How Do People Learn?

Rich with novice and expert peer-to-peer communication and resources, online environments can create learning conditions for many kinds of learners. In “Using Adaptive Hypermedia to Match Web Presentation to Learning Styles,” [1] Michael Danchak explains how environments designed for diverse learning styles can also help expand learning repertoires. In the figure below, Danchak illustrates the Kolb Inventory, a useful guide for building an environment that provides for relationships among experience, reflection, abstraction and experimentation.

The Four Kolb Learning Styles
From Danchak, M. "Using Adaptive Hypermedia to Match Web Presentation to Learning Styles", in Elements of Quality Online Education: Into the Mainstream, eds J. Bourne and J.C. Moore. Needham, MA: Sloan-C, forthcoming.

Like some of the other well known cognitive and affective taxonomies, the Kolb figure illustrates a range of interrelated learning activities and styles beneficial to novices and experts. Designed to emphasize reflection on learners’ experiences, and progressive conceptualization and active experimentation, this kind of environment is congruent with the aim of lifelong learning. Randy Garrison points out that:

From a content perspective, the key is not to inundate students with information. The first responsibility of the teacher or content expert is to identify the central idea and have students reflect upon and share their conceptions. Students need to be hooked on a big idea if learners are to be motivated to be reflective and self-directed in constructing meaning. Inundating learners with information is discouraging and is not consistent with higher order learning . . . Inappropriate assessment and excessive information will seriously undermine reflection and the effectiveness of asynchronous learning. [2].

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