Science and The Learning Cycle

Tonight was our first meeting of the 2011-2012 Graduate Teaching Academy!  This is year two of the program, and likely one of the reasons I get fifty emails a day.

However, I did not pop on here to whine, but to share with you an insight about science and the learning cycle.  I believe the Learning Cycle comes from an educational theorist named Kolb.  This theory posits the following relationship: the learner has a concrete experience on which they reflect and form a working hypothesis.  This hypothesis is tested through application to new situations which lead to new concrete experiences.

This led me to thinking about the scientific process (scientific method for you old-school rule followers) wherein we as scientists observe a phenomenon, on which we reflect by asking questions.  We develop hypotheses, which we test, leading to further observation and data collection.  We continue to reflect and explain and "test" our new findings by comparing them to other experiences in the literature.

In other words, science is all about the learning cycle.  This brings me to two points: 1) everyone can do science and 2) science itself is a collective learning cycle.

First, everyone can do science.  The learning cycle was not developed to explain how a specific population learns, but to explain the learning process for all ages in all places.  This meshes with constructivism, something I am learning more about now.  Very simply, constructivism explains how we build knowledge as individuals.My overarching point is this: scientists are regular people too.  There really is nothing superhuman or extraordinary about them compared to artists or economists or authors.  We all operate using the learning cycle in our own special way.

Second is this idea of science as a collective learning cycle (I know, it sounds like the Borg).  In my mind, this collective learning cycle looks like a learning spiral, much like nutrient cycles in a stream.  One scientist picks up an idea and takes it through the learning cycle, publishing her work.  The next scientist then reads her work and builds on her theories, taking the information/phenomenon in a slightly different direction through another learning cycle.  Thus, science builds on itself through the learning of individual researchers!