What it shows
Kolb’s experiential learning cycle, with four stages running clockwise from the top: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization and active experimentation. Active experimentation leads to a new concrete experience, and the cycle begins again.
Each stage carries the same example, learning to ride a bike, so one experience can be followed all the way round.
How to read it
Concrete experience, at the top: the learner rides the bike.
Reflective observation, next clockwise: they consider what worked and what failed.
Abstract conceptualization follows, as they form an idea about how riding works, and then active experimentation, as they plan a better next attempt.
That attempt is a new concrete experience, which is why the diagram is a loop.
The four stages
- Concrete experience: rides the bike.
- Reflective observation: considers what worked or failed.
- Abstract conceptualization: forms an idea about riding.
- Active experimentation: plans a better next attempt.
- Model: Kolb (1984). Bike example: adapted from Wikipedia’s Experiential learning article, after Kraft (1994).
Ways to use it in teaching
Students can replace the bike with something they learned recently and take it round the four stages.
A ready structure for a reflective assignment, with one paragraph per stage.
In teacher education, ask where in the cycle a typical lecture leaves students.
Sources
Kolb, D. A. (1984), Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall (2nd ed. 2015, Pearson). The bike example is adapted from Wikipedia's Experiential learning article, which cites Kraft, R. G. (1994), "Bike riding and the art of learning", in Barnes, Christensen and Hansen (eds), Teaching and the Case Method, Harvard Business School Press.
