David Kolb

David Kolb

David A. Kolb is an American educationalist who was born in 1939 and is well known for developing his idea of a learning cycle, which he published in 1984.

When learning something new we tend to remember and it normally has more of an effect on us if we, ourselves are actively involved with the process. Now a days teachers try to move away from the traditional way of learning and use experiential learning as it has more of an effect on their students, not only young students but people from all ages.

The first step is being able to recognize you have the experience, and then having the right tools to reflective upon it. Kolb’s looked further into learning experience and developed his own learning cycle:

Step 1- Active Experimentation- David Kolb’s thought it was useful if the learner was involved with every step of the cycle, which included the planning of the experience. Making sure you have complete understanding of what was going to happen and breaking each step down will help the learning experience.

Step 2-Concrete Experience- Making sure the learner is completely involved in the experience, with watching, doing, and making notes, or records depending on what situation they’re in.

Step 3- Reflective Observation- The most important stage of the cycle is reflecting on what happened. Knowing why it happened? How it happened? What didn’t happen? What you could have been done differently? Did anything go wrong? Although this is the most important stage of the cycle it is definitely the hardest, the deeper you reflect the deeper the meaning of the experience.

Step 4- Abstract Conceptualisation- The last stage is a conclusion of what has happened and the theory behind it all. This stage can easily be missed out but is very helpful and can also lead you to your next step.

Kolb’s learning cycle is very helpful especially in the dance world, and very interesting to think about when I’m teaching my classes. I have recently been experimenting in class on which is the best way to teach and have an effect on children. In the last few weeks I have been teaching my classes their pantomime dances so they have all been learning new steps to put in their new routines. I have noticed the majority of children find tap dances the hardest to pick up and get to grip with (I put this down to tap normally being performed to a faster pace music track so there are more steps to learn, and when learning tap it can sometimes feel the footsteps are very small and certain steps can look very alike to each other.) Breaking the dance into sections helps a lot, so they do not feel overwhelmed with learning a million of steps all at once. Having different methods of teaching makes it more interesting as well, my Grade 3 tap class are most effective when I challenge them to watch me perform a certain amount of steps and seeing if they can repeat it straight after me, they like to think of this as a game, and I’m testing them which makes them focus a lot more and is fun for them too.

You can definitely lose their concentration if they stand still for too long I find, they prefer to be moving and active and not standing around discussing or watching for too long, otherwise their minds tend to wonder especially for the younger ages, making sure they are focus on what you are trying to teach them is crucial. This brings me back to what David Kolb also believed that being actively involved has more of an effect on us when learning something new.

When it comes to older students normally around the age of 13-16 they like to know you can dance too, and I find girls really enjoy classes if you show them first full out, especially with kicks or leaps etc… If you impress them they normally want to impress you and want to be able to perform a step like that, everybody wants to wow the audience or their friends it is just finding them the motivation or drive to practice. Boys and girls are very different in this way I find, boys are really competitive and are not at all concern about making a fool of themselves or falling over, where girls on the other hand are still competitive but hide it more and dislike people watching if they haven’t come to grips with a step.

I also understand everyone has a different learning style and all prefer different ways to be taught, some of use like being active and involved whereas some of us prefer to observe, use the trial and error method and just try out different things until they find the right path or some people like to think and work it out in their heads before doing so. These four ways of learning are called; Concrete Experience, Reflective Observation, Active Experimentation and Abstract Conceptualisation. It does not matter which learning style suits you best but knowing which style has more of an effect on you will be a very useful tool in life.