The Learning Style Inventory is a frame work for understanding the range of preference in adult learning experiences. It was developed by David Kolb. He sees learning as a four-part cycle. He says that the four parts can be engaged in, in any order, but that we need all four parts.

A variety of learning styles is particularly important for use with young adolescents as they are all over the intellectual map. They are probably stronger in the realm of concrete experience, and novices in the realm of abstractions.

The best learning experiences include all four dimensions.

The four preferences are as follows:

Concrete Experience

Rely on their feelings; rooted in their own experience; usually excited to get in there and participate.

Wants to know, "What are we doing now?" Ways to Promote Learning:

•  give examples
• role-plays
• case studies
• hands-on assignments
• check-in; share what's happening for you outside this group and put it aside to focus on the activities of this session

Reflective Observation

Rely on their own impressions and reactions; attracted to process; more passive in their participation; often on the sidelines.

Wants to know, "What does this mean to me?"

Ways to Promote Learning:

• journal-keeping
• visual images, drawing, collages
• mental images, memories, fantasies, drama
• discussion with others
• poetry
• quiet time for personal reflection

Abstract Conceptualization:

Rely on theory and conceptual models; look for generalizations and patterns.

Wants to know, "What are the implications?"

Ways To Promote Learning:

• lectures, reading materials
• drawing connections between experience and theory
• sounding board for ideas
• build models, diagrams

Active Experimentation

Rely on experience, trial and error; pragmatic; can be self-directed.

Wants to know, "How that I know it, what am I going to do with it?"

Ways to Promote Learning:

• problem-solving
• simulated situations
• experiments
• pilot projects
  An example follows of the four kinds of learners:25  

Suppose I were teaching people to swim. I could go to extremes and teach it according to each one of the styles.

So for the first style, you're standing at the edge of the pool, and I give you a shove. You fall in, and I say, "Okay, you're in, get to the other side the best way you know how." And you go, "Glug, glug, glug" and somehow you get to the other side. And when you hang on the edge of the pool, gasping, I say, "Guess what? You just swam. Now let's tidy up a few of those strokes.... "

You've just had a concrete experience.

On the other hand, your friend may also be in that swimming class, and she may say to me, "I would rather not learn that way. I would rather that you swim across, and I'll watch you. You demonstrate, and I'll watch your feet and hands, and how they work together ... and then I'll try."

That's the reflective-observer. They like to watch what is happening.

There might be another person in the group. He's probably a bit disdainful, standing off to the side. He says, "Listen Marge, stop all this experiential stuff. I am a serious person, and I want to know the theories about the displacement of water by the body, the ways the different strokes work.... Tell me about the physics of swimming, the mechanics of the strokes, and then I'll learn how to swim."

So I trot out my lecture on the theory of aquatics and deliver it. And that person just laps it up, because he's a conceptualizer.

He may still sink when he gets into the water. But he'll understand why! And hell only feel secure trying it out when he knows the theory.

Finally there are some other learners and these are very common---lurking around at the side of the pool. When I blow the whistle and say, "Everybody in the pool," they jump in, but they say to themselves, I'm going to do it differently." They're the experimenters; that's why Kolb gave them that name. They always break the rules. They may find out what I said about bending your elbows, or not bending your knees, does work best, but they find out by trying it their own way first!

Those are basically the four kinds of learners.