New Beginnings and a Fresh Start

September, with its crisp change of seasons, the excitement of the first day of a new school year, and even new notebooks and pencils, is all about new beginnings. For me, the month conjures up the idea of a fresh start.

Here at the Institute for Experiential Learning, we are celebrating new beginnings for dozens of people new to experiential learning. In recent weeks, we have introduced the Kolb Experiential Learning Profile to people from across the globe in our Meet the KELP webinars.

And we helped to guide others to the uses and benefits of the KELP in our KELP Debrief and Guide sessions.

Helping people access and explore the Kolb Experiential Learning Profile, and get the most out of it, has been a continuing mission of ours in the past year. And we continue to hear back from those who are taking the KELP about how they’re using it and how it is helping them in their work, relationships with others, and throughout all aspects of their lives.

Here are some ways others are using the Kolb Experiential Learning Profile:

• Entering college students take the KELP during orientation to learn how to learn and take control of their own learning process.  This helps them to manage coursework and make the most of experiential learning opportunities such as internships, community service, and study abroad. One university started a campaign, “Ask me how I learn?” with entering freshman.

• Entering MBAs take the KELP to build self-awareness about strengths and challenges, and to build awareness of others who may be different.  The MBAs share a language of learning and ways to apply it to decision-making, innovation, and teamwork.  By applying their knowledge at the team level, they improve collaboration and teamwork while managing complex decision-making and minimizing interpersonal conflict.

• Educators in professional development programs take the KELP to remind them to connect with their own learning process, to build awareness of individual learning differences, and to practice educating around the entire cycle.

• Coaches use the KELP to introduce their clients to a model of learning, development, and change.  They also use the KELP to build awareness about their own preferences to promote full cycle learning.

• Mentors use the KELP to understand their own approach to mentoring and recognize individual differences in their mentees. Mentees can share the KELP with mentees to empower them to take charge of their own on-the-job learning and to improve retention.

• Team leaders use the KELP to create high performance teams. Teams that use the Experiential Learning process are more effective, more engaged, more profitable, and experience less conflict.  Team members learn about their own strengths and appreciate others who are different, introducing a new perspective on diversity, equity, and inclusion.  Team learning promotes member development as teams manage their work and pay attention to how they accomplish it.

• Organizations use the KELP to promote leadership, professional development, high performance teams, and to create learning organizations.  When introduced at the individual and team level, individuals share a common language and process that allows them to collaborate with learning and development in mind.

To explore the Kolb Experiential Learning Profile and get started on a transformational journey of experiential living, learn more at the Institute for Experiential Learning’s website.