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Learning Theory and Concepts

Learning Cycle

Instructional Design and Curriculum Frameworks

A learning cycle is a concept describing how people learn from experience, structured as a number of stages or phases in which the last phase can be followed again by the first, forming a repeating sequence. Learning cycles are used to structure instruction so that learners move through the same sequence of stages repeatedly as they gain knowledge and skills through experience.

Facts
Core Claim
A learning cycle models learning from experience as a repeating sequence of stages; in the widely used version by David Kolb and Ronald Fry these are concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization and active experimentation, with the last stage feeding back into the first. 1
Connections

Associated With

John Dewey, Thinkers
Source Learning cycle (Wikipedia)
Source Learning cycle (Wikipedia)

In Approach

Source Learning cycle (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Learning cycle (Wikipedia)
  • Lead section
    A learning cycle is a concept of how people learn from experience.
  • Kolb and Fry section
    Testing the new concepts gives concrete experience which can be observed and reflected upon, allowing the cycle to continue.
  • Associated With: Kolb's Experiential Learning, Kolb and Fry section, ELM definition
    In the early 1970s, David A. Kolb and Ronald E. Fry developed the experiential learning model (ELM), composed of four elements
  • In Approach: Experiential Learning, Kolb and Fry section, learning styles
    Kolb integrated this learning cycle with a theory of learning styles, wherein each style prefers two of the four parts of the cycle.
  • Associated With: John Dewey, John Dewey section
    In 1933 (based on work first published in 1910), John Dewey described five phases or aspects of reflective thought
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