Kolb's Learning Cycle
What is Kolb's Learning Cycle and how can this inform effective classroom practice?
What is Kolb's Learning Cycle?
Kolb’s Learning Cycle is a widely respected model of experiential learning that explains how individuals transform experiences into knowledge. Developed by educational theorist David Kolb in 1984, the model forms the basis of Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) and remains highly influential in both education and training today. At its core, Kolb’s theory suggests that learning is a continuous, cyclical process involving four key stages: Concrete Experience, Reflective Observation, Abstract Conceptualisation, and Active Experimentation.
The idea is simple but powerful: learners don’t just absorb information—they make sense of it by doing, reflecting, thinking, and applying. Kolb’s cycle captures this process, helping educators understand how students engage with content, reflect on their understanding, form concepts, and test new ideas in real contexts.
In an era where evidence-informed teaching is reshaping educational practice, Kolb’s work offers a grounded framework for designing learning that is active, reflective, and deeply connected to real-world experiences. Whether you're working in early years, secondary, or higher education, understanding how experience becomes learning is vital for improving student outcomes.
Experiential learning is no longer confined to internships or vocational training. With the rise of project-based learning, flipped classrooms, and real-world simulation, Kolb’s cycle offers a valuable lens for designing meaningful, student-centred experiences that go beyond rote learning.
Key things to understand about Kolb’s Learning Cycle:
- Learning is a cyclical process involving four interdependent stages that promote deeper understanding through experience and reflection.
- Each learner may enter the cycle at a different point, but progress depends on moving through all four stages over time.
- The model supports adaptive teaching, allowing educators to plan experiences that match where a student is in their learning journey.
By understanding Kolb’s framework, teachers can create more dynamic and responsive learning environments—ones that help students engage more deeply, think more critically, and apply knowledge with confidence.
What is the difference between experiential, conventional, didactic learning?
First published in 1984, Kolb's learning styles are widely used as one of the most renowned learning styles theories. Kolb’s theory focuses on the learner's personal development and perspective. Unlike the conventional, didactic method, the learner is responsible to guide his learning process in experiential learning. Experiential learning is a great way to learn because it allows students to apply knowledge in real life situations. Experiential learning encourages active participation, critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, collaboration, and communication skills.
Conventional, didactic methods include lectures, textbooks, and homework assignments. These methods teach facts and concepts, but not necessarily how to apply them in real world situations.
While these two types of teaching styles work well for different purposes, there is no denying that experiential learning is superior when it comes to helping students retain information.
When teaching students, we often use Kolb's Learning Cycle to help them understand the importance of experiential learning. The following model helps illustrate this process:
1. Orientation - Students become familiar with the subject matter through experience (real world) and reflection.
2. Cognitive Processing - Students actively engage in the material through hands-on activities.
3. Retrieval - Students recall the content through memory and repetition.
4. Consolidation - Students integrate the new information into long term memory.
5. Motivation & Evaluation - Students evaluate whether the activity was worthwhile.
6. Integration - Students synthesize the new information into existing knowledge.
7. Application - Students apply the new information to solve problems.
8. Exploration - Students continue to explore the topic further.
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Explaining Kolb's 4-stage Learning Cycle
David Kolb proposes that people's learning styles, depend upon their life experiences, genetics, and the demands of the present times. According to Kolb, a learner goes up to the spiral of immediate experience which results in reflections and observations of the experience. These reflections are then linked and absorbed with past knowledge and translated into theories or abstract ideas, which leads to actions and new ways to adjust to the experience that can be explored and tested. The Kolb Learning Cycle is a pedagogical approach or model of human learning developed by David Kolb. He used this model to teach his students at Stanford University. His goal was to help them learn better through self-directed study.
Kolb defined 4 different learning styles and developed a learning style inventory as well as an experiential learning theory. Most of Kolb’s theory relates to the internal cognitive processes of learners. His experiential learning theory has two levels: a 4-experiential learning cycle as well as 4 separate learning styles. According to Kolb, learning is the abstract experience acquisition that can be flexibly applied in a variety of situations. In Kolb’s educational theory, the experiential approach provides the impetus for the development of ideas and new concepts.
What are the stages of Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle?
The four-stage learning cycle by David A. Kolb is a four-step learning process i.e. concrete learning, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. Effective learning is achieved when a learner progresses through each stage. The learner may also enter the cycle of learning at any step using a logical sequence.
- Concrete Experience - At this stage, the learner shows personal involvement with others in everyday situations. In concrete situations, learner tends to depend more on feelings, open-mindedness, and adaptivity to change, rather than on a systematic approach to situations and problems.
- Reflective Observation - At this stage, learners understand situations and ideas from different points of view. They depend on objectivity, patience, and careful judgment but do not essentially take any action. The learners create an opinion on basis of their feelings and thoughts.
- Abstract Conceptualization - At this stage, learners use ideas, logical approaches, and theories, rather than interpersonal issues or feelings, to understand situations or problems. In most cases, they depend on systematic planning and building ideas and theories to solve practical issues and problems.
- Active Experimentation - At an active stage, the learners show an active learning experience by experimenting with different situations. At the active experimentation stage, the learners take a practical approach, rather than simply observing a situation.
Effective learning occurs when an individual learner progresses through each stage of the four-stage cycle of passing through a concrete experience followed by the observation of and reflection on this experience resulting in the formation of the abstract concept (logical analysis) and generalizations (conclusions) which are then utilized for hypothesis testing in future situations, leading to new experiences. Unlike other "classroom-confined" approaches, this pedagogical technique can be used to create authentic problem-solving tasks.
Teachers can use the experiential learning cycle to teach students within various education courses. By teaching students about this pedagogical approach, teachers can encourage students to become better problem solvers. Students can also use the learning cycle to improve their understanding of concepts and ideas.
For example, if a teacher wants to teach students about the concept of gravity, he or she can start by asking students to reflect on their experiences with gravity. Then, the teacher can ask students to observe the effects of gravity on objects in the classroom. Next, the teacher can ask the students to think about the causes of gravity. Finally, the teacher can ask his or her students to experiment with gravity by dropping objects off the edge of a table.
By encouraging students to move through the learning cycle, teachers give students opportunities to practice critical thinking and develop new perspectives. Teachers can also use the learning cycles to teach students about various subjects. For example, if a teacher wanted to teach students about the idea of time, he or she could begin by asking students to reflect upon their experiences with time. Then, the teacher could ask students to observe the passage of time. After that, the teacher could ask the students to think critically about time. Finally, the teacher could ask his or her students how they might use time to accomplish something.
What are KOLB’s 4 learning dimensions?
Knowing someone's (or one's own) learning preferences enable the learning experience to be focused on the preferred method. That said, everyone responds to and needs the stimulus of all types of learning styles to one extent or another - it's a matter of using emphasis that fits best with the given situation and a person's learning preferences.
KOLB’s 4 learning dimensions help to create a learning experience that improves people's capabilities and whole skill sets. Kolb uses these 4 components and adds to them to build 4 comprehensive learning dimensions, as given below:
- Diverging- These individuals see things from different perspectives and can use their imagination to show creativity in their learning styles. People with a diverging style, prefer to watch rather than do and their learning characteristic is reflective observation and concrete experience.
- Assimilating - They can analyze and explore learning styles model well. More than the people, they show interest in technical tasks with a logical format and conceptual framework. Their main characteristics mostly include reflective observation and abstract conceptualization.
- Converging - They are efficient problem-solvers and are considered as being practical in their analytic approach to tasks and ideas. They are likely to converge on their desired answers and are characterized by active experimentation and abstract conceptualization.
- Accommodating - They are more likely to be more practical in their learning experience and they mostly view problems from an intuitive perspective. These people may depend a lot on their gut feeling. They are fond of new-found challenges and are mostly characterized by active experimentation and concrete learning.
What are the educational Implications of Kolb's learning cycle?
David Kolb's 4 learning cycles and learning dimensions can be used to apply new ideas to instructional techniques according to students' choice of style.
1) It allows educators to target more specific learning outcomes for learners.
2) It enables to design coaching exercises, instructional techniques and training sessions that allow a lifelong learner to effectively understand the information in formal learning situations.
3) It helps teachers to personalize any instructional techniques intervention for learners in line with Kolb's 4 stages of the experiential learning cycle.
By offering some distinct learning styles initiatives and approaches to education, teachers can improve the chances of the school and adult college students assimilating the learning effectively and allowing them to create ideas that they might have ignored if the learning was carried out differently.
Teachers can assess students' preferred learning styles in a traditional classroom setting by using a distinct source of learning, observing learners during different activities or class discussions, or engaging with school and adult college students during class discussions. In the case of virtual world teaching, it is essential to keep students engaged all through the learning cycle and to add activities to a computer-based task to reveal each student's preferred style. Therefore, it is suggested to provide students with a wide range of learning experiences. By doing so, teachers can help students become more versatile, and adaptable.
Kolb argues that each learning stage is a fragment of the experiential learning process. For example, classroom learning can be learners' abstract experience, but it may also become a concrete experience, if, for instance, a student imitates and admires the teacher. Similarly, a student may work hard to develop an abstract model for making sense of an experiential exercise or internship experience. From the students’ viewpoint, the act of computer programming can be a greatly abstract experience and solitary reflection can be a highly sentimental concrete experience.
Key Reading on Kolb's Learning Cycle
Here are five key papers on Kolb's Learning Cycle, summarizing their key findings:
- Behind and Beyond Kolb's Learning Cycle by R. Vince (1998): Vince delves into Kolb's learning cycle, emphasizing its significance in management education. The paper critically examines the cycle, suggesting that incorporating emotional and political aspects could provide a more comprehensive view of experiential learning in management. Vince proposes expanding the model to include neglected dimensions of learning from experience.
- Applying Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle for Laboratory Education by M. Abdulwahed & Z. Nagy (2009): This study illustrates how Kolb's learning theory was applied to enhance laboratory education in chemical engineering. It argues that addressing the prehension dimension of Kolb's cycle can significantly improve learning outcomes, verified through a pedagogical explanation and quantitative analysis.
- Experiential learning – a systematic review and revision of Kolb’s model by T. Morris (2019): Morris offers a systematic review of Kolb's model, proposing a revision based on five identified themes. The revision emphasizes the role of context-rich concrete experience and critical reflection in meaningful learning, suggesting a more nuanced understanding of experiential learning.
- Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory and Its Application in Geography in Higher Education by M. Healey & A. Jenkins (2000): This paper explores the application of Kolb's theory in university geography courses. It highlights the diversity of learning styles and the importance of adapting teaching methods to cater to these styles, improving student awareness and engagement.
- Reconceptualizing Kolb’s Learning Cycle as Episodic and Lifelong by J. Egan et al. (2023): The authors suggest a reimagined model of Kolb's cycle that views learning as a continuous, lifelong process. This model aims to better acknowledge the knowledge learners bring to educational experiences and how it evolves over time, suggesting a shift from fixed learning episodes to a more fluid understanding of experiential learning.
These studies collectively explore, critique, and expand upon Kolb's Learning Cycle, offering insights into how it can be applied and adapted in various educational settings to enhance experiential learning.