Wrap your head around this: Mr. Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory has to do with experience.

We know, hard to believe.

More specifically, it's about the different ways that students experience the learning process and their various stages of experiencing the material, from encountering a new factoid to being totally experienced in the subject at hand.

Not sure you're on board? Well, lucky for you, that puts you at Step 1 (having a concrete experience you don't fully understand) and on the way to Step 2 (grappling with it).

But let's pause for a minute before we get into the steps and axes and other magical forces that play into the Kolbian experience to answer this: why bother getting past Step 1 in the first place?

Let's get into what educators like about Kolb's ideas (while we're at it, thanks to Saul McLeod's linked article from simplypsychology.org for a bunch of this info).

So, the pros: Kolb's ideas can be applied to coming up with activities and classroom materials that can help each learner engage with the information based on his or her very own style. Plus, the theory takes a whole range of abilities into account, and does so with a cyclical process of learning. Who doesn't love to cycle? In this case, the gist is that diving into the spinning wheel can help lead to more effective knowledge acquisition in general.

Not convinced? You asked for it: let's get into the nitty-gritty.

A Ride on the Kolb-cycle

What goes around, comes around, are we right? But Justin Timberlake's glory days aside, Kolb's idea of learning as experiential is all about a cycle. You can look at it in actual circular form in this article, but we'll lay it out step-by-step in paraphrase form for you linear thinkers out there:

Concrete Experience a.k.a. Feeling. This is when the learner comes across a new experience or unfamiliar situation, like a weird-sounding word or a math problem that PEMDAS won't solve.

Reflective Observation a.k.a. Watching. The student ponders the strangeness of the new experience. This is the key step on the path from experience to understanding.

Abstract Conceptualization a.k.a. Thinking. That's right: all that reflection from Step 2 leads to a new idea. Eureka! This can also be "a modification of an existing abstract concept," in the words of McLeod's article. Like if the student is dividing fractions and realizes with a couple tricks she can just multiply the fractions. That still gets a Eureka.

Active Experimentation a.k.a. Doing. This is when the learner applies that genius idea spawned in Step 3 to the problem that needs a-solving. Tell those fractions who's boss, kids.

For our friend Professor Kolb, each step should naturally feed into or support the next, and you can enter the cycle at any point (just try that with a unicycle). But! No one stage will cut it if you really want to learn your Shmoop. Especially if you favor one in particular of…

The Kolbian Styles

To really get down with the styles, you've got to look at a whole pile of diagrams and matrices (and there's not even any Keanu). The gist: the learning experience cycle is also a graph, with active experimentation vs. reflective observation as the opposites on the x-axis, and concrete experience vs. abstract conceptualism on the y.

Confused yet?

That's why we gave you the link, so you can actually look at it in graph form. Anyway, the learning styles are born from a combination of preferences on the part of the learner that comes from one side each of the x and the y.

Sounds freaky, right? Well, let's get formulaic:

1. Feeling + Doing = Accommodating
2. Feeling + Watching = Diverging
3. Thinking + Doing = Converging
4. Thinking + Watching = Assimilating

Remember, "Thinking" is the code name for Abstract Conceptualization, and all those others correlate to our fancier-named friends above, too. Peek back at the cycle section for a reminder of how the cycle fits in with the styles.

And now, to definitions. We know what makes for each of the Kolbian styles, but what the heck is Diverging? Aside from the obvious, of course. Oops, sidetracked.

Now, the definitions, paraphrased from McLeod:

Diverging: These learners feel and watch their way to knowledge acquisition. They get their know-how from keeping their eyes peeled and using their imagination to come at a problem from a whole mess of viewpoints. These folks are generally good at brainstorming, enjoy the global types of questions, and are good at dealing with people.

Assimilating: Logician magicians who are always down for a good cogitate. They're out for explanations and abstract concepts, and generally care more about being logically sound than being practical—or working with other people, for that matter. It seems pretty clear that Revenge of the Nerds was all about assimilators…

Converging: "I think, therefore I do." That's what Descartes said, right? Well, someone with a converging learning style would try to find out the answer by finding a solution through a practical idea or theory. That usually means more technical than social stuff, but also involves experimentation with new ideas and how to apply them. So something like "I think, therefore I find a book about Descartes and his famous quotes and apply them to my new tech start-up." Done and done.

Accommodating: This is where doing and feeling come together, and this learning style is what "hands-on" is all about. These learners value their gut feelings over working out the answer with time and precision, and they get their thrills from real-life challenges, filling out plans, and acting based on impulses rather than logical analysis. We'd say that sounds dangerous, but—hey a diamond ring under that oncoming car! Jump for it!

So there ya have it: the learning styles and how they fit into the cycle of learning experience. The beauty of Kolb's theory (according to Kolb and his buds) is that it can help teachers—and learners—understand their own methods of understanding, which also makes it a useful model of how learning works in general. In other words, it can help you come up with lessons that suit learners of each style, plus it gives you a nifty model for a cycle that sheds some light on the learning process overall.

And, by the way, you can rest assured there's plenty of psychological reasoning, investigative research, and cognitive whosiwhatsis going into that theory. You can get real deep into it here and here, but now you've got the basics, and guess what that is? The first experience on the road to knowledge.

So go forth, experienced Shmooper, and cycle on ahead.