The four learning styles and their taxonomies: holistic education

At 9Brains we are passionate about the 4 elements of human beings and organisations, which are also spreading to the world of education.

In this article we are going to share the advances of the Canadian professor Marcella Lefaver to offer a new holistic education based on the hybridisation of two concepts: Kolb’s four learning styles and Bloom’s taxonomies. And, it has a lot to do with the 4 elements.

(Disclaimer. Of course, I am not trained as an educator, so if there are any conceptual errors, please let me know in the comments so that I can correct them as soon as possible).

THE FOUR LEARNING STYLES

In 1984 a university professor, David Kolb, discovered that adults have different ways of learning, which depend on how we perceive reality and how we process it.

Of course, we all have some of the four learning styles, but we are most comfortable in one.

These are the main characteristics of each:

DIVERGENT

• Strength: Concrete experience and reflective observation. Good at grasping the big picture and organising small pieces of information into a coherent and meaningful whole.
• Abilities: They are emotional and creative. They enjoy brainstorming to come up with new concepts. They are the ones who tend to throw many different proposals at a meeting. They analyse problems together and work well with people.
• Comfort zone: They improvise easily and show interest in new experiences.
• Question to answer: What if? why not?
• Professional destinations: Artists, musicians and consultants.
• How do they learn?
• They tend to act first and consider the consequences later.
  When faced with challenges where they have to perform concrete activities and present immediate results.
• Types of practices: Brainstorming, simulations, puzzles or new approaches.

Source: Andujar Guidance

CONVERGENTS

• Strength: Practical application of ideas (to test theories or solve problems).
• Skills: Abstraction, conceptualisation and active experimentation.
• Comfort zone: Situations in which there is only one best solution or answer to a problem (they get lost with many alternatives).
• Question to answer: What for?
• Professional destinations: Planning and research.
• How do they learn?
  They integrate the observations they make into coherent theories, they are methodical, logical, objective and critical.
  When they can ask questions, investigate on their own and take challenging systems or theories as a reference.
• Types of practice: Hands-on learning or practical problem solving.

Source: Andujar Guidance

ACCOMMODATOR

• Strength: Concrete experience and active experimentation. They are ‘doers’.
• Skills: Thinking on their feet and changing their plans according to new information to solve a problem. They rely on trial and error.
• Comfort zone: They enjoy working out experiments and plans in the real world. They are the most willing to take risks, as they know how to adapt to circumstances.
• Question to answer: When?
• Career destinations: Technical, sales, marketing.
• How do they learn?
  Active experimentation, with realistic and direct applications.
  Activities that combine theory and practice.
  Never a manual.
  Surrounded by people.
  They work hard to find resources and achieve results.
• Types of practices: group work, short readings, interviews.

Source: Andujar Guidance

ASSIMILATOR

• Strengths: Expert in abstractions, conceptualisation and reflective observation, understanding and creating theoretical models.
• Abilities: They like abstract ideas more than people. They are not concerned with practical applications of their theories.
• Comfort zone: Creating theoretical models and clearly defining problems.
• Question to answer: Why?
• Career destinations: Research, strategic planning.
• How do they learn?
  Reflectively: Observation, analysis and critical reflection of issues from different perspectives.
  They observe, listen, plan and master the situation before intervening.
• Types of practices: research, note-taking, discussion, reading books.

Source: Andujar Guidance

“Being a teacher requires adapting teaching to the four types of learners in a classroom”.

Bernice McCarthy

THE FOUR STYLES AND THE 4 ELEMENTS

As Kolb acknowledged, he based himself on Carl Jung’s four functions. And therefore, the four learning styles can also be easily equated with the four elements. Here is a summary table:

Source: Andujar Orientation

BLOOM’S TAXONOMY

But, in addition to how we learn, it is interesting to know how much we learn. This brings us to the second model, Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Basically, it is a six-level categorisation to assess the level of knowledge acquired in a subject or area. That is, what new skills a student has learned — how much he or she has learned.

Bloom’s Taxonomy focuses on three domains:

The account is simple. If there are four learning styles, and the taxonomies are only used in three domains, there is one that does not apply.

And that, precisely, is the main objection to Bloom’s Taxonomy, which leaves out one of the elements: fire/intuition.

Therefore, a fourth domain would be needed, which would correspond to the spiritual.

This is where the Canadian teacher Marcella Lafever comes in.

HOLISTIC EDUCATION

If in Europe we speak of the four elements, it is because of the inheritance of the formulation in Aristotelian Physics, which, in turn, took them from Empedocles.

Meanwhile, in Canada, they take the inheritance of the aboriginal tribes, who explain the same, but through what they call The Medicine Wheel, which we can translate as the wheel of medicine.

The problem that Professor Lafever encountered was that she had to teach people belonging to these tribes and applying Bloom’s Taxonomy was simply not possible. She had to move into four domains of learning to match the wheel of medicine that her students understood. And, that is what he did.

“The basic idea of the domains of learning, as promoted by Bloom, is that the learner builds from fundamental knowledge or skills to higher order processes. For example, in the cognitive or knowledge domain, one moves from recall to comprehension, to application of knowledge, to analysis of the outcome, and to the creation of something new based on that analysis (Wilson 2015). In the affective (emotion) domain, the most closely related to the spiritual perhaps, the progression is from receiving stimuli, to responding to stimuli, to valuing the experience, to internalising values and beliefs, and to behaviour that expresses that belief and value system.”

After researching, he fixed the progression of the spiritual domain in :

• Honouring: being aware that learning is not based on material or physical things, and transcends narrow self-interest;
• Value: building relationships that honour the importance, value or usefulness of qualities related to the well-being of the human spirit;
• Connect: build/develop a sense of belonging (group identity/cohesion) in the classroom, community, culture, etc;
• Empowering: providing support and feeling supported by an environment that fosters strength and confidence, especially in controlling one’s own life and claiming one’s own rights;
• Self-realisation: ability as a unique entity in the group to become what one is meant to be.

The challenge of adding a fourth domain is really interesting: How can students measure their spiritual growth?

The end result is a real holistic education. Quite a breakthrough that Marcella Lafever explains in this paper.

Sources:

• Kolb’s Model of the 4 learning styles, by Isabel Rovira. Psicologiaymente.com.
• We explain David Kolb’s learning styles. OrientacionAndujar.es.
• Learning styles. Government of Mexico.
• Los cuatro estilos de aprendizaje o el por qué algunos leen los manuales y otros no, by Pilar Jericó. Elpais.com.
• Kolb’s theory of learning styles, by Carlos Vergara. Actualidad de Psicología.
• Bloom’s Taxonomy. Campuseducacion.com

This is a Deepl-translated version of the original article published in Spanish on 9brains.es.