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Critical Response to the Article, Entitled

“Do They Really Get It?”

By K. Hurst-Wagszczuk

By Makpal Akishova

Nazarbayev University

September 11, 2021

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The article by Kristine Hurst-Wagszczuk, “Do They Really Get It?” was released in 2010

in the Journal of Singing, 66(4), pp. 421-427. In this article, Kristine Hurst-Wagszczuk discusses

that the key of learning process lies on how people process experience and effective learning

takes place through perceiving and processing. Gradually, she explains how she uses different

methods of teaching on people with four different styles of learning. It is quite clear, that using

plenty of ways of teaching will help teachers to reach every student. It is considered that the

Kolb method should be interpreted by the instructors themselves in order to achieve greater

efficiency. Since it is the teacher who decides how students will be able to receive and process

information in the most effective way.

In order to find out what the students understood and learned, Kristine Hurst asks them to

write a one-page journal entry, where half is devoted to the material passed, and the other half

should contain reflections on practical classes to know what was effective, and what was

incomprehensible (p.425). Therefore, Kristin Hurst built further teaching methods that will help

eliminate students ' problems for effective work in the classroom. In that similar way, Healey

and Jenkins ask their students to compose dialogues in pairs in order to build effective teaching

methods in the future (p. 192). First, each student should mentally build a picture of what they

have learned during the lesson then in pairs, students tell the studied material to each other in

their own interpretation.

Using secondary sources Hurst-Wagszczuk says that every teacher should try to reach

every student. Moreover, if there is inconsistency between learning styles of instructor and

student there will be some significant misunderstandings (p. 425). “…to reach every student, not

just those who are carbon copies of ourselves…”,-declares Kristine Hurst- Wagszczuk. In

contrast, Healey and Jenkins claims that according to Kolb such mismatches between learning

style of student and teaching methods of teacher can have some long-term advantages (p. 189).

Thus, teachers should not only teach, but also make students independent and self-renewing.
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Employing Kolb’s system in classroom can be used in different ways. Hurst-Wagszczuk

thinks that it is mandatory to reach every student by engaging all four different styles of learning.

She prepares timelines for Equations, tells the story to Hearts, provides several data to

Questioners, and gives final assignment to Products (p. 426). Hayley and Jenkins partially agree

with Hurst-Wagszczuk, they also apply Kolb’s LSI in classroom teaching. In geography class,

“…planning for experience, increasing awareness, reviewing and reflecting on experience…”

help to create effective approaches of teaching by preparing structured discussions and self-

assessment (p. 190).

To conclude, Kolb’s LSI can be used by instructors in different fields of study due to

flexibility and can be highly effective, since the learning system considers all the four learning

styles of students. As it shown higher, this learning system can be interpreted by the teachers in

their own way in order to reach student being interested and active during the lesson. This short

review can help the society to apply the Kolb method during the lesson. Furthermore, it proves

that every teacher can change the Kolb’s system in their own way to help students perceive and

process information in the best possible way. More data analysis can result a detailed review of

the Kolb’s LSI.

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References

Hurst-Wagszczuk, K. (2010). Do they really get it? Journal of Singing (66)4, 421-427.

Healey & Jenkins. (2000). Kolb’s experiential learning theory and its application in geography in

higher education. Journal of Geography (99) 5, 185-195.