Creativity+
Experiential Learning
Creativity and Experiential Learning in Transformational Learning
Social relevance: Using creativity intentionally with transformative learning can offer opportunity to find solutions by eliminating social barriers through sharing cultural perspectives by expressing our interdependence within relationships. Creativity and Arts-based education in learning enables transformative change because of its ability to encourage connections. Projects that bring people together in community to share in a creative venture can bring a sense of belonging and empowerment, transforming the community energy along with it. Community issues can be addressed and transformed through creative projects and arts-based learning. Seeing how other people experience the world through art witnessing and art making together, can ignite a sense of curiosity and wonder towards wanting to understand more about others’ perspectives.
the research for this paper looked at Kolb’s stages of experiential learning in conjunction with theories of creativity.
The Value of Creativity in Transformative Learning EDST 630 April 16, 2023
“Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students”
(Friere, 2005:72).
See blog page for further integrated learning writing from Experiential Learning Theory
I was interested to learn tension between aspects of learning is where the new knowledge, skills and perceptions are instigated. This is because, while learners need to be able to engage in all areas of the experiential learning cycle, of concrete experience (CE), reflective observation (RO), abstract conceptualization (AC), and active experimentation (AE), the real skill is being able to choose when to engage in which aspect of the cycle. This tension occurs because we are not able to do all aspects simultaneously. Learners move around in varied directions in the learning cycle, sometimes observing, sometimes doing, and sometimes integrating and to varying degrees. Kolb suggests the resolution to these ongoing conflicts in the learner are resolved by adaptation through creative synthesis (Kolb, 2014:42). Learning that creativity played a significant role in reconciling the tension in learning, buoyed my ongoing hypothesis that arts-based learning can act as a bridge between cultural learning in the classroom.
Theory of creativity has long acknowledged the tension and conflict involved in creativity; as Bruner theorized, between the abstract detachment and concrete involvement of the artist (Bruner, 1966). Attempting to understand the dialectics found in experiential learning and their relationship to the resolutions found in creativity provide the students with a stage to welcome conflict and unease knowing that resolution will come to them through creative adaptation to the discomfort. Learners can feel confident that, along with creativity will come integration and ultimately personal growth. Kolb refers to Wallas’ (1926) theory of creativity as another source where creativity is recognized as demonstrating conflict and resolution occurring naturally within the process.
Wallas’ creative process cycles through incorporation, incubation, insight, and verification. Kolb indicates these concepts as connecting with CO, RO, AC, and AE respectively. When learners are aware in the beginning of the cyclical nature of these styles of learning, they can avoid feeling despair and a sense of being stuck, knowing that they naturally move throughout these on varying natural timelines.
Constructivist models of learning include theory developed from Dewey, Piaget, Hahn, Lewin and Freire. This approach focused on the importance of the individual from a humanistic viewpoint; understanding the learner through their behaviours and perceived cognitive capabilities. These theories were initiated in the first half of the 20th century by Hahn, Lewin and Dewey, and developed further in the late half by Freire, Piaget and into the 21st century by Kolb. Many great minds thinking about learning and human development, through an interdisciplinary lens, for over a century has allowed current theorists a robust foundation on which to build their ideas. The constructivist perspective was intended as a positive one, based on the humanistic values of self actualization, however, it had to prove itself within a field demanding proof and measurable outcomes.
Kolb wrote, “Each of us is deeply unique, and we have an imperative to embrace and express that uniqueness, for the good of ourselves and for the world” (Kolb, 2014:53).
Reflection and Creativity in Experiential Learning Theory MDDE 612 030721
Kolb, D.A. (2014) The Process of Experiential Learning. In, Experiential learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, (pp.31-64). Pearson FT Press.
Kolb, D.A., & Lewis, L.H. (1986). Facilitating experiential learning: Observations and
reflections. New Directions for Continuing Education. Jossey-Bass.
Paradigm challenge:
By being transparent, both students and teachers engage in learning from the same starting point of understanding. Both parties can feel empowered with a clear vision of what the learning framework is that supports and contains them. Students can enter into a learning scenario with pre-conceived ideas about what the instruction will be like and can become uncomfortable when the banking method, as Freire (1974) refers to it, or other traditional teaching methods are not offered as they are accustomed. When the teacher is not going to tell the student in lectures and readings all they need to know, students can benefit from being aware of the historical trajectory behind this intention. Tracing a historical line through the theories of Piaget, Dewey and Lewin to Kolb and ELT can offer a feeling of security and stability in the educational approach of reflection and EL. Students can feel strengthened to know that this form of learning allows for space to incorporate their subjective and lived experience; that the outcomes are not predetermined by past behavioural or cognitive concepts.
Students can gain an understanding of how their current experience of learning is situated in a trusted, broader, historical context of development built upon by many minds. This understanding of how learning can be objectively studied can inspire their own subjective curiosity towards how they themselves are learning through experience and reflection.
Self-critical thinking:
Through the course reading I came to understand the importance of learners understanding how they are learning not just want they are learning. Learners are asked to be reflective, without instruction on the background theories of reflection itself. Courses are content-based on the subject matter and need to first be clear about how the learning is expected to happen and why it is being delivered in this way as opposed to other traditional methods. Instructors having a reflective practice and encouraging students to also adopt one is a good start, but without outlining what it can be and what it is not can leave learners feeling lost or stalled. Sharing with them that reflective practice is based on many decades of theory development since Schon first coined the term in the eighties can bring a sense of understanding and acceptance.
Merleau-Ponty described the generative nature of reflection as, “meanings sometimes recombine to form new thought… and we are transported to the heart of the matter, we find the source.” (Thoreau, 2004:80 in Rose, 2013:19). Learners can gain a feeling of purpose, importance and meaning in their experiential ventures, knowing “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.” (Graham in Kolb, 2014:53).
Merleau-Ponty, M. (2003). Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Colin Smith. 1958. Reprinted London: Routledge.
Kolb, D. A. (2014). The Process of Experiential. In, Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development, (pp. 31-64). Pearson FT press.