Although there seems to be a great difference between Kolb’s social constructivist view and and Siemens technology oriented, networked learning process, there is a common link that interrelates between them. Siemens suggests learning what is needed for tomorrow; yet we do not know what is going to happen tomorrow, we cannot control nor predict. So learning always happen in the present tense – the now. However, we can acquire the ability to connect with sources and access through new tools in the digital era. The acquisition process thus requires a sense of being in the present. Siemens indicates four implications: The awareness of the diversity of opinions, design of learning environments, real-time informational flow, and personal knowledge management (2005, p. 6) that are all important aspects of learning, and allows learners to keep updated with our time.
Experiential learning, originated from Dewey, Lewin, and Piaget, is a mode of learning that emphasizes on the experience and the process of learning. Kolb’s (1984) article suggests a learning that merges experience, perception, cognition, and behavior. It is suggested that humans can share an experience fully, concretely, and abstractly (p.21). I agree that learning is conceived as a process, not in terms of outcomes.
An informal discussion with a Zen Buddhist monk, Master Guoxing a couple days ago subverted partially my understanding of Dewey’s proposal that knowledge is a result of transaction between objective and subjective experiences. I asked him, “All of my experiences and memories made me who I am now and how I act today, is that right?” He answered, “You’re aware of your past memories and experiences, which don’t exist anymore now.” Although I do believe in learning through actions such as feeling and touching, I had some conflicting ideas when reading the article in sections that describes how “learning transforms the impulses, feelings, and desires of concrete experience into higher-order purposeful action,” when knowing that impulses, feelings, and desires are elements that our consciousness are aware of, but in fact they do not exist. Human beings try to hold onto feelings and memories, because we think they exist and form who we are.
My understanding of the here-and-now experience is that once a word is said or an action is made, it does not exist anymore, so there is no continuity. I also had trouble understanding the concept of “postponement of immediate action” (Dewey, p. 22), since the instant immediate action is being activated, is not there anymore. My idea is that observation itself requires immediacy, and does not have nor require a postponement of action. Seemingly or perceptually, these actions are “symbiotically related process”, but in fact, they are not related: Just as when each thought is generated and another new thought comes up, the old one also die in an instant; they are like one of the thirty frames in a second that appears in a movie - each frame is its own individual, only when we put them together, it seems like its connected, and we think that they are connected.
Like Kolb, I am also doubtful to whether it is true that the concept of continuity of experience grounds human existence, when there occasionally appears to have elements of uncertainty. I agree with Pepper’s (1942) proposition of partial skepticism that provides a guide for inquiry and learning. However, Freire’s idea that the dialectic nature of learning and adaptation is the “reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it”, again makes me doubt when knowing that, since the world is the world itself, we are only adding names to the world to give meaning, but my pursue is to find the truth, or the true mind: What is the true world before being added names? Both false and true words are neither true nor false, as they all exist within the world named by human beings.
I’d like to add a note onto Kolb’s learning in terms of knowing how we think and feel, and the fact that we must know when behavior is governed by thought and when by feeling – from Zen's perspective, our behavior is governed by our common intrinsic nature that is conscious of our thoughts and feelings that we think as ourselves, but in fact they are not - Thoughts are thoughts, and feelings are feelings, they are not us. Thus, the best way to learn is to continuously create, think, recreate, transform, and connect - at the present moment.
Kolb, D.A. (1984): Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development
Siemens, G. (2005) Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age
Master Guoxing. (2017), Personal Communication
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