challenges, rely on others, work in teams
This is the least like me!
It is important to note that Kolb does not define learning styles as absolutes but as tendencies and accepts that individuals may be able to change learning styles. Nevertheless, the thrust is that we prefer some learning style behaviours to others at any given period of our development. One of the most crucial roadblocks to my development appears to be my need to have someone ‘validate’ it. I feel the need to use ‘accepted’ analysis in order to gain validation and acceptance – ie I constantly need someone to tell me I’m doing things right. As an AS I need a smile everyday, I need a hug everyday and I need to be told that I am ok everyday.
Jung's 'Extraversion/Introversion' dialectical dimension here
Experiential learning proponents might suggest the following as relating to experiential learning:
Learning is best conceived as a process, not in terms of outcomes. This is where I diverge from this in the sense that for me it was far more of a straight-line approach – education or learning was a means to get to an end and that end was affluence and power.
All learning is relearning. 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. This again I have had issues in terms of adapting to and accepting. My formative years led to a belief in the role of teachers as vessels or translators of knowledge in the same sense that in some tribal cultures the elders hold wisdom and knowledge that is then orally passed down to the next generation. The idea that ‘everyone’ has a valid point of view is one that I have always found difficult to accept. After all if everyone is special then no one is. Would some of our greatest accomplishments as a species have been made had everyone had the same level of ‘voice’ as those responsible for these great leaps in our development?
Learning requires the resolution of conflicts between dialectically opposed modes of adaptation to the world, i.e. reflection and action - and feeling and thinking. This is a key issue for me and in my own experience I now ‘feel’ far more about the world than I ‘act’. It is also interesting that I now see the world as being distinct from me – separate, other, hostile. This is in no small way a facet of AS but my current belief system cannot be attributed solely to this – especially since this mode of thinking is for me less than 20 years old.
Learning is a holistic process of adaptation to the world, not just cognition but also feeling, perceiving, and behaving.
Learning results from synergetic transactions between the person and the environment. The nature of these transactions is for me still a source of much confusion and distress and the level of consent and relative power structures appear also to be not clear. Have I really actively chosen to undertake a series of actions, choices and decisions that have led me to a point in my life diametrically opposed to any sense f my original aims and goals? How is it actually possible for an individual to do everything that takes them away from their goals? It is here that perhaps a closer examination of Freire, Goffman and Foucault might help.
Learning is the process of creating knowledge. My understanding of learning is that it is inextricable linked with acceptance.