Reflect & build a habit
From the learner's own experience to a principle and a small experiment to try at work.
Based on: David Kolb's experiential learning cycle: a concrete experience, reflection on it, a principle that explains it, and active experimentation. Adults learn soft skills from their own experience, not from definitions.
When to use it
- Soft skills: giving feedback, leading people, communication, time management.
- Wellbeing and habits.
- When there is no single right answer, so scoring makes little sense.
How the lesson flows
| # | Phase | Card | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Experience | Card — Think of a time… | A situation the learner has surely experienced. |
| 2 | Reflection | Form — What happened, and how did it feel? | Learners write about their own case. |
| 3 | Principle | Card — The idea behind it | The model or principle that explains it. |
| 4 | Principle | Card — How to use it | How to apply it, with an example. |
| 5 | — | Rate — How confident do you feel? | Self-assessment. |
| 6 | Experiment | Checklist — Your experiment this week | One small thing to try, when and with whom. |
Example
Giving feedback: "Think of the last time feedback you gave didn't land." Learners describe it. The principle card introduces a simple model: situation, behaviour, impact. The next card rewrites a vague comment using it. The checklist: "Give one piece of SBI feedback this week".
Tips
- Learners' answers in forms are visible to your team in Results. Say so if the topic is personal.
- Keep the experiment small and specific. "Be a better listener" won't happen; "In your next 1:1, let the other person finish before you answer" will.
- Follow up a week later with a short lesson in a sequence: "How did your experiment go?"
Where it comes from
David A. Kolb, an American organisational psychologist, published his theory of experiential learning in the book Experiential Learning (1984). Learning, Kolb argued, is a cycle with four stages: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation (a principle or model) and active experimentation. A new experience then starts the cycle again.
Kolb built on three earlier thinkers. John Dewey saw learning as the reconstruction of experience. Kurt Lewin described the cycle of action and reflection in group work and action research. Jean Piaget described how thinking develops through interaction with the world.
Did you know?
- Kolb also created the Learning Style Inventory, a questionnaire that sorts people into "learning styles". The cycle itself is widely used, but the idea that teaching should match each person's learning style has not held up in research. A well-known review by Pashler and colleagues (2008) found no convincing evidence for it. Lessons work best when everyone goes through the whole cycle.
- In the UK, Peter Honey and Alan Mumford adapted Kolb's model for managers in the 1980s, so it became a standard part of leadership development.
- The last stage is the most important for habits. Without a concrete small experiment, reflection often stays as a good intention.