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Kolb's Experiential Theory Analysis

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This study utilizes the Kolb’s Experiential Theory. According to Kolb and Kolb (2013) the Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) is a dynamic view of learning based on a learning cycle driven by the resolution of the dual dialectics of action/reflection and experience/abstraction. This theory draws on the work of prominent 20th century scholars who gave experience a central role in their theories of human learning and development—notably John Dewey, Kurt Lewin, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, William James, Carl Jung, Paulo Freire, Carl Rogers and Mary Parker Follett—to develop a holistic model of the experiential learning process and a multi-dimensional model of adult development (Kolb and Kolb, 2013). Kolb and Kolb (2013) stated that ELT is built …show more content…

Conflict, differences, and disagreement are what drive the learning process. These tensions are resolved in iterations of movement back and forth between opposing modes of reflection and action and feeling and thinking (Kolb and Kolb, 2013). Forth proposition is “Learning is a holistic process of adaptation to the world”. According to Kolb and Kolb (2013), learning is not just the result of cognition but involves the integrated functioning of the total person—thinking, feeling, perceiving and behaving. It encompasses other specialized models of adaptation from the scientific method to problem solving, decision making and creativity. Then the fifth proposition is “Learning results from synergetic transactions between the person and the environment”. In Piaget’s terms, learning occurs through equilibration of the dialectic processes of assimilating new experiences into existing concepts and accommodating existing concepts to new experience. Following Lewin’s famous formula that behavior is a function of the person and the environment, ELT holds that learning is influenced by characteristics of the learner and the learning space (Kolb and Kolb,

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