A Review Of Learning Experience And Application Of Kolb's And Gibbs' Learning Theories Essay.

Write a review of your learning experience since starting your course in October 2018. You should provide an overview of your progress, considering the challenges and successes you have experienced. You need to use at least two theories about education or learning to assist your review.

Overview of Learning Experience

I had so many experiences during this course from October 2018. There are so many problems were faced during this course related to my studies. I was nervous from this course in starting of October 2018 because of less understanding about the course work and different activities. There are so many ways for handling those problems but I learnt many things form that problem in my life.  

I learnt about handling the problems in critical situations from the Kolb’s learning cycle. According to the Kolb’s learning cycle, reflection is the best part of life and studies. It will help in the problem solving activities. It is having four phases for learning and reflection (Zeichner & Liu, 2010).

It was about learning from different things near you, such as feeling, watching, thinking and doing. As shown in the below figure.

                                                                               Source: (Vince, 1998)

It is an experiential learning cycle, which suggest about the learning. It has four stages, which are follows:

1. Concrete experiences
2. Learning by observation
3. Learning by conceptualization
4. Learning by experiencing

All these stages are in a cycle as all are related to each other. Anyone can enter in this cycle in any stage and follow it for learning from different things, but it is important that complete all the stages (Antenna & Unsplash, 2018). First stage is concrete experiences, which is related to the feelings. Feelings are related from the different activities. I learnt from this stage that every activity is important for the learning. During that course, I attended so many activities and i learnt about learning from them. It is also helpful for the learning from feelings. I learnt from different activities, such as poster making activities are making me more innovative.

Second stage of Kolb’s life cycle is learning from the observation, which means observation of different things and learn from them. I followed it and always observer classes, activities and many other things. All these things are making me more confident to solving the problem. It was about watching different things happened near to you or in your daily life. It was so helpful for understanding different things in the classroom (Giddens, 2001). I always observe my lecturer and I learnt so many things. It was so helpful for me to learning so many things from the watching and observing the different activities. I also reflect them into my life. I used lecture delivery style for presentation, which was I learnt from my guide in that course. I learnt about the reflection from the observation. It means observe the scenario or the activities and learn from them. They are used for the handling same situation in future.

Application of Kolb's Learning Cycle

Next stage is abstract conceptualization, which means thinking about the different things and reflects on them. It is helpful for the handling critical situations in the life (Johns, 2017). I handled so many critical situations from my critical thinking skill. I am make different concepts and used them for problem solving.

Fourth stage is active experimentation in which learning by doing is followed for handling different things. It was the best stage for the learning. This stage is helpful for the problem solving and project management. It is helpful for my complete course and during the course.

Kolb’s experiential learning has different characteristics, which are follows:

• Learning is a process in which learn from different things and uses them.
• Learning is never ended proses
• Learning is the best thing, which comes from the critical situations.
• Learning is a process, which adopt all the things from the real world.
• Learning is a process, in which experiences are transfer from the environment to the person.
• Learning is a process, which is creating knowledge from different stages.
• Learning is helpful process for the personal and professional development.

                                                                            Source: (bradford.ac.uk, 2018)

It is having six stages for learning and reflection. These are the stages in the Gibb’s reflection cycle:

• Description
• Feelings
• Evaluation
• Analysis
• Conclusion
• Action Plan

Description is first stage of the Gibb’s reflective cycle in which finding about ‘what happened?’ It means always learn from the different things, which are happened near to us. It was a learning process for a person. Next step is feelings, which means learning from the happened activities and think about the situation (Pretorious & Ford, 2016).

I learnt about the different things from my classrooms and activities in courses module. I attended many activities during the course, such as project management, self-awareness, and reflection.  It is also beneficial for the learning for a particular situation. Next stage is evolution, which is a process for taking a situation and reflects on them in a good manner or bad manner. I learnt from this stage that not every lecture is so good but I can learn from it always. Next stage is analysis in which reacted on the situation based on the experiences. Analysis is a process, which provides sense from the different situations. I always sense different movements from activities. I always learn from the situations and used them in future. Next stage is conclusion in which conclude about the activity and what the learning from that situation is. Last stage of Gibb’s reflective cycle is action plan. In that stage, meaning full information is generated from the learning (Yang, 2009).

Gibb’s reflective cycle is beneficial for the project management process. I learnt about so many things form my classrooms, lecture notes, and activities during the course. I was having different skills in me but after following the Kolb’s experimental cycle and Gibb’s reflective cycle (businessballs.com, 2018). I created new skills in myself, such as leadership, teamwork, and courage. I always was having fear about the presentation. I learnt from my lecturer about the presentation and I delivered a best presentation in the end of the session.

Reflection is helpful in the working as a professional person. I am working as a project manager as well as I am also having my own business. I am having lot of good experiences from that course. I was having an activity in that course in which we have to design a poster for the business idea.

It was an awesome experience of my life, which I never forget in my whole life. I learnt so many things from that activity, such as self-realization, teamwork, and leadership. We are formed in a group and we had to design a business plan in poster. I used my previous experiences for making that poster, such as painting in the class. It was my best experience and i developed my leadership skill from that activity. I took different logics and ideas for poster making and put all the effort in the task. We won first prize in that activity.

After that activity, I make a business plan as well as professional career. A good leader is always listen all ideas of the team members then select the best idea and used those ideas for solving problems.

Innovation is an innovation idea for solving a problem. There are so many stages where few things required changes for productivity and benefits of company as well as individual. As a project manager, I completed more than 100 projects in my company. I also manage my personal restaurant with my skills. I am always thinking about the learning and reflection based on different activities near me. I used learning for the solving different problems. I am having so many experiences from that course.   

Self-awareness is the best thing I learn from that course. I always take feedbacks of my work and it is the best concept to change and modified the services and operations. I applied this concept in my personal as well as professional life. Professional life is also affecting the social life. I am more polite in my social life after getting the post of project manager.

There are so many things in daily life and professional life for learning. It is also important for the managing different situations in the professional life. I learnt about the self-care and self-awareness. Self-awareness is the best way to knowing about the weakness of ourselves. If we know about the weaknesses then we should remove them.               

References

Antenna & Unsplash, 2018. What is learning? Exploring theory, product and process. [Online] Available at: https://infed.org/mobi/learning-theory-models-product-and-process/ [Accessed 22 December 2018].

businessballs.com, 2018. VAK learning styles test. [Online] Available at: https://www.businessballs.com/self-awareness/vak-learning-styles/ [Accessed 22 December 2018].

Giddens, A., 2001. Sociology. 5th ed. London: Polity.

Pretorious, L. & Ford, A., 2016. Reflection for Learning: Teaching Reflection Practice at the Beginning of Universitty Study. International journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 28(2), pp. 241-253.

Yang, S.-H., 2009. Using blogs to enhance critical reflection and community of practice. Educational Technology & Society, 12(2), pp. 11-21.

Zeichner, K. & Liu, K. Y., 2010. A critical analysis of reflection as a goal for teacher education. In Handbook of reflection and reflective inquiry, 29(103), pp. 67-84.

Zeichner, K. M., 2010. A critical analysis of reflection as a goal for teacher education. Educação & Sociedade, 29(103), pp. 535-554.