What I Learned About Myself (and Others) by Giving Back: A Personal Reflection Odyssey

#What can we learn about ourselves? " and "What are you doing for others?" are the two key questions that I am aiming to answer with the Kolb principle.

In the life context, I had the recent opportunity of mentoring a group of professionals embarking on their journey to YSEALIProfessional Fellowship ( a US Department of State Program) and mirroring these key learnings some parts of my trip to mainland China and relationship to #Kolb's Learning cycle.

For the newbies, Kolb's Learning Cycle is a framework that emphasizes experiential learning, and how I am learning how learning of abstract concepts (in these cases, US cultural work learning) can be applied flexibly in a range of situations (to ensure adaptability, and how it helped me to mentor people to above and beyond typical mentorship capability.

-Concrete Experience: Provide opportunities to gain visual or hands-on experience through real-world projects or simulations (whenever possible).

-Reflective Observation: Guide mentees in reflecting on their experiences and identifying successes and challenges, thus leading to areas of application.

-Abstract Conceptualization: Help mentees develop general principles and theories based on their observations.

-Active Experimentation: Encourage mentees to apply their newfound knowledge and skills in new situations.

Here are some key learning in line with Kolb's Learning Cycle.

1. Active Experimentation: Building a "Growth Mindset" and survival journey (similar to my younger days when I first arrived in the US in June 2024). It was my first trip, really, working as a camp counselor to young American kids for summer camp. The important thing to unlearn and relearn is my ability to communicate eloquently and indirectly to the kids.

Subsequently, the same communication training from that day would be done today with simulations of AI chat scripts and a case scenario of how communication from the US Superior can be best perceived by the mentee.

2. Knowledge Sharing is easier via visual tool aid and life scenario flow: Explaining simplified visual flow and using assisted AI AI-assisted prompts, plus the domain knowledge I included in the Paddle form tool.

(As demonstrated by my visit to #Pingan not too far from #Alicenter, one of the well-known insurance banks in China, the companies used various methods to engage potential customers or learners of the product, like an AI knowledge-sharing chatbot that can record peer-sharing stories to help people get the best possible insurance policy insight or advice. This is akin to the machine helps to facilitate the 互助学习 (hùzhù xuéxí, i.e. "mutual learning" or "learning from each other."

3. The Power of Diverse Perspectives: How some things in life brought a unique perspective to the table.

In this collaborative learning, I was asking a fellow, "How do you apply similar learning in the USA to your home country setting (maybe in communication aspect, work career planning, and collaboration potential thought process. This perspective would be helpful to bridge any difference gap.

4. The Cascading Effect of Giving Back: Witnessing the "aha moments" and the newfound ability of the mentee or learner to apply key learning, as well as the gratitude and testimonial of my work done.

#ExperientialLearning #YSEALIProfessionalFellowship #KolbsLearningCycle #GrowthMindset #AIAssistedLearning #DiversePerspectives #GivingBack