Alice Y. Kolb

Learning Partner

Alice Y. Kolb is the Pres­i­dent of Expe­ri­ence Based Learn­ing Sys­tems (EBLS), a research and devel­op­ment orga­ni­za­tion devot­ed to research and appli­ca­tion of expe­ri­en­tial learn­ing in orga­ni­za­tions world­wide. EBLS has devel­oped many expe­ri­en­tial exer­cis­es and self-assess­ment instru­ments, includ­ing the lat­est Kolb Learn­ing Style Inven­to­ry 4.0. The EBLS pro­gram of research on Expe­ri­en­tial Learn­ing The­o­ry con­tin­ues in col­lab­o­ra­tion with an inter­na­tion­al net­work of researchers, prac­ti­tion­ers and learn­ing partners.

As pres­i­dent of EBLS, Alice facil­i­tates research and prac­tice ini­tia­tives of the inter­na­tion­al net­work. She was a co-devel­op­er of the Kolb Learn­ing Style Inven­to­ry 4.0 and was the leader of the team that devel­oped the Kolb Edu­ca­tor Role Pro­file, an inven­to­ry designed to help edu­ca­tors apply expe­ri­en­tial learn­ing prin­ci­ples in their work.

She was born and raised in Brazil and went to Japan, where she received her Bach­e­lor of Arts degree in Japan­ese Stud­ies from Tokyo Uni­ver­si­ty of For­eign Stud­ies, and Mas­ter of Arts and Doc­tor­ate degrees in Human Resources Man­age­ment from Hitot­sub­ashi Uni­ver­si­ty. She received a Mas­ter of Sci­ence degree in Human Resource Man­age­ment from Cleve­land State Uni­ver­si­ty and her Ph.D. in Orga­ni­za­tion­al Behav­ior from Case West­ern Reserve Uni­ver­si­ty, where she was an Adjunct Pro­fes­sor in the Weath­er­head School of Man­age­ment. She is flu­ent in Por­tuguese, Span­ish, Japan­ese and English.

Her research focus on cre­at­ing learn­ing spaces con­ducive to deep learn­ing led to her paper “Learn­ing styles and learn­ing spaces: Enhanc­ing expe­ri­en­tial learn­ing in high­er edu­ca­tion” pub­lished in Acad­e­my of Man­age­ment Learn­ing and Edu­ca­tion. Her paper “Learn­ing to play, play­ing to learn: A case study of a ludic learn­ing space” was pub­lished in the Jour­nal of Orga­ni­za­tion­al Change Man­age­ment. She has recent­ly pub­lished a book with David Kolb titled The Expe­ri­en­tial Edu­ca­tor: Prin­ci­ples and Prac­tices of Expe­ri­en­tial Learn­ing with David Kolb. She and David received the 2008 “Edu­ca­tion­al Pio­neers of the Year Award” from the Nation­al Soci­ety for Expe­ri­en­tial Education.