Experience and Reflection:Donald Schön and David Kolb

ABSTRACTSchon and Kolb have been important thinkers for the field of learning and professional development, showing both the crucial role of experience and reflection. Both reacted to a reductionist view on professional learning focusing solely on cognitive development. Through reflection the practitioner can become aware of and criticise the tacit understandings that have emerged from the experiences of a specialised practice, and he can make new sense of the experience of uncertainty. Reflection-in-action is central to the art through which practitioners sometimes cope with the problematic and differing situations in practice. Moreover, experiential learning theory states that learners develop a preferred way of choosing, based on individual genetics, past life experiences, and how they perceive the demands of the present environment. They resolve the conflict between concrete and abstract, and between active and reflective in some patterned, characteristic ways. These patterned ways are denoted ‘learning styles’