A Comparison between various Constructivist Instructional Cycles

4mat cycle
connect

1b

attend

2a

image

2b

inform

3a

practice

3b

extend

4a

refine

4b

perform

Phase
1a

4mat cycle
connect

1b

Attend

2a
2b
3a
3b

Image
inform
practice
extend

Reflective
observation
Abstract
conceptualization

Explanation

4a
4b

refine
perform

Active
experimentation

Evaluation

What if

How

What

Why

Phase
1a

Description
Experience, engage, connects to the learners own lives and answers why they need to
learn the concept.
Reflecting on experience (1a), examine/analyze the experience, no new/technical details.
Goals: sharing personal reflections and autobiographic episodes, relational thinking, journal
entries, brainstorming, mid-mapping, drawings, group discussions, simulations, study teams,
and self-assessment.
Deepen the reflection (1b), internalization of their need for further understanding of the concept
at hand. It is the place where they link their personal, subjective experience with the
objective, analytic world of the content at hand.
Conceptual information to assist in learner inquiry, teach it to them to engender further
learner inquiry
Goals: reflecting, seeing relationships, developing idea coherence, conceptualising, defining,
patterning, classifying, comparing, contrasting, being objective, discriminating, planning,
constructing theoretical models, and acquiring knowledge.
Worksheets, use workbooks, try fixed lab experiments, employ manipulative that provide handson guided practice, use computer-assisted technology, etc.
Note: exclusive teaching in this way handicaps all learners. We must teach the whole cycle if
we are to individualise student productivity and performance in meaningful ways.
Learners are adding something of themselves, messing around, and making the material
theirs- make agreed upon rubrics for their proof of learning
Goals: resolving contradictions, managing ambiguity, computing, collecting data, inquiring,
predicting, recording, hypothesizing, tinkering, measuring, experimenting, problem-solving, and
making decisions
Students decide and analyze what they have planned as their proof of learning-multi-model
projects
Goals: editing and refining the work that has been done so far, analysing for strengths and
weaknesses, taking a position, and engaging in productive self-assessment.
Share the learning process via their artefacts.
Goals: creating, identifying constraints, revising, creating modes, coming to closure, editing,
summarising, verifying, synthesising, re-presenting, reflecting anew, re-focusing, and evaluating

Kolb cycle
Concrete
experience

5E cycle
Engagement

Belhot's cycle
Why

Hentons cycle
Life experience
Reflection

Exploration
What
How
Elaboration
If

Generalizing and
abstracting
Transfer

Phase

4mat cycle

Erickson

Barnes

1a
1b

connect
attend

Experiential
maneuvers

Focusing
Exploration

2a
2b

image
inform

3a
3b

practice
extend

4a

refine

4b

perform

Phase
1a
1b

4mat cycle
connect
attend

2a
2b

image
inform

3a

practice

3b

extend

4a
4b

refine
perform

Phase

4mat cycle

1a

connect

1b
2a
2b
3a
3b
4a
4b

Anomaly
maneuvers
Restructuring
maneuvers

Reorganizing

Rowell &
Dawson
Establish initial
ideas

Osbourne &
Whittroch

Introduce new ideas

Exchange points of
view

Comparison of ideas

Use ideas

Driver
Discovery

Nussbaum & Novak

Exposing alternative
frameworks

Assess student
ideas

public
Renner
Experiences
Means telling,

Karplus
Exploration

Interpretation
Means confirming
Exploration
Means practicing

Explanation

Presentation
Application

Application
Creating conceptual
conflict
Encouraging cognitive
accommodation

Riverina and
Murray
Identify nave ideas.
Select events.

Hewson and Hewson

Lawson and
Abraham

attend

Exploratory activities

Diagnose

Exploration

image
inform
practice
extend
refine
perform

Organize ideas and

establish links
Practice and apply
new idea

Opportunity to clarify
and contrast
Practice new idea
Apply new idea

Conceptual invention

Driver and Oldham

Orientation and
motivation

Expansion

Elicitation of ideas
Restructuring ideas
through exchange
Application and review

References
Bybee, R. W. (2009). The BSCS 5E instructional model and 21st century skills. National Academies Board on Science Education.
Bybee, R. (2014). The BSCS 5E instructional model: Personal reflections and contemporary implications. Science and Children, 51(8), 10-13.
Creghan, K. A., & Creghan, C. (2013). Assessing for achievement: Formative assessments are woven throughout a series of lessons structured
upon the 5E instructional model. Science and Children, 51(3), 29. Source : Science and Children, 51(3), 29.
Experiential learning cycle. (n.d.). Retrieved August 05, 2016, from http://health.tki.org.nz/Key-collections/Curriculum-in-action/MakingMeaning/Teaching-and-learning-approaches/Experiential-learning-cycle
Kolb's experiential learning theory and belhot's learning cycle guiding the use of computer simulation in engineering education: A pedagogical
proposal to shift toward an experiential pedagogy. Computer Applications in Engineering Education, 24(1), 79-88. doi:10.1002/cae.21674
Martin, M. A. (1978). The application of spiraling to the teaching of grammar. TESOL Quarterly, 12(2), 151-161. doi:10.2307/3585606
Sunal, D. W (n.d.) The Learning Cycle: A Comparison of Models of Strategies for Conceptual Reconstruction: A Review of the Literature.
Retrieved October 9, 2010, from http://astlc.ua.edu/ScienceInElem&MiddleSchool/565LearningCycle-ComparingModels.htm