A Study Of Teacher Learning From The Perspective Of Kolb's Experiential Learning

Teacher learning has drawn wide attention from educational circles because of its emphasis on the endogenous feature of teacher development. However, the current problem is over-emphasis on teacher development as a profession instead of a natural human being, which overlooks teachers' wholesome development as human, cuts off the connection between learning and living, and breaks down the integrity of teacher life. Taking experiential learning theory as the entry point, this thesis tries to explore the value of experience to teachers and change the situation of passive learning in an attempt to lead teacher learning to teacher life itself and combine professional development and individual life growth. This thesis includes the following aspects:First of all, teachers are adult learners, thus experience has special value to teacher learning. After combing knowledge of teacher learning theories at home and abroad, this thesis argues that experience, as a means, a way of thinking, contributes to the combination of original knowledge and specific situations, helping the presentation of teacher learning's internal view. Secondly, this thesis argues that self-growth should be taken as the ultimate value orientation of teacher learning, and moreover as the key element in caring about teachers'mental world and remodeling the presence of teacher life. In experiential learning, learning becomes a manipulative implementation model where teachers are personally on the scene, putting themselves completely in a free and harmonious environment and making learning a process of enriching mental world, experiencing life and enhancing self-growth. Furthermore, this thesis, based on Kolb's experiential learning theory, depicts the basic mode and specific mode of teacher learning and proposes the mode of "experience analysis - experience assimilation - experience generalization - experience application" that teacher learning should follow. But in real specific situations, not all the learning could follow this mode, so specific modes such as "doing while learning", reflective learning, investigative learning and learning from experienced teachers, provide effective methods for teacher learning in real situations. Last, this thesis thinks experiential learning enables a certain features of teacher learning to develop naturally. Teacher learning has achieved a clear operational procedure under the enlightenment of experiential learning theory. This thesis puts forward strategies ofpromoting teacher learning in aspects of creating environment for experiential learning, caring about stylish differences of teacher learning, interacting teachers and environment and encouraging teacher to reflect.