Overview
In Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development (1984), Kolb defined learning as “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” (p. 38). This learning experience consists of four stages:
- Concrete Experience (CE): feeling
- Reflective Observation (RO): watching
- Abstract Conceptualization (AC): thinking
- Active Experimentation (AE): doing
These four stages, or steps, of learning typically move through a cycle that begins with a student having a concrete experience and ends with them actively experimenting with the knowledge they gained.
Kolb’s Four Stages of Learning
Kolb identified four different learning preferences, or learning styles, after observing the cycle of learning. He identified learning styles as “habitual ways of responding to a learning environment.” How students react to specific stages in the learning cycle helps identify their learning style.
Below is a grid that identifies the various types of learners and which stage of learning they lean toward. The stages of learning reflect how learners process and assimilate information:
Stage 1: Concrete Experience (CE)
assimilating information
Stage 2: Reflective Observation (RO)
processing information
Stage 3: Abstract Conceptualization (AC)
assimilating information
Stage 4: Active Experimentation (AE)
processing information
Accommodator
(CE and AE)
- Adaptable to change
- Problem-solvers
Diverger
(CE and RO)
- Finds meaning and value
- Analytical
Assimilator
(AC and RO)
- Interested in ideas and concepts
- Observers
Converger
(AC and AE)
- Technical learners
- Independent
- Practical
Continue exploring this page, or request assistance from the Center for Instructional Technology and Training.
Application
Student learning preferences are observed in a traditional classroom setting by engaging with students in classroom discussions, or observing students during lectures, group projects, presentations, or other activities. In the online environment, it is important to find ways to engage students through the entire cycle of learning and incorporate activities or prompts that will help reveal student learning preferences present in your course. Remember: it is best practice to create a variety of learning experiences that reach all learning preferences. Exposing students to a variety of learning experiences will also help them become a more adaptable, versatile learner.
Kolb recognizes that all learning stages are part of the experiential learning experience. For instance, “a classroom lecture may be an abstract experience, but it is also a concrete one, when, for example, a learner admires and imitates the lecturer. Likewise a learner may work hard to create an abstract model in order to make sense of an internship experience or experiential exercise. From the learner’s perspective, solitary reflection can be an intensely emotional concrete experience, and the action of programming a computer can be a highly abstract experience.”[1]
References and Additional Resources
Citations
- Kolb (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development
- Kolb, D., Joy, S (2008). International Journal of Intercultural Relations. “Are there cultural differences in learning style?”
- Zapalska, A., Brozik, D (2006). Emerald Insight. “Learning styles and online education”
- Experience Based Learning Systems
- Kolb Learning Style Inventory 4.0