Kolb Learning Styles
Learning styles are varied and to understand them is to the educators advantage when teaching a course. The educator can adjust their course to address the learning styles present. After taking the Kolb Learning Style Inventory the results indicated that I have an accommodating learning style. I actually agree with the results for many situations, but I feel I use parts of all learning styles. I can’t help but feel insulted that I was not a thinker.
I can see the accommodating style emerge when I work in groups or teams. I enjoy leading and organizing the team in order to get the task completed.The varied learning styles keep the team balanced and provide needed input for a successful team. I am impatient when working with groups when they spend too much time sitting around talking and never appear to accomplish anything(I suppose these are the assimilation and converging people). If the group has a solution in mind, I say let’s try it. If this does not work then back to the drawing board. I am a “hands-on” kind of person. I do not mind jumping in and working on a solution. An example could be equipment failure. If I cannot fix the equipment then we switch modes of teaching from power point to posters, handouts, discussion and the text book. I try to be flexible and adapt to the given situation.
Recently I took a course in Dental Anesthesia. After literally hours of lecture we proceeded to the clinic to practice what we learned. I found it very difficult to understand exactly where we were going to place the needle even though I saw numerous photographs. Once in the clinic one look was worth a thousand photos. One injection was a greater learning experience than all the hours of lecture. Hands-on learning is definitely a comfortable learning style for me. I can see where developing the other learning styles would strengthen me and make me a balanced learner, but will take work on my part. Knowledge of the different learning styles will help me as a leader of the group to guide the group through the phases of the learning cycle.
September 17th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Even though your Kolb inventory came out as an Accommodating style, I think you can still consider yourself a thinker! Your “thinking” however, often occurs through the doing and the hands-on experimenting, as you note so well in this post. Donald Schon, who writes so much about reflective practice would call your type of thinking knowing-in-action in which the knowing is embedded in the very acts you undertake. How different your Anesthesiology class might have been if you had had an opportunity to visit the clinic first, see what you were to learn demonstrated, had a chance to try it, and then returned to the classroom to learn the theory and the “why.” This is a great example of learning styles, and how they differ! Thanks for sharing.
tjc
September 23rd, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Christy,
Upon completion of the Kolb Learning Assessment, I am a diverging learner. However, although I am a diverging learner, I have a few characteristics of an accommodating learner; for I too despise working with indecisive people. Whenever I am in a group or a collaborative setting, I find myself wanting to yell out “stop the talking and come on with it!” I find myself becoming frustrated because the group seems dysfunctional and I want to roll my eyes. I understand your frustration and wanting to ensure that the group stays productive. After taking this assessment, I think I will try to be less standoffish when I am in a group and everyone plucks my nerves; for I now understand that we all learn and approach situations differently.
Later,
Lucy
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:57 pm
I think it’s great that you are so aware of your learning style and seem very comfortable with it. I don’t think using the other learning styles throughout the cycle will be as difficult as you think. Since you are so aware of your preferred style, I think it will be easier for you to consciously not use it when you choose to try another style.
I do like the way you describe your learning experiences though. They sound so fun and invigorating!
September 24th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Christy I am also a “gotta see it and do it” type of learner. Unfortuntaley I also fell in the “reflective” category, so all those hours in lecture would have been necessary for me to have been brave enough to attempt what ever we were learning! Thanks!